Washington Report on Middle East Affairs | Vol. XXXI No. 7 | October 2012

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WOUNDS BETWEEN TURKEY AND ISRAEL RUN DEEP

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On Middle East Affairs Volume XXXI, No. 7

October 2012

Telling the Truth for 30 Years… Interpreting the Middle East for North Americans

■

Interpreting North America for the Middle East

THE U.S. ROLE IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND THE ISRAELI OCCUPATION OF PALESTINE 8 Romney Goes All Out for the Israel Lobby —Rachelle Marshall 11 The Rachel Corrie Verdict: A Black Day for Human Rights, Israeli “Justice” System—Delinda C. Hanley 12 Attack on Egypt’s Border: Morsi’s Test, Gaza’s Challenge—Mohammed Omer

18 Jerusalem’s Housing Crisis—Saliba Sarsar, Ph.D. 20 No Water in the United States—Jacoub Sleibi CONGRESS AND THE 2012 ELECTIONS 22 More Secretive Than Stealth PACs: Super PACs and 501(c)(4)s Financing 2012 Presidential Race

—Janet McMahon

13 The Human Cost of War on Iran—Elizabeth Murray 14 Mitt Romney—Election Year in Jerusalem Two Views—Patrick J. Buchanan, Ben Adler

23 Pro-Israel PAC Contributions to 2012 Congressional Candidates—Compiled by Hugh Galford

16 Romney on the Palestinians: It’s Not the “Culture,” It’s the Occupation—John Gee

28 Congress Passes Iran Sanctions Bill—Harsh, but It Could Have Been Worse—Shirl McArthur

SPECIAL REPORTS 31 Egypt: A Step in the Right Direction —George S. Hishmeh 32 The Kurds Stir the Regional Pot—Patrick Seale 34 Between Turkey and Israel, the Wounds Run Deep —Marvine Howe

38 ”Worlds Within Worlds: Imperial Paintings From India and Iran”—Barbara G.B. Ferguson 40 Will Lakhdar Brahimi’s Credentials and Credibility Help Him With Syria Assignment?—Ian Williams 42 Gore Vidal (1925-2012)—James G. Abourezk

COURTESY FREER GALLERY OF ART

36 The Syrian Debacle: Search for an Exit —Fehmy Saddy, Ph.D.

Detail of “Humayun, Seated in a Landscape.” This posthumous portrait of the second Mughal emperor, who lived from 1508 to 1556, was commissioned nearly a century later by his greatgrandson, the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan, to legitimize his own reign. See story p. 38.

ON THE COVER: Children of the Kiswani family inspect the sisters’ bedroom after Israeli forces raided their home in Arab East Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood on Aug. 26, 2012. Israeli troops, who said they were looking for weapons, arrested one family member. AHMAD GHARABLI/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

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(A Supplement to the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs available by subscription at $15 per year. To subscribe, call toll-free 1-800-368-5788, and press 1.)

Other Voices

Compiled by Janet McMahon

The Urgent Need to Prevent a Middle East War, OV-1 Patrick Seale, Agence Global

Was NYPD Spying on Muslims All for Naught?, OV-10 Adam Klasfeld, courthousenews.com

Mossad Tries to Avoid Entangling Iran Jews, Yossi Melman and Dan Raviv, The Forward

OV-2

Mossad Pulp Fiction, Philip Giraldi, councilforthenationalinterest.org

Grace Halsell: Courageous Truth-seeker and Debunker of Christian Zionist Doctrine, Stuart Littlewood, www.redress.cc

OV-11

OV-4

Laughs Aside, Junkets Raise Serious Issues, Nathan Guttman, The Forward

OV-11

Reporter Met With Hostility in Ann Arbor Neighborhood, Samer Hijazi, arabamericannews.com

OV-13

Muslim Case and the Fruit of Caring, Carl Strock, Daily Gazette

OV-14

Pakistan Says Goodbye to Refugees Not Leaving, Zofeen Ebrahim, The Forward

OV-14

Gorgan Three Decades Later, Shervin Ahmadi, Le Monde diplomatique

OV-15

Iran’s National Security and Nuclear Diplomacy: An Insider’s Take, Farideh Farhi, lobelog.com

OV-5

The Palestine Romney Doesn’t Know, Zahi Khouri, The Washington Post

OV-6

How Many Is Too Many?, Yousef Munayyer, The Jerusalem Fund

OV-7

The End of the Bedouin, Jillian Kestler D’Amours, Le Monde diplomatique

OV-7

Boston Airport Security Program Rife With Racial Profiling Has Israeli Links, Alex Kane, mondoweiss.net

OV-9

DEPARTMENTS 5 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

50 ISRAEL AND JUDAISM: The Ongoing Campaign to Secure

7 PUBLISHERS’ PAGE

the Release of Convicted Spy for

58 WAGING PEACE: New DC Boycott Campaign Aims to Burst the SodaStream Bubble

Israel Jonathan Pollard 45 NEW YORK CITY AND TRI-

—Allan C. Brownfeld

STATE NEWS: New Israel Fund Hosts Panel on Israel’s Response

52 ARAB-AMERICAN ACTIVISM:

To African Asylum Seekers

1940s Census Project Made

—Jane Adas

Available Online for the First Time

46 NORTHERN CALIFORNIA

52 MUSLIM-AMERICAN

CHRONICLE: Madaa Creative

ACTIVISM: Muslims in America

Center Provides Children of

Working to Help Their Neighbors

Silwan With Comfort, Care and Protection—Elaine Pasquini

70 BOOK REVIEWS: Traditional Palestinian Costume: Origins and Evolution

—Reviewed by Clovis Maksoud We Are All Moors: Ending Centuries of Crusades Against Muslims and Other Minorities

—Reviewed by Andrew Stimson 71 NEW ARRIVALS FROM THE AET BOOK CLUB

Shooting Discussed

CHRONICLE: Expert William Picard Discusses Yemen’s

69 THE WORLD LOOKS AT THE MIDDLE EAST — CARTOONS

54 HUMAN RIGHTS: Extremism After Wisconsin Sikh

48 SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

67 OTHER PEOPLE’S MAIL

72 BULLETIN BOARD 56 MUSIC AND ARTS:

Political, Economic Plight

Night of Comedy Benefits

—Pat and Samir Twair

Palestinian Children

73 2012 AET CHOIR OF ANGELS 43 INDEX TO ADVERTISERS

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ANDREW I. KILLGORE RICHARD H. CURTISS Managing Editor: JANET McMAHON News Editor: DELINDA C. HANLEY Book Club Director: ANDREW STIMSON Administrative Director: ALEX BEGLEY Art Director: RALPH U. SCHERER Editorial Assistant: DALE SPRUSANSKY

LetterstotheEditor

Publisher:

Executive Editor:

Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (ISSN 8755-4917) is published 8 times a year, monthly except Jan./Feb., March/April, June/July and Nov./Dec. combined, at 1902 18th St., NW, Washington, DC 20009-1707. Tel. (202) 9396050. Subscription prices (United States and possessions): one year, $29; two years, $55; three years, $75. For Canadian and Mexican subscriptions, $35 per year; for other foreign subscriptions, $70 per year. Periodicals, postage paid at Washington, DC and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, P.O. Box 91056, Long Beach, CA 90809-1056. Published by the American Educational Trust (AET), a non-profit foundation incorporated in Washington, DC by retired U.S. foreign service officers to provide the American public with balanced and accurate information concerning U.S. relations with Middle Eastern states. AET’s Foreign Policy Committee has included former U.S. ambassadors, government officials, and members of Congress, including the late Democratic Sen. J. William Fulbright and Republican Sen. Charles Percy, both former chairmen of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Members of AET’s Board of Directors and advisory committees receive no fees for their services. The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs does not take partisan domestic political positions. As a solution to the Palestinian-Israeli dispute, it endorses U.N. Security Council Resolution 242’s land-for-peace formula, supported by nine successive U.S. presidents. In general, it supports Middle East solutions which it judges to be consistent with the charter of the United Nations and traditional American support for human rights, selfdetermination, and fair play. Material from the Washington Report may be reprinted without charge with attribution to Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. Bylined material must also be attributed to the author. This release does not apply to photographs, cartoons or reprints from other publications. Indexed by Ebsco Information Services, InfoTrac, LexisNexis, Public Affairs Information Service, Index to Jewish Periodicals, Ethnic News Watch, Periodica Islamica. CONTACT INFORMATION: Washington Report on Middle East Affairs Editorial Office and Bookstore: P.O. Box 53062, Washington, DC 20009-9062 Phone: (202) 939-6050 • (800) 368-5788 Fax: (202) 265-4574 E-mail: wrmea@wrmea.com bookclub@wrmea.com circulation@wrmea.com advertising@wrmea.com Web sites: http://www.wrmea.org http://www.middleeastbooks.com Subscriptions, sample copies and donations: P.O. Box 91056, Long Beach, CA 90809-1056. Phone: (888) 881-5861 • Fax: (714) 226-9733 Printed in the USA

OCTOBER 2012

30 Years of Making a Difference Every once in a while something so powerful happens that greatly influences one’s life. Such is the case with the publication of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs on mine. In the summer of 1982 Israel invaded Lebanon. Demonstrations quickly ensued all across America. At that time, I had the privilege and honor to meet publisher Andrew Killgore, executive editor Richard Curtiss, and the late British Ambassador to Qatar Sir Edward Henderson, the founders of the Washington Report. We all were demonstrating in Washington in front of the State Department against the invasion, and I instantly became a subscriber. Their vision, will and capacity to create this wonderful publication came at a time when people needed to know the truth about the Middle East and American foreign policy. What began as an eight-page newsletter has evolved into a great international magazine. It is now 30 years later and the Washington Report continues to report the truth. To those of us who believe in “traditional American support for human rights, self determination, and fair play,” as you write in your masthead, I say a great big thank you. Your authors and journalists consistently enlighten us on events taking place in the Middle East and here at home. You have prompted us to speak out for peace and justice in the region and to “Make a Difference Today.” For that, I am truly grateful. Judith Howard, Norwood, MA As we are grateful for your continued support over these past three decades. Over that period of time more and more Americans have come to realize that this country’s foreign—and, increasingly, domestic—policies are based on the interests of a foreign country rather than on those of the United States. Our angels—from early members such as yourself to those who have joined over the intervening years—as well as our subscribers and readers all share your commitment to “Make a Difference Today!” As we like to say—and strongly believe—we’re all in this together! Another Angel Heard From Keep up the good work, and keep the “lobby” in check. Mark R. Sheridan, Alexandria, VA We thank you for your longtime support. It has helped us to keep shining the light on the Israel lobby—and if there’s one thing the lobby doesn’t like, it’s the light of day! THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

A Tale of Two Lobbies… Regarding Delinda C. Hanley’s article “A Tale of Two Lobbies—NRA & AIPAC” in your September 2012 issue. I am utterly amazed and appalled that your magazine would stray so far from your cause of obtaining justice for the poor Palestinians— into a subject for which you are so obviously unqualified. I write this as a longtime supporter of your main cause and as an anti-Zionist. Your equating the NRA & Gun Owners of America (both of which I also support) with AIPAC is incredulous. You are correct in saying that both the NRA and AIPAC are very effective lobbies; I believe that there any similarity ends.

The NRA represents members like me who hope to influence our legislators to preserve our Second Amendment rights. AIPAC, on the other hand, lobbies on behalf of Israel for money and favors which are nearly always inimical to your interests, as well as mine. I will not go into details about several errors in Hanley’s article, except to address the one which seems to be her main concern: “assault weapons.” True assault weapons are fully automatic, such as those submachine guns one so frequently sees on TV, where the assailant merely holds down the trigger and sprays bullets all over the place. Such weapons have been restricted to the public since the 1930s and can only be obtained by strenuous licensing measures by federally licensed dealers. Among the most prominent anti-Second Amendment zealots you will find Sens. Frank Lautenberg, Charles Schumer and Dianne Feinstein. Strangely enough, however, these U.S. legislators always find it in their hearts to lobby for additional armaments for Israel. So it appears that the Washington Report is in very poor company.We all pray for peace, but not at any price. Armed people are citizens; disarmed people are subjects, or prisoners. I respect Hanley’s right as a journalist to express her 5

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opinions, but at the same time, you must respect my right to support only those whom I feel are effectively representing my beliefs. I write as a friend. Glen Cockrell, Tulsa, OK We thank you very much for taking the time to first call, and then write, to express your opinion—one which many of our readers may well share. The very fact that the topic of gun control can be openly debated in this country may be the most glaring difference between the domestic gun lobby and the Israel lobby, which works to advance the interests of a foreign country but doesn’t want Americans to become aware of the scope of its influence and narrowness of its agenda.

Who You Calling a Senator? In the “Other People’s Mail” section of the September 2012 Washington Report appears a letter to the Dallas Morning News dated July 21, 2012. “McCarthy-esque Accusations,” The writer, from Plano, Texas, incorrectly describes Michele Bachmann— twice—as a “Senator.” Michele Bachmann is not a U.S. senator but a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Minnesota. And Bachmann’s political ambition was to become, not a senator, but president of the United States. She of course withdrew after conducting a virulent anti-Obama campaign and taking an extremist anti-Mus-

lim, pro-Israel stance in the primaries. Nevertheless, she was not able to out-distance the other candidates for the Republican presidential nomination. However, if Romney should win the U.S. presidency, he may ask her to fill some federal position in a Romney administration—it’s a possibility. Garry Sylvan, via e-mail The temptation to tell our readers that every issue contains a random error or two as a way of testing how closely they are reading it is almost irresistible! But then we would feel the need to award prizes to the first spotters, and we’re afraid that is beyond our meager budget. In the case of the letter you cite, however, we were so taken by the sincerity of the writer’s words that we clearly neglected to pay attention to the details (as, we might point out, did the Dallas Morning News).

Jihadis for Israel? I wonder why no one to my knowledge has raised the question to people like Rep. Michele Bachmann and many others who accuse the administration of harboring Islamic jihadis who plan to introduce shariah law and plan to kill Americans right here at home. If President Obama and many of his staff are Muslims, why hasn’t he sided with the Palestinians, who are mostly Muslims, and especially with Hamas, an off-

Other Voices is an optional 16-page supplement available only to subscribers of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. For an additional $15 per year (see postcard insert for Washington Re port subscription rates), subscribers will receive Other Voices bound into each issue of their Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. Back issues of both publications are avail able. To subscribe telephone 1 (888) 881-5861, fax (714) 226-9733, e-mail <circulation@wrmea.org>, or write to P.O. Box 91056, Long Beach, CA 90809-1056. 6

THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

shoot of the Muslim Brotherhood? To combat these wingnuts, I am sending you a donation as I have done in the past. Ned Toomey, via e-mail Thank you very much for your support over the years—and for your letter, which perfectly illustrates the absurdity and illogic of the current campaign to demonize Muslims and Arabs here in the United States and around the world. This campaign is definitely not in America’s interest, but instead is being waged on behalf of a foreign country which demands fealty from its benefactor.

Campaign Dangers Israel may feel that the best time to strike Iran is during a political campaign.…Can you imagine the politicians outdoing themselves to line up behind the move? Richard H. Curtiss, Boynton Beach, FL If only it were just our imagination! Instead we see Republican candidate Mitt Romney traveling to Jerusalem to pay obeisance (see p. 14 of this issue) and President Barack Obama trying to outfawn him by signing the U.S.-Israel Enhanced Security Cooperation (see pp. 28 and 29). As Elizabeth Murray points out on p. 13, however, this is not a chess game—it’s about people’s lives. Paying Tribute to Askia Muhammad I was among those present for the tribute in Washington, DC to an outstanding journalist and a mentor of mine, Askia Muhammad. Delinda Hanley’s article [see May 2012 Washington Report, p. 64] was excellent. However, at the end, she talked about Akbar Muhammad praising Askia, which was true but...while the background data regarding Akbar Muhammad was correct, it referred to the wrong Akbar Muhammad. The Akbar Muhammad who spoke at the tribute was the international representative for the Nation of Islam, world traveler and historian Akbar Muhammad, not the son of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. The Akbar Muhammad who spoke at the tribute dinner is a long time friend and companion of Askia’s, as well as of Minister Louis Farrakhan, and not the Akbar Muhammad who is the youngest son of Nation of Islam patriarch Elijah Muhammad. As you know, I am an avid reader of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, but I must confess, I fell behind a couple of months due to travel, and I’m sorry I was not able to bring this to your attention earlier. Ashahed M. Muhammad, via e-mail We are always happy to correct the record— that, after all, is our mission in life!—and thank you for helping us do just that. ❑ OCTOBER 2012

publishers_7_October 2012 Publishers page 8/30/12 4:06 PM Page 7

American Educational Trust Not a Drop to Drink. Former Washington Report intern Jacoub Sleibi writes from his home town of Bethlehem about the lack of water for its Christian and Muslim residents (see p. 20). Hours before we went to press, our Gaza correspondent, Mohammed Omer, checked in to discuss a possible article for the next issue. “I’m thinking of Gaza water, which is undrinkable,” he wrote.

“My Stomach Is Certainly Sick of It.”

“Fundamentally Unviable.”

soldiers and police arrived. Mu’min and Nour were taken by ambulance to the hospital. The father of the family, Khalid, 45, and his second eldest son, Jalaal, 16, were arrested and are still being held in police custody.” Surely these are…

Not Values Americans Share. Nor, apparently, do South Africans— whose country under apartheid was a close ally of Israel. Against all predictions, however, South Africa made a peaceful transition to a one-person, one-vote democracy for all its citizens, leaving Israel—born, like South Africa’s apartheid system, in 1948— alone in practicing an official policy of racial supremacy. Local businessman Kabir Mohamed tells us that, inspired by 83-year-old Henry Clifford’s efforts in Westchester County, NY (see last issue’s table of contents and “Publishers’ Page”), BDS South Africa

“Made in Palestinian Territories.” Explained Deputy Foreign Minister Ebrahim Ebrahim:

“Israel Is an Occupier Country… So it’s not proper for South Africans to associate with Israel. We discourage people from going there except if it has to do with the peace process.” That’s what we call setting…

A Good Example for Washington. And it’s one Washington sorely needs. A congressional junket to Israel last year paid for and sponsored by AIPAC’s own “educational” affiliate, the American Israel Educational Foundation—which thoughtfully doesn’t offer the opportunity during election years—made front-page news recently not because of its destination or sponsorship by an organization advocating the interests of a foreign country. No, the “scandal” involved congressional skinny dipping in the Sea of Galilee, the Christian holy site where Jesus is said to have walked on water. We’re convinced, however, that Americans are…

Way Ahead of Their Government.

HAZEM BADER/AFP/GETTYIMAGES

Mohammed also wanted to alert us to the newly released report “Gaza in 2020: A Liveable Place?” prepared by the United Nations Country Team in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Among the report’s findings: an estimated population increase of 500,000 people, necessitating a doubling of electrical capacity, hundreds of new schools, expanded health services, and tens of thousands of housing units. Under present circumstances, the report warns, Gaza’s long-term economy is…

Publishers’ Page

That, of course, is no accident, either As voters learn how much money in Gaza or the West Bank. In fact, certain candidates receive from prothe phrase “fundamentally unviIsrael political action committees (see able” might describe in a nutshell Ispp. 22-27), what kind of votes those raeli policy toward the Palestinians contributions buy (see pp. 24-37 of and toward its own non-Jewish citithe September issue), how members zens—not to mention its Arab and of Congress and candidates for presPersian neighbors. With every pass- Ismael al-Adrah was attacked by Israeli settlers while he was ident are willing to sacrifice the lives ing day Israel’s inherent racism be- caring for his sheep south of Hebron, Aug. 27, 2012. and well-being of even more Americomes more evident and more virucan troops in yet another war waged lent, from vicious street attacks on and the Palestine Solidarity Alliance (PSA) for Israel (read the daily paper or watch the Palestinians and Africans, to soldiers ar- placed 12 similar billboards throughout Gau- evening news), more and more of them are resting mothers (p. 9) and bulldozing tung province. Others subsequently followed saying, daughters to death (p. 11) with impunity. suit, sponsoring billboards in KwaZulu-Natal and Limpopo provinces. In South Africa, Enough Is Enough! And talk about… which knows whereof it speaks, support for We Need Your Help! Blaming the Victims. Palestinian rights is not… An International Solidarity Movement volAfter an excruciating delay in the mailing unteer, writing pseudonymously as Mar- A Minority Position. of our biannual donation appeal, our readshall Pinkerton, provided the following ac- Last year the South African government ers’ response has begun to save the day. count of settler violence and police response: backed Palestine’s bid for admission to the While it may seem impossible for truth and “The morning of Aug. 28 [the same day the U.N. as a full member state. At its recent justice to prevail when the likes of millionRachel Corrie verdict was announced], policy conference, the ruling African Na- aire casino magnate Sheldon Adelson and around 30 settlers armed with guns and tional Congress resolved to “continue to billionaire Tea Party donor David Koch are sticks descended upon a Palestinian home support Palestine and called for an increased throwing around unimaginable (to us!) sums located in Khan al-Liban, and attacked the boycott on Israeli products.” And the coun- of money, every single hour of effort and Daraghmah family. The mother, Taghrid, try’s Department of Trade and Industry dime spent does make a difference—when and the two youngest sons, Mu’min, 13, and issued a directive preventing the false-label- we all join together and... Nour al-Deen, 9, were injured during the at- ing of products made in Israel’s illegal West tacks which lasted at least one hour until Bank settlements; they must now be labeled Make a Difference Today! OCTOBER 2012

THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

7

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Romney Goes All Out for the Israel Lobby By Rachelle Marshall

ABBAS MOMANI/AFP/GETTYIMAGES

SpecialReport

A Palestinian woman in the West Bank village of Dura Al-Qara, near Ramallah, takes a picture with her cell phone of Hebrew graffiti that reads “Death to Arabs” and “Migron,” referring to an unauthorized Jewish outpost the government has ordered demolished. ome years ago a prominent Palestinian

Sattorney whose roots in Jerusalem

dated back to before the Crusades recounted to this writer that he and a group of fellow businessmen had raised the money to build a much-needed cement factory in the West Bank but that the Israeli authorities had denied them a permit. “Why?” I asked without thinking. The attorney simply smiled and shrugged his shoulders. He was too polite to say, “It’s the occupation, stupid!” That memory came rushing back with the news that Mitt Romney in a speech in Jerusalem on July 30 declared that the Palestinian economy lags behind Israel’s because “culture does matter.” Speaking to American Jewish donors at a $50,000-acouple breakfast, he explained, “As you come here and you see the GDP per capita for instance in Israel, which is $21,000, and compare that with the GDP per capita Rachelle Marshall is a free-lance editor living in Mill Valley, CA. A member of Jewish Voice for Peace, she writes frequently on the Middle East. 8

just across the areas managed by the Palestinian Authority, which is more like $10,000 per capita, you notice such a stark difference in economic vitality.” Romney did not bother to visit “the areas managed by the Palestinian Authority.” If he had, he might have learned that the gross domestic product in the occupied territories was not $10,000 but $2,900, while Israel’s is nearly 10 times greater. He made no mention of the billions in aid the U.S. has lavished on Israel since its inception, or the fact that Israel’s routine denial of business permits forces Palestinians to buy Israeli products. Had Romney gone to the West Bank and seen the long lines of pedestrians and cars waiting at checkpoints; the roads that Palestinians are not allowed to use; or the 26-foot-high wall that winds around Palestinian cities, he might have asked himself what effect such obstacles might have on the economy. He might also have noticed the settlement swimming pools glistening in the sun next to Palestinian villages parched for water, and learned that the Palestinian AuTHE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

thority has to buy water from Israel at a price five times higher than what Israelis pay—water taken from West Bank aquifers Israel appropriated from the Palestinians. But if Romney were interested in the facts he could have stayed home altogether and read the CIA World Factbook, which says: “Israeli closure policies [in the West Bank] continue to disrupt labor and trade flows, industrial capacity, and basic commerce, eroding the productive capacity” of the economy. An editorial in the San Francisco Chronicle called Romney’s statement “a flub.” But it is more likely that the presidential candidate chose his words carefully. He was speaking to a selected audience—not simply Jewish voters but deep-pocketed supporters of Israel. One of the event’s organizers, J. Philip Rosen, is a former chairman of American Friends of Likud. In a 2007 article for the settler newsletter Arutz Sheva, Rosen referred to Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas as “evil,” and called Palestinian society “pathological.” Sitting next to Romney as he spoke was gambling billionaire Sheldon Adelson, who has pledged to spend $100 million to defeat President Barack Obama. Adelson was reportedly the source of former presidential candidate Newt Gringrich’s remark that Palestinians were “an invented” people. Gingrich received some $10 million from Adelson before dropping out of the race. The Republican party in recent years has made support for Israel a key issue in its platform, on a par with tax cuts for the rich and reduced spending for the poor. The approach was originally intended to win over traditionally pro-Democratic Jewish voters, but is now aimed at a variety of groups, including weapons manufacturers, Christian evangelicals, corporate executives who admire Israel’s high-tech economy, and neocon hawks eager once again to intervene in the Middle East. A longtime member of the latter group, Dan Senor, has been Romney’s closest foreign policy adviser and friend since 2006. Senor, one of the leading supporters of the war in Iraq, was chief spokesperson for the Coalition Provisional Authority under Paul Bremer, boasting of the invasion’s success even as Iraq descended into chaos. His book Start-up Nation attributes Israel’s success to its entrepreneurial spirit and culture, and was the obvious inspiration OCTOBER 2012

for Romney’s theme at the Jerusalem fund-raiser. Senor’s sister, Wendy Senor Singer, runs AIPAC’s Jerusalem office. A telling indicator of what Romney’s Middle East policy would be under Senor’s guidance was described by Aaron David Miller, a former Middle East adviser to both Democratic and Republican secretaries of state. According to Miller, Senor “has an acute sensitivity and sensibility toward Israeli security interests...a filter through which he, and should he get to be president, Romney, sees the whole panoply of issues in the Middle East.”

Dueling Loyalties

ABBAS MOMANI/AFP/GETTYIMAGES

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Instead of exposing the dangers of Romney’s approach to the Middle East, President Obama Israeli soldiers hold back two Palestinian girls following the arrest of their mother during an Aug. 24 chose to demonstrate his own demonstration in the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh protesting the confiscation of village land to dedication to Israel. As Romney expand the nearby illegal settlement of Halamish. left for Jerusalem, the administration released an additional $70 million enough, is “Occupation Studies.” ing the rest into submission has been esin military aid to help the Israelis expand The number of Jewish settlers is grow- pecially hard on children. Between 500 production of a missile defense system. ing by 4.5 percent a year, according to Is- and 700 children are arrested every year, Obama then signed a bill increasing mili- raeli news reports citing data from the In- and many suffer lasting psychological tary and civilian cooperation with Israel. terior Ministry. In the past year 15,600 Is- damage as a result. Children are also trauThe measure was further proof of “Amer- raelis moved into the West Bank, bringing matized when their home is raided by the ica’s unshakable commitment to Israel,” the the total number of settlers in the occupied army. In a typical raid, masked Israeli solpresident said. West Bank and East Jerusalem to 650,143. diers in full combat gear break into a Having turned the crucial issue of U.S. The possibility of a two-state solution has home after midnight with their guns Middle East policy into a competition to see all but vanished. pointed, often accompanied by dogs. As who can show the most slavish support for This is exactly what Israel’s right-wing the terrified children look on, they ranIsrael, Romney and to a lesser extent Obama parties are hoping. Knesset member Yaakov sack the house and, if they are bored, are playing a game that will undermine Katz predicted that by 2016 the Jewish vandalize it. The army carried out 63 hopes for a just peace, and create more anti- population in the West Bank and East raids in the West Bank during the first 10 U.S. hostility in a part of the world that is Jerusalem would reach 1 million, “at days of July alone. becoming increasingly volatile. which point the revolution will have been Young Israelis also show the effects of an Israel’s right-wing leaders, knowing completed.” It is a revolution going on apartheid system that treats Palestinians as there will be no calls for restraint from largely out of the headlines—as is the less than human. In late August a mob of Washington, are proceeding at full speed human suffering it involves. some 50 teenagers attacked a group of to complete Israel’s annexation of more The government in late July announced young Palestinians in West Jerusalem than half of the West Bank. After pledging it would destroy eight villages in the He- shouting “death to Arabs!” and, as byto expand the Beit El settlement by 300 bron hills so their land can be used for a standers looked on, left several Palestinians units and announcing plans for 500 new military firing range. The 1,800 inhabi- hurt and 17-year-old Jamal Julani unconhomes elsewhere in the West Bank, the tants destined to lose their homes and their scious. On the same day, a Palestinian cab government proceeded to recognize Ariel grazing land are “squatters” and “infiltra- was firebombed near the West Bank settleUniversity, in the settlement of Ma’ale Ad- tors,” according to military officials, even ment of Bat Ayin, causing the driver and umim, as Israel’s eighth official university. though their villages have existed since the five members of the Abu Jayado family to The location of a major university in an 1830s. Construction of the separation wall be hospitalized with severe burns. Some Isillegal West Bank settlement—as all of also continues to take more land from the raelis saw the attacks as a sign of increasthem are—indicates that Israel intends to Palestinians. When the wall is completed it ing extremism in Israel. Nimrod Aloni, the keep that part of the territory regardless of will run far enough inside the Green Line head of the Institute for Educational peace negotiations. The head of Israel’s lib- to give Israel 9.4 percent more of the West Thought, said, “This comes from an entire eral Meretz party, Zahava Gal-On, charged Bank, and isolate 23,000 Palestinians on Is- culture that has been escalating toward an that the government “has brought Israel to rael’s side of the barrier. Palestinian farm- open and blunt language based on us a moral low point by establishing an insti- ers on Israel’s side will need permits to being the chosen people who are allowed tution on stolen land which forbids those enter their own land. to do whatever we like.” whose land was stolen to enter the gates.” Israel’s drive to rid the West Bank of as Given Washington’s unlimited support One of Ariel’s course offerings, fittingly many Palestinians as possible while cow- for Israel, such incidents are bound to afOCTOBER 2012

THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

9

marshall_8-10_Special Report 8/30/12 2:15 PM Page 10

Can Obama Forestall a “September Surprise�? AN ISRAELI ATTACK on Iran this fall at the height of the U.S. presidential campaign would confront President Barack Obama with two unwelcome choices: either back Israel in another war on a Muslim country and risk involvement in a regional conflagration, or refuse to support a nation regarded as America’s closest ally and arouse the wrath of a powerful Israel lobby. Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu seems fully aware that he has President Obama over a barrel. An increasing number of news reports from Israel predict Netanyahu will take action against Iran in September or October, reasoning that he will have less leverage if Obama is re-elected, and if Mitt Romney wins, uncertain of a new president’s willingness to engage in a military action so quickly after taking office. “If I were an Iranian, I would be very fearful of the next 12 weeks,� said former Israeli intelligence chief Efraim Halevy in early August. Netanyahu has repeatedly declared that international sanctions on Iran are not working and warned that “Time to resolve this issue peacefully is running out.� His deputy foreign minister, Danny Ayalon, has called for an international declaration that “talks have failed.� Obviously worried about Israel’s intentions, the Obama administration sent a parade of defense officials headed by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta to Israel this summer to reaffirm Washington’s intention to prevent Iran’s development of a nuclear weapon. As Panetta was assuring the Israelis that the U.S. had developed “military options� if sanctions failed, Congress was approving sancfect the way the U.S. is perceived in a region where hatred of Israel is unabated, and changes in leadership are rapidly taking place. In Egypt, where 70 percent of the public regard Israel and the U.S. as the greatest threat to regional security, recent changes in the civilian and military leadership are certain to affect Cairo’s relationship with those countries. On Aug. 12 President Mohamed Morsi ordered the retirement of seven top military officers and reclaimed for himself the legislative and executive powers seized by the military just prior to his election. In place of the ousted generals Morsi appointed a group of younger officers who are thought to share Morsi’s desire for more independence from Washington. One of those officers, Gen. Sidqi Subhi, wrote as a student at the National War College in Pennsylvania that the U.S. military presence in the Middle East and “one-sided� support for Israel were arousing hatred in the region and continued terrorism. In making his bold move, Morsi took advantage of the army’s weak response to an Aug. 5 attack in the Sinai that killed 16 Egyptian soldiers. Israel immediately blamed the attack on Hamas, and the Egyptians pointed to the 1979 peace treaty with Israel that limits the number of Egyptian troops that can be deployed in the Sinai. Analysts, however, said the violence in the Sinai was a result of simmering grievances in the Bedouin and Palestinian 10

tions designed to further cripple Iran’s oil industry and penalize foreign banks that do business with Iran (see p. 28). The U.S. has meanwhile been arranging the sale of more than $11.3 billion worth of arms to Iran’s neighbors, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. The weapons include missile systems, radar defenses, and attack helicopters. Weapons sales to Saudi Arabia a year ago totaled $60 billion and included 80 advanced F-15 fighter jets. The bonanza for the weapons industry (not incidentally, a major component of the Israel lobby) could prove to be a disaster for the region if the object is to convince Iran to give up its nuclear program. In competition between countries there is no such thing as a defensive weapon. What one side claims is a protection against incoming missiles is likely to be interpreted by the other side as preparation for a surprise attack. Surrounded by U.S. land and naval forces, and neighbors bristling with radar and anti-missile missiles, a wary Iran is less likely to back down than to build up its own arsenal, intensifying an already dangerous arms race. Iran’s rulers are certain to remember, if Washington does not, that Libya’s dictator Muammar Qaddafi agreed in December 2003 to dismantle Libya’s nuclear and chemical weapons program in exchange for the lifting of international sanctions. The fact that Qaddafi carried out his part of the agreement and dismantled the weapons, however, did not prevent the U.S. and its allies from ousting him when the opportunity arose. —R.M.

communities arising from the Mubarak regime’s long neglect of the area. Whoever was to blame, it was the Palestinians who were punished. Israel shut down Kerem Shalom, the only commercial crossing into Gaza, and Egypt closed the crossing at Rafah, through which goods and people pass. Gazans who have suffered from lack of fuel, clean water and other basic necessities for six years under Israel’s blockade are now under complete lockdown, their supplies dwindling dangerously. Israel’s latest act of collective punishment is a clear violation of international law, but has aroused no protest from the U.S. and its allies. In Syria in late summer, the long rule by the Assad family seemed certain to end as high-ranking military and political officials deserted the government and rebel fighters continued the struggle. With civil war raging and casualties mounting, the U.S. and Israel face a dilemma. Both countries would welcome the downfall of Assad, but worry about what will become of Syria’s chemical and other deadly weapons once he is gone. No one can predict the nature of the government that will take his place. Splits have intensified among Christian, Alawite and Sunni communities, and there is evidence that Assad’s opponents now include al-Qaeda fighters and homegrown Muslim jihadists. “We are looking at the controlled demolition of the Assad regime,� said Andrew Tabler of the AIPAClaunched Washington Institute for Near THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

East Policy, “but like any controlled demolition anything can go wrong.� The Obama administration has wisely refrained from sending more weapons into the turmoil, and is reportedly working on a political transition that will restore basic services and restart Syria’s economy. It is an undertaking that would have a far greater chance to succeed if the U.S. had the trust of the Syrian people, including the rebels. But as Israel’s unstinting benefactor and often sole defender, Washington long ago abandoned the role of honest broker in the region. Lacking the credibility it enjoyed before 1948, the U.S. is likely to have little control over Syria’s future. � (Advertisement)

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Hanley-Corrie_11_Special Report 8/30/12 2:17 PM Page 11

The Rachel Corrie Verdict: A Black Day for Human Rights, Israeli “Justice” System SpecialReport

By Delinda C. Hanley aifa District Court Judge Oded Ger-

Israel has no responsibility in the death of 23-year-old American Rachel Corrie, should come as no surprise. Non-Jewish Israelis, Palestinians and their supporters rarely find justice in Israeli courts. Gershon’s 62-page ruling in the civil lawsuit brought by the Corrie family comes nearly 10 years after Israeli soldiers demolishing Palestinian homes in Rafah, Gaza drove an American-made Caterpillar bulldozer over the peaceful young protester. Dressed in an orange vest and carrying a giant bullhorn, the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) volunteer stood between the bulldozer and the home of a Palestinian family on March 16, 2003. Rachel, from Olympia, Washington, was one of eight international activists who had been serving as human shields in the area known as the Philadelphia Corridor for hours that day. In the months and years that followed, Rachel’s parents, Cindy and Craig Corrie, and her big sister, Sarah Corrie Simpson, walked the halls of Congress and the State Department seeking support and answers. The day after Rachel’s death, Israel’s thenPrime Minister Ariel Sharon promised U.S. President George W. Bush that Israel would conduct a “thorough, credible and transparent investigation.” That, however, has not occurred, U.S. diplomats say. The Corrie’s congressman, Rep. Brian Baird (D-WA), submitted a resolution seeking a U.S. investigation into Rachel’s death. It died in the House Foreign Affairs Committee, primarily because of opposition by its then member and current chair, Rep. Ileana RosLehtinen (R-FL), according to the Corries. The Israeli military investigation into Rachel’s killing found that no regulations were broken and resulted in no charges. The case was closed, but Israel refused to release the report to the U.S. government. “We were finally allowed to read the report in the Israeli Consulate in San Francisco,” Cindy said. The Corries found inconsistencies in testimonies. Their only recourse was to file a civil lawsuit, accusing the Israeli military of either unlawfully or intentionally killing Rachel or of gross negligence. They asked for a symbolic $1 in damages and legal expenses—which the judge also denied. “It’s a black day for activists of human rights and people who believe in values of Delinda C. Hanley is news editor of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. OCTOBER 2012

AVISHAG SHAAR-YASHUV/GETTYIMAGES

Hshon’s Aug. 28 ruling that the state of

Rachel Corrie’s family members (l-r), sister Sarah Corrie Simpson and parents Craig and Cindy Corrie, listen to Judge Oded Gershon’s ruling in Haifa District Court, Aug. 28, 2012. dignity,” Hussein Abu Hussein, the Corries’ lawyer, told reporters following Judge Gershon’s ruling. “We believe this decision is a bad decision for all of us—civilians first of all, and peace activists.” “We are, of course, deeply saddened and deeply troubled by what we heard today,” said Cindy Corrie. “I believe this was a bad day—not only for our family but for human rights, the rule of law, and also for the country of Israel.” Craig and Cindy Corrie spoke to reporters back home via a telephone news briefing arranged by the Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU) the day after the ruling. “We were a bit naive,” Cindy acknowledged. They had envisioned the case would move along quickly like in the U.S., but there were many delays. “We always held out hope there would be a just verdict,” Craig insisted, but the way the Israeli courts are set up they soon realized it would be an uphill battle. For example, there was no jury, only a judge, and court sessions worked around his schedule. Rachel’s parents and sister spent $200,000 on travel, translation and other expenses in order to attend every session of the trial, which opened in March 2010 and included 15 sessions of oral testimony—with weeks between each court date. The family and the ISM witnesses THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

needed simultaneous translation services, which were occasionally humorous but other times seriously misleading. One witness described the bulldozer coming forward “with its bucket in the earth,” but his words were translated as “with its bucket in the air.” The Corries said they were not allowed to see some of the witnesses, including the IDF drivers and commanders of two bulldozers operating in the area that day, who testified from behind a screen for “security reasons.” The Corries were disappointed not to be able to finally look into the eyes of the driver of the bulldozer. The soldiers also couldn’t see the family. It was “dehumanizing” for everyone. Judge Gershon ruled that the Israeli military is not responsible for “damages caused” because the D9 Caterpillar bulldozer was engaged in a combat operation. In fact, he blamed the victim: “She chose to put herself in danger,” Judge Gershon asserted. “She could have easily distanced herself from the zone of danger like any reasonable person would.” Cindy Corrie disagreed with the state’s argument that Rachel shouldn’t have been in Rafah because it was a closed military zone. “The government couldn’t produce one document saying it was closed. No one Continued on page 74 11

omer_12_Gaza on the Ground 8/29/12 8:33 PM Page 12

Attack on Egypt’s Border: Morsi’s Test, Gaza’s Challenge Gazaon the Ground

By Mohammed Omer

tions, a growing civil war in Syria, and unrest in Yemen and in the Horn of Africa, Egypt finds itself in a caldron simmering on very hot embers. An attack on Iran would be akin to pouring lighter fluid on those embers, causing the entire region to explode into chaos. Acutely aware of the surrounding threats, Egyptian politicians and commentators in the state-owned media increasingly call for enlarging the number of troops deployed to Egypt’s northern border, despite the fact that such changes carry penalties.

URIEL SINAI/GETTY IMAGES

The Aug. 5 Border Attack

An Israeli soldier inspects the wreckage of an Egyptian military vehicle the day after it was driven across the border into Israel following an armed attack on a police station in North Sinai which killed 16 Egyptian soldiers, Aug. 6, 2012. esponding to his first international se-

Rcurity challenge, Egyptian President

Dr. Mohamed Morsi has vowed that his nation’s military will regain “full control” of the Sinai region bordering Israel and the Gaza Strip. This declaration followed a deadly Aug. 5 border attack on Egyptian soldiers that left 16 dead and 7 injured. Morsi’s statement could be read to imply that the status quo in Sinai is under review. However, the president’s spokesman, Yasser Ali, stated that Morsi continues to stress his commitment to the 1979 Camp David Peace Agreement with Israel. Unlike his predecessor, ousted President Hosni Mubarak, who collaborated on security issues with Israel in exchange for monetary and military support from the United States following the 1979 agreement, Morsi is an elected civilian president. As such, he must be sensitive to the desires of his constituency and the best inAward-winning journalist Mohammed Omer reports on the Gaza Strip, and maintains the Web site <www.rafahtoday.org>. He can be reached at <gazanews@yahoo.com>. Follow him on Twitter: @MoGaza. 12

terests of his country—including the right to defend itself. Along with other parties, the Muslim Brotherhood, a significant force in Egyptian politics of which Morsi was a member until his election, continues to press for a re-evaluation of the Camp David Agreement, describing the reassessment as an “imperative.” Of primary concern are the limitations the treaty imposes on Cairo regarding the presence of Egyptian troops within the 52 kilometers (32 miles) between Rafah in the Gaza Strip and Egypt’s Mediterranean port of El-Arish. The escalating fighting in Syria and the Netanyahu government’s increasingly bellicose rhetoric toward Iran only exacerbate these concerns. Despite the lack of support by the Israeli and American public for yet another war—not to mention by the two countries’ military and intelligence communities—fears abound that Israel will attack Iran prior to the November U.S. presidential election, thus forcing the Obama administration to support the Israeli attack and placing the nascent Egyptian government in a precarious position. Surrounded by three occupaTHE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

A few hours prior to the Sinai attack, Israeli F-16 fighter jets killed two Palestinians riding a motorcycle west of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. Then came the attack on the Egyptian border guards. Wearing traditional Bedouin clothing as camouflage, 35 attackers raided an Egyptian army encampment during the iftar meal breaking the Ramadan fast in the minutes following sunset. They next hijacked an armored vehicle and sped toward the Israeli encampment on the opposite side of the border. This phase of the operation proved less successful, however, as Israeli attack helicopters were hovering in the area between the two encampments known as “no-man’s-land,” waiting for the hijacked vehicle and its occupants to arrive. Once sighted, the vehicle and six attackers were destroyed by several Israeli missiles fired from the helicopters. No group or persons have claimed responsibility for the attack. Israel and Egypt each has accused the other of running a covert black operation using deniable assets. Since no group has come forward, and the new regime in Cairo must prove itself, a roundup of the usual suspects commenced.

Egypt’s Response “Those who carried out this crime will pay dearly,” insists Dr. Morsi. “Clear orders have been given to our armed forces and police to chase and arrest those who carried out this assault on our children. These forces will impose full control over these areas of Sinai.” Continued on page 43 OCTOBER 2012

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The Human Cost of War on Iran SpecialReport

By Elizabeth Murray n late 2002, just prior to the launch of

against Iraq, I was invited to join a gathering of intelligence analysts at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, to participate in an Iraq “war games” exercise. We were assigned specific roles and asked to “play out” various political and diplomatic scenarios that might unfold in the wake of a U.S. attack on Iraq. A tall, heavy-set Iraqi-American, who was present as an observer and seated beside me on the final day, remarked quietly: “All these people are talking about strategic, political and military issues; no one here is talking about the hundreds of thousands of people—my people—that are going to die.” His words struck me as profoundly tragic, and the tears welling up behind his dark glasses made me feel suddenly ashamed to be there, aware of the complete absence of consideration for Iraqis. I struggled to find something to say that would console the man, but found myself at a loss. All these years later, that incident has come back to haunt me as we approach the precipice of yet another deadly war. Will we allow ourselves to be blinded again? As Israeli leaders engage in frenzied posturing over a possible military strike on Iran, we again have pundits, experts and commentators speculating how an Israeli offensive would play out. They search for the meaning behind the inflammatory rhetoric of Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, and ponder the impact of a war on Western political, strategic and economic interests. As with the war games I attended at the War College 10 years ago, their narrow focus on strategic and tactical aspects of a potentially serious conflict conveniently Elizabeth Murray served as deputy national intelligence officer for the Near East in the National Intelligence Council before retiring after a 27-year career in the U.S. government, where she specialized in Middle Eastern political and media analysis. She is a member of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). This article was first posted on <www.consortiumnews.com>, Aug. 23, 2012. Copyright © 2012 Consortiumnews. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission. OCTOBER 2012

ATTA KENARE/AFP/GETTYIMAGES

Ithe U.S. “shock and awe” campaign

Iranians wait for a bus in central Tehran, July 24, 2012. avoids the fact that we are talking about the mass murder and maiming of Iranian civilians, as well as many others in the region.

Attack on Bushehr: “Death of Thousands” In a thought-provoking piece on this subject, Prof. Marsha B. Cohen, a specialist on Iranian-Israeli issues, notes that a 114-page paper commissioned in 2009 by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, “Study on a Possible Israeli Strike on Iran’s Nuclear Development Facilities,” devoted just two pages to the subject of anticipated human losses (pp 90-91). The study says that “any strike on the Bushehr nuclear reactor will cause the immediate death of thousands of people living in or adjacent to the site, and thousands of subsequent cancer deaths or even up to hundreds of thousands depending on the population density along the contamination plume,” adding that “Bahrain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates will be heavily affected by the radionuclides.” In other words, the paper acknowledges that since the spread of nuclear radiation does not stop at national borders, civilian populations throughout the region, including those of U.S. allies, will be forced to suffer the horrific consequences of any Israeli military adventures in Iran. THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

The paper charts the range of human suffering and death from radiation according to the degree of exposure, ranging from 0-50 Roentgens—“no obvious effect, possibly minor blood changes,” all the way to 5,000 Roentgens—“incapacitation almost immediately; all those exposed will be fatalities within one week.” An accompanying map of the region displays prevailing wind patterns, indicating where the radiation is likely to drift. Without further discussion of the humanitarian dimension, the next page goes on to talk about the varying technical attributes of the Israeli and Iranian missile systems.

Human Empathy, Casualty of a War Culture? Why is it that U.S. policymakers and those in the intelligence agencies and think-tank communities who support them seem to have so little compassion for the victims of their political and military decisions? Have they become too far removed from suffering, as they are shuttled from meeting to meeting in their chauffeur-driven SUVs and Town Cars? The subject of human suffering is almost taboo among these elites, and is generally raised only when negative media publicity, Continued on page 44 13

views_romney_14-15_Two Views 8/29/12 8:35 PM Page 14

Two Views

KHALIL BENDIB

Mitt Romney—Election Year in Jerusalem

Is Mitt Being Neoconned Into War? By Patrick J. Buchanan

as Mitt Romney given Israel a blank

Hcheck for war?

So it seemed from the declaration in Jerusalem by his adviser Dan Senor, who all but flashed Israel a green light for war, signaling the Israelis that, if you go, Mitt’s got your back: “If Israel has to take action on its own in order to stop Iran from developing that capability, the governor would respect that decision.” “No option would be excluded. Governor Romney recognizes Israel’s right to defend itself and that it is right for America to stand with it.” What does “stand with” Israel, if she launches a surprise attack on Iran, mean? Does it mean the United States will guide Israeli planes to their targets and provide bases on their return? Does it mean U.S. air Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of Suicide of a Superpower: Will America Survive to 2025? Copyright © 2012 Creators Syndicate, Inc. Reprinted by permission of Patrick J. Buchanan and Creators Syndicate, Inc. 14

cover while Israeli planes strike Iran? This would make America complicit in a pre-emptive strike and a co-belligerent in the war to follow. What Senor said comes close to being a U.S. war guarantee for Israel, while leaving the decision as to when the war begins to them. This country has never done that before. And what does Senor mean by Israel’s need to act “to stop Iran from developing [the] capability” to acquire nuclear weapons? The collective decision of 16 U.S. intelligence agencies in 2007—that Iran is not pursuing a nuclear weapon—reportedly reaffirmed in 2011—has never been rescinded. Nor has the White House produced any hard evidence Iran is building a bomb. Moreover, Iran’s known nuclear facilities are under inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Does the government know something the American people are not being told? Undeniably, Iran, by enriching uranium to 3.5 percent, then up to 20 percent, has a greater “capability” than five years ago of building a nuclear weapon. But Japan, South Korea and Brazil also have that capaTHE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

bility—and none has decided to build a nuclear weapon. Governor Romney did not go as far as Senor, but he, too, seems to be saying that not only is Iran’s possession of a nuclear weapon a casus belli for the United States, even an Iran that is capable of building such a weapon is intolerable. “The regime in Iran is five years closer to developing nuclear weapons capability,” said Romney. “Preventing that outcome must be our highest national security priority.” Preventing what outcome is “our highest national security priority”? Stopping Iran from building a bomb? Or stopping Iran from being able to build a bomb years from now? The governor seems to be aligning himself with Israel’s hawks who are demanding that not only must Iran swear off nuclear weapons forever, Iran must cease all enrichment of uranium, and dismantle the facilities at Natanz and Fordow. Romney’s policy is zero enrichment, said Senor. Tehran must understand that “the alternative to zero enrichment is severe, and that’s why the threat of military force has to be critical.” This is tantamount to an ultimatum to Tehran: Either give up all enrichment of uranium and any right to enrich, or face war. Here we come to the heart of the issue, which may be impossible to resolve short of war. Unlike its neighbors Israel and Pakistan, Iran has signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and has no nuclear weapons. The ayatollah has said they are immoral and Iran will not acquire them. But under the NPT, Iran claims the right to enrich uranium and seek the benefits of nuclear technology. And in that decision, the people of Iran stand behind their government. Is denying Iran the right to enrich uranium a reason for America to plunge into its fifth war in that region in a generation? That appears where we are headed. Reportedly, Obama’s national security adviser recently briefed Bibi Netanyahu on the specifics of U.S. contingency plans to attack Iran. Has Congress been briefed? Have the American people been consulted? Or are we simply irrelevant? A decade ago, this country sent an army up to Baghdad to overthrow Saddam and OCTOBER 2012

views_romney_14-15_Two Views 8/29/12 8:35 PM Page 15

strip Iraq of a vast arsenal of chemical and biological weapons we were told it had and was preparing to use. We were misled; we were deceived; we were lied to. Before we outsource to Bibi and Ehud Barak the decision to take us to war with a country three times the size of Iraq, we need to know: Was the U.S. intelligence community wrong in 2007 and 2011? Is Iran hell-bent on building nuclear weapons? If so, where are they constructing and testing these weapons? Finally, if Iran is willing to permit intrusive inspections of its actual and suspected nuclear sites, but insists on its right to enrich uranium, should we go to war to deny them that right? But if we are going to go to war again, this time with Iran, the decision should be made in America, according to our Constitution, not by any other country.

Why Romney Went to Israel By Ben Adler

here is a famous saying, frequently misT attributed to Albert Einstein, that “insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” If that is true, then the GOP’s current pitch for the Jewish vote looks like another example of their detachment from reality. But looks can be deceiving. While Mitt Romney has no realistic chance of winning the Jewish vote in November, he could conceivably achieve his two real goals: winning Florida and shoring up support on the religious right. Every four years conservatives hopefully assert yet again that this may finally be the election where Jews start voting like rich white people. As Milton Himmelfarb famously noted, “Jews earn like Episcopalians and vote like Puerto Ricans.” The circumstances that would encourage Jews to switch parties—they are more assimilated, Republicans are less overtly anti-Semitic—keep improving, but the GOP’s performance among Jews does not. In every election since 1992 Democrats have received between 76 and 80 percent of the Jewish vote. In 2008, President Obama won 78 percent of the Jewish vote to John McCain’s 22 percent. And yet Republicans are trying again. Romney just went to Israel to pledge fealty Ben Adler reports on Republican and conservative politics and media for The Nation. He previously covered national politics and policy as a staffer at Newsweek, Politico and the Center for American Progress. Copyright © 2012 The Nation. Distributed by Agence Global. OCTOBER 2012

to the Likud Party’s agenda and hoover up donations from a handful of rich JewishAmerican donors like billionaire casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, who flew out to join Romney for the occasion. Meanwhile, the Republican Jewish Coalition has, thanks partly to generous donations from Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS, launched an effort to capitalize on “buyer’s remorse” among Jews who voted for Obama. They have devoted $6.5 million to air commercials targeting Jewish voters in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida. Why would Jews regret voting for Obama? Because of his supposed snubs to Israel, which are really just trumped up Republican talking points. The first ad quotes a supposed former Obama supporter named Michael Goldstein, who says: I was a big Obama supporter. I had a fund-raiser in my home, gave money to his campaign. I really believed in him and believed in what he stood for. When he gave the speech about the ‘67 borders, it was nothing that had come up in his campaign originally. That really changed my mind about him. When he had the prime minister of Israel, [Binyamin] Netanyahu, to the White House…he was disrespectful to him to the point that I’d never seen. Goldstein, it turns out, donated $250 to Rudy Giuliani in 2007. But even if he is telling the truth about his political history, it just shows how easily he is snookered by misinformation from Republicans. The right-wing hysteria about Obama’s speech was much ado about nothing. American presidents have always called for using the ‘67 borders with land swaps to make a peace deal. Obama did not specifically say Israel should be allowed to keep the settlements outside the Green Line. But then, he shouldn’t. As for Obama’s supposed mistreatment of Netanyahu, Glenn Kessler, who writes The Washington Post’s Fact Checker blog, notes, “Netanyahu also has been publicly tough with Obama, especially after the president’s speech on the 1967 boundaries. He in essence lectured Obama in full view of television cameras, suggesting the president had an unrealistic view of the region.” Kessler also points out, “By virtually all accounts, the Obama administration has been especially strong in bolstering security ties between Israel and the United States.” In late July the Emergency Committee for Israel—a right-wing foreign policy advocacy group—launched two ads attacking Obama’s record. On July 26 they bought a print ad in 23 Jewish newspapers citing prominent American Zionists, such as Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League and Martin Indyk of the Brookings Institution, who say Obama has disappointed them THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

on Israel. They also put out a 30-second commercial the next day complaining that President Obama has not visited Israel. It will air on cable news networks in Washington and New York and in Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania. I emailed ECI spokesman Noah Pollak to ask why this matters, in light of the fact that President Bush did not visit Israel until the last year of his second term. Pollak responded that the ad “criticizes Obama not simply for failing to visit Israel as president. It criticizes him for visiting the Middle East repeatedly but intentionally skipping Israel as part of his ‘daylight’ policy that seeks to distance the U.S. from Israel.” I remain unconvinced that this is more than petty politics of symbolism. Liberals are gleefully pointing out that Obama remains overwhelmingly favored in the Jewish community. A Gallup poll released July 27 has Obama leading Romney 68 percent to 25 percent among registered Jewish voters. So why are Romney and company even trying? Because winning the Jewish vote nationally is not the purpose. Thanks to the monstrously complicated strategic calculations brought about by the Electoral College, even a significant shift in votes in most states can be irrelevant while a tiny shift in a swing state can decide the outcome of the election. In 2000 Al Gore won the popular vote but lost the election because he nominally lost Florida by 537 votes. There are more than 600,000 Jewish voters in Florida. It doesn’t matter to Romney if the millions of American Jews in blue states like New York, California, Illinois, Massachusetts and New Jersey vote for him. But a few voters switching sides in Florida can make all the difference in the world. And, luckily for Romney, Florida’s Jews are disproportionately elderly, an age group that Obama struggles with and Romney appeals to. If Romney were to hold that 25 percent of the Jewish vote and pick up a few more points among the undecided, that would be the best Republican presidential performance among Jews since 1988. If we held national popular vote elections, as we should, this would hardly matter. In Florida, it could matter a great deal. The other purpose of Romney’s Jewish outreach is a ricochet pander to evangelicals. Just as when Romney spoke to the NAACP to appeal to moderate white swing voters, not black people, Romney pursues the Jewish vote as a proxy for a demographic he actually does need to, and can, win. Evangelicals are distrustful of Romney, due to his past support for abortion rights and gay rights. But another issue near and Continued on page 17 15

gee_16-17_Special Report 8/29/12 8:37 PM Page 16

Romney on the Palestinians: It’s Not the “Culture,” It’s the Occupation SpecialReport

AHMAD GHARABLI/AFP/GETTYIMAGES

By John Gee

A Palestinian man crosses through the Ras Khamis military checkpoint in East Jerusalem, Aug. 29, 2012, amid reports that Israel plans to close the key crossing that allows Palestinians from an East Jerusalem neighborhood to travel to the city center. very four years, U.S. presidential can-

Edidates take part in a highly undigni-

fied auction, in which they try to outdo each other in proving their commitment to a foreign country. They go beyond simply supporting Israel’s security as a state; proof of “commitment” means showing support for the policies of the current Israeli government, however extreme and however much it breaches international law, U.N. resolutions—and U.S. policy itself. At the end of July, while in Israel to pledge allegiance—and raise money from Israeli and American Jews—Mitt Romney trod a well-worn path in endorsing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. This, at least, was a policy issue. But he added insult to injury when, before an audience of potential donors, he compared the performance of the Palestinian economy unfavorably to Israel’s. Saying that Israel’s GDP per capita was John Gee is a free-lance journalist based in Singapore, and the author of Unequal Conflict: The Palestinians and Israel. 16

$21,000, while that of the Palestinians was $10,000, Romney noted that this showed “a dramatic, stark difference in economic vitality.” The actual figures are $31,400 for Israel and less than $3,000 for the Palestinians—but that is not because, as he said later, “culture makes all the difference,” but because of occupation, discrimination and oppression. It makes little difference whether Romney was ignorant of the facts, or just chose to ignore them to please his listeners. In ascribing the superior performance of the Israeli economy to Israeli values he gave no recognition whatsoever either to the material advantages Israel has enjoyed or to the restrictions under which the Palestinians living under Israeli rule have had to face. When the state of Israel was established in 1948, it took over the lands and possessions of more than 700,000 Palestinians who were expelled from the 78 percent of historic Palestine on which they lived. This was a tremendous asset for the new state, which went on to expropriate the land of most of the Palestinians who still remained THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

within its borders, turning many formerly agricultural villages into a reserve of lowcost labor for the Israeli economy. Israel has benefited from more international aid than any other country in the world, chiefly from the U.S. When all forms of American aid are taken into account, it amounts to over $120 billion since 1949—mostly since 1967. Despite this, over the years, practically all U.S. presidential candidates, including those who pledge to cut government spending and foreign aid, regularly commit themselves to maintain if not increase aid to this First World state with a prosperous economy. In the more recent past, Israel also has benefited from the immigration of around one million Jews from the former Soviet Union, who were generally well-educated and in their most productive years of life. All of this is in marked contrast to the position of the Palestinians. After 1948, the majority of them were refugees—either in the Egyptian-ruled Gaza Strip, the Jordanian-annexed West Bank, within Palestine, or in neighboring Arab countries. Their society had been shattered. Nevertheless, they tried to rebuild. Border towns and villages in the West Bank such as Qalqilya or Walaja that had lost most of their land to Israel labored to make the most of the land that remained to them. Palestinians everywhere saw education as a way out of hardship, and through their own efforts and, in the refugee camps, with the support of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), they made great strides forward, achieving the world’s highest proportion of university graduates by the end of the 1970s. After Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the 1967 war, it imposed tight controls on the Palestinian economy, shutting down all existing banks so Palestinian entrepreneurs and farmers had little access to credit. When the Bank of Palestine finally was allowed to function once again in 1981, it was under very restrictive conditions. New building could not take place without a permit. Israel says that the same rules apply to its own nationals, but OCTOBER 2012

gee_16-17_Special Report 8/29/12 8:38 PM Page 17

in their case, permits are obtained easily and quickly, while Palestinians face long waits and a high rate of refusal. It is not only housing that is affected, but buildings intended for industrial and commercial use, irrigation pipes for farms, and the sinking of wells for water. Between 1967 and the 1993 signing of the Oslo accords, Israel issued more than 1,000 military orders (MOs) covering the Gaza Strip and 1,300 in the West Bank. Though said to be necessary for security purposes, one in three of them covered economic matters, ranging from setting tax rates to regulating the Palestinian agricultural sector to ensure that it complemented, rather than competed with, its Israeli counterpart. For example, MO 49 made it an offense to export anything from the occupied areas without an Israeli-issued permit; MO 1147 allowed Israel to control which and how many fruit trees Palestinian farmers planted; MO 818 restricted the planting of seasonal plants, including flowers (cut flowers being a major Israeli export to Europe). Israel took control over Palestinian water resources and retains it to this day. It aimed to restrict Palestinian water use to little more than its 1967 level, meaning that Israelis have a per capita water consumption of three to four times that of Palestinians, and relatively few Palestinian farmers can irrigate their land. One of the more bizarre sights in the West Bank is that of Palestinian fields on valley floors turning yellow for want of water, while hilltop Israeli settlements enjoy green lawns. Since 1967, settlements for Jews only have been established in order to stake a permanent claim to huge slices of the occupied territories. The total number of settlers in the West Bank (not including occupied East Jerusalem, where more than 200,000 Israeli Jews now live) reached 342,414 in 2011; most of this growth has occurred since the September 1993 Oslo accords, which were supposed to pave the way to peace within five years. Every settlement not only denies the land it is built on to Palestinian use; it is land Israel allocates for its own growth, plus more land for “security” against its Palestinian neighbors. These illegal settlements are served by roads built on expropriated Palestinian land or state land (which Israel treats as its own), most of which are reserved for Israeli use only. They are in good condition, unlike the ones serving Palestinian communities. Settlement development has resulted in Palestinians being denied access to some of OCTOBER 2012

their best land: access to the Jordan Valley, for example, is highly restricted, and most of its land has been turned over to settlements or the Israeli army. Israel retains full military and civil control over 60 percent of the West Bank. Although Israel reluctantly agreed to cooperate in implementing a 1986 EU-Palestinian agreement on the export of Palestinian citrus fruit to Europe, it put obstacles in the way. It forced the Palestinians to export through Israeli ports and then delayed shipments “for inspection” before they were allowed to go, leading to much of the fruit deteriorating before arrival. In general, it tried to ensure that Palestinian citrus growers sold their produce to the Israeli company, Agrexco, which either used it to make up shortfalls in Israeli production or juiced it, from which Palestinian farmers saw little benefit. Olive production has been one of the staples of Palestinian agriculture for centuries, but since 1967 Israeli soldiers and settlers have uprooted 800,000 trees, many supposedly on security grounds to deny cover to Palestinians who might attack Israelis; in recent years, there have been weekly incidents of settlers uprooting trees or shooting at farmers either in response to Palestinian resistance or as a “price tag” attack in response to an Israeli government decision they did not like. Tourism was the most important source of income for the West Bank before 1967, but much of this has been choked off. Israel unilaterally annexed East Jerusalem, with its religious sites, in 1967, and most pilgrims to Bethlehem are now bused in and out by Israeli firms, employing Israeli guides, who encourage tourists to spend money in Israeli-owned enterprises and not mingle with Palestinians. In the last decade, things have only gotten worse. Israel claimed that the wall it is constructing in the West Bank is for security purposes—but those would have been served by building it on the West Bank-Israeli boundary. Instead, it eats into Palestinian land, leaving behind the wall much of the better land left to the Palestinians after 1948. Farmers are told they can have access to their land, but that is by permit and through designated exit points that may involve round trips of 20 miles to reach land 200 yards from a farmer’s house. The intention appears to be to squeeze Palestinians out of the lands behind the wall prior to its annexation by Israel. Movement within the West Bank is severely restricted for Palestinians by the presence of checkpoints between all the THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

towns of the region. In September 2012, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said that there were 522 checkpoints in operation, not including temporary “flying checkpoints.” Palestinians spend hours waiting for Israeli soldiers to check them through, with consequences for personal life as well as for the economy. Development initiatives frequently face destruction—again, often in the name of “security.” A European Commission report found that in the 10 years prior to 2011, Israel destroyed development projects worth 49.2 million euros ($60.44 million), of which 29.4 million euros ($36.12 million) were provided by the EU or its member states. Far from lagging behind Israel in development because of cultural factors, as Romney alleged, the Palestinians have been held back by occupation and restrictions such as no other people in the modern world face. The Palestinians in exile from their homeland include a large and successful business community that gives generously to development projects in Palestine. Apparently, their culture has not held them back. It is a tribute to the Palestinians’ determination and hard work that they continue to survive with their sense of nationhood intact and have never given up seeking to achieve economic progress. Palestinian rights might be expendable for a U.S. presidential candidate eager to raise money and votes, but Mitt Romney has sunk to a new low by attributing the de-development caused intentionally by 45 years of occupation to the culture of the victims of occupation themselves. ❑

Romney in Jerusalem… Continued from page 15

dear to their hearts is Israel. They have become obsessed in recent years with supporting extremely hawkish stances on all Middle East issues. They favor settlement construction in the occupied territories and a pre-emptive strike against Iran. Romney has gone to Israel to declare his support for these pernicious policies—as well as the inane ones about visiting Israel as president and recognizing Jerusalem as its capital—to appeal to evangelicals as much as to Jews. Romney can never convince Christian religious conservatives that he is a true believer in their social agenda, but since he was a blank slate on foreign policy before running for president, he can at least try to do so on foreign policy. ❑ 17

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Jerusalem’s Housing Crisis SpecialReport

AHMAD GHARABLI/AFP/GETTYIMAGES

By Saliba Sarsar, Ph.D.

Mohammed al-Shalabi, the father of five, stands with his children as he and a friend destroy his own home in Jerusalem’s Old City, July 19, 2012. Shalabi decided to demolish his own home to carry out an Israeli court order and avoid the high cost of paying for Israeli government bulldozers or being sent to prison for being unable to pay. t a time when an Israeli government-

Aappointed judicial commission denies

the occupation and concludes that “according to international law, Israelis have the legal right to settle in Judea and Samaria”; when Israel has intensified its demolition of Palestinian structures built without permit; and when peace negotiations are at a standstill, Jersualem is facing a serious housing crisis. Not surprisingly, this crisis impacts Israelis and Palestinians differently, with the latter feeling more anxious, disempowered, often stranded— and sometimes homeless. In addition to the rising costs of housing and consumer products in Israel, there is the squeezing out of the Israeli Jewish middle class, the disparity between rich and poor, and the lack of social justice. Since the mid-1980s, Israel has invested little in public and low-income housing for its Jewish citizens within the Green Line, Saliba Sarsar, Ph.D., born and raised in Jerusalem, is professor of political science and associate vice president for global initiatives at Monmouth University in New Jersey. 18

while continuing to support the building of and expansion of illegal Israeli settlements in Arab East Jerusalem and the West Bank. In August 2011, the government of Binyamin Netanyahu approved more than 5,500 units in the East Jerusalem Jewish settlements of Ramat Shlomo, Pisgat Zeev, Givat Hamatos and Har Homa, the latter known to Palestinians as Jabal Abu Ghneim (see July 1996 Washington Report, p. 13). In late September 2011, the Israeli Interior Ministry gave the green light for constructing 1,100 new housing units in Gilo, the enormous settlement which sits on land occupied in the June 1967 war. Young Israeli Jews, who make average salaries, find housing costs prohibitive. Some of them are forced to live with their parents. Close Israeli friends of mine have remodeled their house to create an apartment for their eldest son; the younger son plans to renovate the garden apartment. It is cheaper than buying or renting elsewhere in the city. A new two-bedroom apartment sells for approximately $300,000, and the monthly rent for the same is roughly $800. One-third to oneTHE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

half of Israelis’ income is spent on mortgage payments or rent. Conditions are even worse on the Palestinian side, where the housing demand and prices are even higher, the family size larger, and income levels lower. Moreover, housing is more complicated because of several factors. First, the city of Jerusalem is highly prized by all. It is a holy city for Jews, Christians and Muslims, a national symbol and a living place for both Israelis and Palestinians. Any shift in its demography, geography and topography becomes a cause célèbre. The struggle for dominance and survival is intense on all sides. Israel continues its efforts to spread Jewish presence and influence in the Arab sector of the city, often with American funds. A Jerusalem housing plan for 2,500 units which Palestinians would be allowed to buy was blocked by the political right at the Jerusalem municipality in June 2011. The Palestinian Authority and Arab governments and banks have spent millions of dollars subsidizing housing construction and some infrastructure in the Arab sector. OCTOBER 2012

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Second, permanent residency rights for Palestinians living in Jerusalem, which are established primarily through physical presence (i.e., home ownership or rental), come with entitlements of work and travel within the city’s boundaries and beyond, health insurance rights, and social welfare benefits. Such entitlements are not available to Palestinians living in the Israeli-occupied territories. Even though Palestinian Jerusalemites are meticulous about doing anything that would jeopardize their Israeli-conferred residency rights, Israel resorts to a variety of methods to cancel their residency so as to alter the city’s demographic nature. In 2008 alone, more than 4,500 Palestinian Jerusalemites lost their residency rights. Third, Palestinians unable to buy houses in Jerusalem are renting modest one-bedroom apartments there in order to maintain their residency, even though some of them own spacious houses on the West Bank. It is becoming more difficult to ask Palestinian renters to leave voluntarily once their leases expire, necessitating adjudication and eviction that could take five to seven years to materialize. Some owners have taken the law into their own hands in order to preserve their property rights. Others are stuck with anxiety and pain, while lawyers earn the big bucks! Fourth, housing is becoming a prerequisite for getting married. In the old days, prospective in-laws would ask about the groom’s family background and educational status. These days, the motto is “no housing, no marriage”—and, most often, the preference is for the housing to be at a distance from the groom’s parents! In Jerusalem, where housing is at a premium, the average marriage age for its Palestinian residents is estimated at 30, compared to 22 on the West Bank, where property is cheaper and more available. Fifth, the city’s population increase and the expansion of Jewish settlements in its Palestinian neighborhoods have augmented the demand for housing and reduced the availability of space for Palestinians, thus hiking the price of both land and property. These population increases have also concentrated Palestinians in specific neighborhoods, such as in Beit Hanina and Beit Safafa to the north and south of the Old City, respectively. There are instances in which a dozen or even two dozen people are jammed into a single house, resulting in dangerous and unhealthy living conditions. Sixth, even though Palestinians and Israelis typically wait less than two months OCTOBER 2012

for permit approval and pay identical fees for water and sewage hook-ups, Palestinians charge that Israeli officials are intentionally preventing Arab Palestinian economic and social developments in Jerusalem, as evidenced by the burdensome rules and regulations imposed on urban zoning and the issuance of building permits. For Palestinians, building permits not only are expensive, but difficult to obtain. Seventh, those who do build without permits run the risk of having their houses demolished. This happens to Israeli owners as well, but to a much lesser degree. Some Palestinian owners receive building permits for a maximum of two stories, but sometimes end up building three or four stories, which they sell or rent. Under “good” circumstances, the violator must pay hefty fines. When the demolition order is carried out, the owner (if still in the country, instead of having escaped with the profits), the buyer, and/or the renter are adversely affected. Demolition is rather costly; a Jerusalem Palestinian opted to demolish his own “permit-less” house instead of being stuck with a more than $40,000 bill from the municipal authority. Eighth, contestations over property between Israeli Jews and Palestinians (such as in East Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah or Silwan neighborhoods) add to the tragedy of the housing shortage for the Palestinians. Israeli authorities evict some families from their homes on the grounds that they possess no ownership, when they have lived on the land for decades. Israeli Jews argue that they own the property fair and square. There are instances where Palestinians’ houses are bought from absentee landlords or through intermediary agents or criminals, who often are accused of falsifying documents. The innocent and unknowing are sacrificed on the altar of expediency, lawlessness and profit. Ninth, all privately owned property is supposed to be registered in the District Lands Registry office, commonly known as “Tabu.” This allows owners and prospective buyers to determine whether there are any liens, mortgages, rights of use and/or passage, and appropriations by public authorities on the property. Tabu registration involves paying all back taxes on the land or house. That is a main reason why many owners are reluctant to initiate Tabu registration. They instead use “transitional powers of attorney,” which enable the owner and the buyer not to divulge the true price of the property, thus avoiding or postponing payment of huge taxes. Even THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

when there is a declared or formal transaction, there is a tendency not to reveal the actual price. The Israeli authorities most probably know the real or approximate property prices, but usually go along with the suggested price. Tenth, Palestinian families must make housing decisions based on their “informed calculations” as to how future Palestinian-Israeli peace talks will include or exclude their neighborhoods. Some would prefer to live in a Palestinian state, while others would opt to remain in the state of Israel. Caught in between, individuals and families become more pragmatic as they seek more favorable conditions of human security. While the issue of housing is complex, the fact remains that when people do not have a roof over their heads and do not enjoy healthy living, they feel threatened and vulnerable. In the absence of sufficient and equitable public funding for housing, it is vital that the relevant parties (e.g., civic organizations and religious authorities) step in to fill the void. These parties must cooperate in order to formulate a common vision and action plan based on inclusion, respect, peace and the practical needs of all Jerusalemites, whether they be Jewish, Muslim or Christian. Job creation also would go a long way to generating economic viability and ownership. The goal is empowerment of all people and the attainment of what the United Nations Development Program calls “freedom from want, freedom from fear, and freedom to live in dignity.” ❑ (Advertisement)

The Children’s Relief Fund Sponsoring Needy Children in Palestine and Lebanon since 1983 For donation and sponsorship opportunities visit: www.TheCRF.net A charity of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America

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No Water in the United States SpecialReport

PHOTO J. SLEIBI

By Jacoub Sleibi

Water taps have run dry in Bethlehem. ore than 2,000 years ago, Jesus, who

Mwas born in my hometown of Beth-

lehem, taught us the Lord’s Prayer: “Give us this day our daily bread.” But these days when I pray I say: “Dear Lord: Give us this day our daily bread and water.” I just came down from our roof after checking on our water barrels, and they are completely empty. Then I went to the water tap in our house to see if any drops of water remain in the pipeline—but that, too, is empty. I went to our next-door neighbor to ask if I could borrow some water, and he replied: ”Empty.” I called my sister’s house to see if I could fill some water containers, and she told me they have no water, either. We might have no water for more than three months. This, unfortunately, is not an unusual situation. It’s become a normal part of our daily life—but it’s especially aggravating during the summer, when the temperature is 36 degress Celcius (around 97 degrees Fahrenheit). The obvious question is: Why do we suffer from water cuts? The answer is that the Israeli government controls the distribution of water to the West Bank. To make matters worse, BethleJacoub Sleibi, who lives in Bethlehem, Palestine, is a former Washington Report intern from the New Story Leadership program. 20

hem is surrounded by illegal Israeli colonies which have access to water 24 hours a day. Given the limited amount of water in West Bank aquifers, Israel can only supply its colonies by restricting water to neighboring Palestinian cities. And the water supply has become even more limited due to Israel’s Apartheid wall, which has destroyed groundwater, wellsprings and water cisterns in its path through the West Bank. When our water is cut off, we are forced to buy it in bottles—not only drinking water, but mineral water for daily use! This is extremely expensive. An alternative is to order a small truck to deliver 4 cubic meters of water—enough to fill two rooftop water barrels—but we must wait our turn to get this truck, and that could take three weeks or even a month! After living with these water cuts I have learned how to reuse water so it will last longer. For example, if I use water to wash something, I can re-use that water to flush the toilet! Water cuts are only one of many difficulties Palestinians living under occupation face daily. Just today I read in the newspaper that Israel is considering cutting off electric power to the West Bank because of the huge debt owed by the Palestinian Authority since the reduction of foreign aid in THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

2011. This raises more legitimate questions: Why does Israel alone control Palestinians’ access to water and electricity? Israel also controls the Palestinian people’s access to foreign aid: America’s Israel lobby worked tirelessly to get Congress to cut U.S. aid to Palestinians after the Palestinian Authority tried to obtain full membership in the U.N. and succeeded in doing so in UNESCO. So the lobby succeeded in creating the very conditions Israel is citing as a reason for denying us electricity! Another major obstacle we face is access to health care, which is extremely miserable! The better-equipped hospitals are located in Jerusalem, where Israel does not allow us to go unless we have a permit to enter the city (for a limited time). Obtaining this permit is a very difficult and complicated process. Does Israel think we are not human beings, so that we do not need water, electricity or access to health care, but instead should be subjected to restrictions on our movements? Many of my friends who live abroad and who know how we suffer from so many obstacles have urged me, for my own sake, to seek a better life by leaving my country, Palestine. Those friends see only one side of the coin—the terrible life we live on this, our own land. The other side of the coin, however, is our dignity. I learned from my grandfathers that this land is invaluable to us. If we leave it we lose it, and if we lose it we will lose our dignity and humanity. A human being cannot live without his dignity—his land! Not everyone may understand this, but it is very clear to those of us who live under the longest military occupation in modern history—those who live in the Holy Land of Palestine. We maintain hope while living under constant fear. We have faith with no limits. We seek the small spot of light at the end of the dark tunnel and we believe in our will…our will to survive. I titled this article “No Water in the United States” instead of “in Palestine” because I thought it might attract more attention from American readers in this summer of extreme drought in so much of your country. Imagine if it were not nature causing your suffering, but the deliberate and escalating actions of your fellow man. ❑ OCTOBER 2012

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paccharts_22-27_Pac Charts for October 2012 8/28/12 7:16 PM Page 22

ELECTION WATCH

By Janet McMahon

More Secretive Than Stealth PACs: Super PACs and 501(c)(4)s Financing 2012 Presidential Race ith the exception of a measly

W$250 given to former Republi-

TOP TEN 2012 AND CAREER RECIPIENTS OF PRO-ISRAEL PAC FUNDS

can presidential candidate and selfproclaimed intellectual Newt Gingrich, Compiled by Hugh Galford the two dozen-plus pro-Israel political action committees (PACs) whose conHOUSE: CURRENT RACES SENATE: CURRENT RACES tributions to 2012 federal candidates are summarized on these pages made Ros-Lehtinen, Ileana (R-FL) $49,500 Berkley, Shelley (D-NV) $63,500 no contributions to candidates for the Engel, Eliot L. (D-NY) 31,000 Casey, Robert P ., Jr. (D-PA) 60,400 highest office of all—the presidency of Rothman, Steven R. (D-NJ) 30,000 Cardin, Benjamin L. (D-MD) 55,680 the United States. That this is not an Hoyer, Steny H. (D-MD) 29,250 Menendez, Robert (D-NJ) 55,000 anomaly points to the fact that, as far as Israel is concerned, Congress is Berman, Howard L. (D-CA) 25,500 Klobuchar, Amy J. (D-MN) 45,000 where the action is—at least when it Wasserman-Schultz, Debbie (D-FL) 21,000 McCaskill, Claire (D-MO) 44,500 comes to money. Not only do the forLowey, Nita M. (D-NY) 18,000 Nelson, Bill (D-FL) 43,650 eign country’s acolytes in the House Andrews, Robert E. (D-NJ) 16,500 Stabenow, Debbie (D-MI) 39,800 and Senate make sure that Israel reSmith, D. Adam (D-WA) 14,250 Whitehouse, Sheldon, II (D-RI) 36,500 ceives a minimum of $3 billion a year Rogers, Michael D. (R-AL) 14,000 Tester, Jon (D-MT) 30,500 in American taxpayer money, however. They also can be of help in a myriad of other ways, from lobbying House: Career Totals Senate: Career Totals the president or tying his hands to inviting Israeli Prime Minister Berkley, Shelley (D-NV) $389,555 Levin, Carl (D-MI) $729,937 Binyamin Netanyahu to address a joint session of Congress so U.S. lawmakers Engel, Eliot L. (D-NY) 300,418 Harkin, Thomas R. (D-IA) 552,950 can demonstrate their obeisance by Hoyer, Steny H. (D-MD) 264,525 Lautenberg, Frank R. (D-NJ) 503,578 jumping up and down with Tom Ros-Lehtinen, Ileana (R-FL) 258,240 McConnell, Mitch (R-KY) 498,141 Cruise-like enthusiasm. Cantor, Eric I. (R-VA) 219,230 Reid, Harry (D-NV) 393,001 But these pro-Israel PACs with Lowey, Nita M. (D-NY) 195,238 Durbin, Richard J. (D-IL) 375,421 misleading monikers (e.g., National Berman, Howard L. (D-CA) 150,050 Lieberman, Joseph I. (Ind.-CT) 366,851 Action Committee, to name the Burton, Danny L. (R-IN) 149,336 Baucus, Max (D-MT) 351,648 largest) no longer are the only game Pelosi, Nancy (D-CA) 132,800 Wyden, Ronald L. (D-OR) 345,962 in town. The Supreme Court’s 2010 Rothman, Steven R. (D-NJ) 113,503 Kirk, Mark (R-IL) 337,386 ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (FEC) has resulted in the rapid proliferation of so- appears to donate to itself, so its Super to former governor and current Senate called Super PACs and 501(c)(4) “social PAC disclosure is of little use—but at candidate Tim Kaine (D-VA) and $427,939 on behalf of former Rep. and current Senwelfare” organizations. Unlike PACs, nei- least its name identifies its agenda). According to the Center for Responsive ate candidate Heather Wilson (R-NM). ther type of group can contribute diWhere does this leave the American rectly to a candidate for federal office; in- Politics (<www.opensecrets.org>), as of stead they may make “independent” ex- Aug. 26 the two Super PACs which sup- voter? More than ever, in the dark. While penditures on behalf of or opposing a port Gov. Mitt Romney, Restore Our Fu- the media have reported on billionaire given candidate—most commonly in the ture and Citizens for a Working America casino magnate Sheldon Adelson’s millions PAC, have spent a total of $82.9 million, of dollars in contributions to, first, Ginform of television and newspaper ads. Like all political action committees, while the two supporting President grich’s Super PAC and, when that didn’t Super PACs are required to list their Barack Obama, Priorites USA Action and work out, Romney’s—after the would-be donors in FEC filings. 501(c)(4) organiza- 1911 United, have spent $22.1 million. U.S. president flew to Las Vegas to be vettions, however, are not. This has resulted Karl Rove’s Super PAC, American Cross- ted as a devoted supporter of Israel—any in many Super PACs forming affiliated roads, has made $9.2 million in indepen- more millions Adelson might donate to 501(c)(4) groups—like, for example, the dent expenditures against President 501(c)(4)s can remain forever secret. So the Emergency Committee for Israel (which Obama and $57,500 on behalf of Gover- figures that appear on these pages no nor Romney. It also has spent money for longer indicate the extent of campaign Janet McMahon is managing editor of the or against a dozen House and Senate can- contributions on behalf of a foreign govdidates, including $728,650 in opposition ernment. The words of Thomas Jefferson Washington Report. 22

THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

OCTOBER 2012

paccharts_22-27_Pac Charts for October 2012 8/28/12 7:16 PM Page 23

never were more true than they are today: “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.”

Odds and Ends As mentioned above, pro-Israel PAC names are misleadingly innocuous. One would think, however, that when given the chance they would make some stab at credibility. For instance, not one penny of the $55,680 donated by pro-Israel PACs to Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD) for his seemingly shoo-in bid for re-election— Cardin has raised nearly $6 million to his Republican opponent Daniel Bongino’s $473,091 and Independant candidate Rob Sobhani’s $227,205—came from the Maryland Association for Concerned Citizens. Instead the pro-Israel PAC from Cardin’s home state gave to House and Senate candidates in Arizona, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Indiana, Minnesota, Nevada (Shelley Berkley, natch, who has received more money in

pro-Israel PAC contributions than any other member of the House or any current candidate for the Senate), New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Go figure. Another characteristic of pro-Israel PACs is that they prefer to donate to incumbants rather than challengers (hence their $16,000 to Republican Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts versus $2,000 to his Democratic challenger, Elizabeth Warren—this despite the fact that Brown received only $4,000 in 2010, when he defeated Democratic favorite Martha Coakley, who received $17,000 from proIsrael PACs in the contest for the late Edward Kennedy’s open Senate seat). So we were startled by the figures in the race for another open Senate seat— this one in Hawaii, where Democratic incumbent Sen. Daniel K. Akaka is retiring. Democratic Rep. Mazie Hirono, who currently represents Hawaii’s 2nd congres-

sional district, is running for Akaka’s Senate seat, and has received $5,000 in pro-Israel PAC contributions. Her Republican opponent, however, has received $25,000 from pro-Israel PACs! But there’s an explanation. Linda Lingle was governor of Hawaii from 2002 to 2010. She was the first Republican governor since 1962—as well as the only female and only Jewish governor of the 50th state. She defeated then-Lieutenant Governor Hirono in the 2002 gubernatorial contest. A resident of Hawaii since the 1970s, Lingle previously served as mayor and council member of Maui County and chair of the Hawaii Republican Party. Active in the Republican Jewish Coalition, Lingle was appointed by former President George W. Bush as an honorary delegate on Bush’s trip to Jerusalem to celebrate Israel’s 60th anniversary. Looks like in Hawaii there’s not much to figure out after all. ❑

PRO-ISRAEL PAC CONTRIBUTIONS TO 2012 CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATES State Alabama

Arizona

California

Office District H H H H S H H H H H S H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H

1 2 3 6 2 3 6 7 9 2 3 5 7 9 11 12 13 14 16 17 18 19 20 23 24 25 25 26

Candidate Bonner, Josia R. Roby, Martha Rogers, Michael D. Bachus, Spencer T., III Flake, Jeff*# Barber, Ronald† Grijalva, Raúl M. Schweikert, David Pastor, Ed L. Cherny, Andrei Feinstein, Dianne* Woolsey, Lynn C. Garamendi, John Thompson, Mike Bera, Ami McNerney, Jerry Miller, George Pelosi, Nancy Lee, Barbara Speier, Jackie Costa, Jim Honda, Mike Eshoo, Anna Lofgren, Zoe Farr, Sam McCarthy, Kevin Capps, Lois McKeon, Howard P. (Buck) Rogers, Lee C. Brownley, Julia

Party

Status

2011-2012 Contributions

Career

Committees

R R R R R D D R D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D R D R D D

I I I I O I I I I O I N I I C I I I I I I I I I I I I I C O

2,500 2,500 14,000 5,000 7,500 1,000 4,000 1,000 1,000 2,000 10,000 2,500 5,500 2,500 2,500 4,000 2,500 10,500 2,000 3,000 5,000 2,500 2,500 2,500 2,500 7,500 10,500 2,000 2,000 4,000

13,650 2,500 32,325 24,500 8,250 1,000 10,000 1,000 4,800 2,000 157,342 6,000 5,500 3,500 6,700 31,100 11,693 132,800 2,000 7,000 23,500 12,500 6,750 4,250 11,650 9,000 28,417 7,500 2,000 4,000

A(D) AS AS, HS, I A

A A(D), I AS W

Min. Ldr. A AS A, B C A Maj. Whip C AS

KEY: The “Career Total” column represents the total amount of pro-Israel PAC money received from Jan. 1, 2009 through July 15, 2012. S=Senate, H=House of Representatives. Party affiliation: D=Democrat, R=Republican, Ref=Reform, DFL=Democratic Farmers Labor, Ind=Independent, Lib=Libertarian, WFP=Working Families Party. Status: C=Challenger, I=Incumbent, N=Not Running, O=Open Seat (no incumbent). *=Senate election year, #=House member running for Senate seat, †=Special Election. Committees: A=Appropriations (D=Defense subcommittee, FO=Foreign Operations subcommittee, HS=Homeland Security, NS=National Security subcommittee), AS=Armed Services, B=Budget, C=Commerce, FR=Foreign Relations (NE=Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs subcommittee), HS=Homeland Security, I=Intelligence, IR=International Relations, NS=National Security, W=Ways and Means. “–” indicates money returned by candidate, “0” that all money received was returned. OCTOBER 2012

THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

23

paccharts_22-27_Pac Charts for October 2012 8/28/12 7:16 PM Page 24

PRO-ISRAEL PAC CONTRIBUTIONS TO 2012 CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATES State California

Colorado

Connecticut

Delaware

Florida

Georgia

Hawaii

Illinois

24

Office District H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H S S S H S S H S S H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H S S H S S H H H H H H

26 26 27 28 29 30 30 31 34 36 37 38 39 44 44 46 47 48 53 1 2 5

3 At-L. 1 3 7 11 12 14 15 16 17 18 20 21 22 23 24 25 27 1 4 6 1 2 3 5 6 7 8

Candidate Gallegly, Elton Strickland, Anthony A. Chu, Judy Schiff, Adam Cardenas, Tony Berman, Howard L. Sherman, Brad Aguilar, Pete Becerra, Xavier Bono Mack, Mary Bass, Karen Sanchez, Linda Royce, Edward R. Hahn, Janice†Harman, Jane Sanchez, Loretta Lowenthal, Alan Rohrabacher, Dana Davis, Susan A. DeGette, Diana L. Polis, Jared Lamborn, Douglas Blumenthal, Richard Lieberman, Joseph I.* Shays, Christopher* DeLauro, Rosa L. Carper, Thomas R.* Coons, Christopher A. Carney, John C., Jr. Nelson, Bill* Rubio, Marco Miller, Jefferson B. Stearns, Clifford B. Mica, John L. Nugent, Richard B. Bilirakis, Gus M. Castor, Kathy Ross, Dennis A. Buchanan, Vernon Rooney, Tom West, Allen B. Hastings, Alcee L. Deutch, Theodore E. Hasner, Adam Wasserman-Schultz, Debbie Wilson, Frederica S. Diaz-Balart, Mario Ros-Lehtinen, Ileana Kingston, Jack Johnson, Henry C. (Hank) Price, Thomas E. Lingle, Linda* Hirono, Mazie K.*# Hanabusa, Colleen Wakako Durbin, Richard J. Kirk, Mark S. Jackson, Jesse, Jr. Lipinski, Daniel Quigley, Mike Roskam, Peter Davis, Danny K. Duckworth, L. Tammy

Party

Status

2011-2012 Contributions

Career

Committees

R R D D D D D D D R D D R D D D D R D D D R D Ind. R D D D D D R R R R R R D R R R R D D R D D R R R D R R D D D R D D D R D D

N O I I O I I N I I I I I I N I O I I I I I I N N I I I I I I I N I I I I I I I I I I O I I I I I I I O O I I I I I I I I C

1,000 2,500 1,000 3,500 2,500 25,500 11,000 2,500 1,000 5,000 1,000 4,000 2,500 5,500 -2,500 3,000 4,000 10,000 4,500 2,000 0 1,000 1,500 -2,000 500 10,000 22,800 1,000 500 43,650 10,500 3,000 4,000 1,500 9,100 3,000 7,500 7,000 2,000 1,000 9,500 8,000 13,000 5,000 21,000 3,500 7,250 49,500 5,000 5,000 6,000 24,000 5,000 1,000 2,000 1,000 3,500 2,500 500 6,000 2,500 2,500

51,250 2,500 1,000 70,917 2,500 150,050 83,430 2,500 4,000 16,000 3,500 22,950 7,000 5,500 121,271 66,450 4,000 11,250 14,663 2,000 0 3,500 25,500 366,851 50,550 57,400 60,400 19,000 4,500 180,871 15,600 5,500 17,500 14,150 17,100 44,316 17,400 16,500 2,000 1,000 12,000 102,850 56,600 5,000 74,300 8,500 53,750 258,240 5,500 37,200 11,500 24,000 9,000 5,000 375,421 337,386 19,350 7,900 1,500 21,750 8,750 11,474

FR

THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

A(FO), I FR FR W C B, FR FR HS AS, HS FR(NE) AS C AS AS AS, HS A HS B, FR(NE) B, C, I C, FR(NE), I AS, I

FR(NE), HS B, C W AS, I AS FR(NE) B FR A(FO) FR AS B, W AS A(D, FO), FR A(FO) A(FO) W HS OCTOBER 2012

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PRO-ISRAEL PAC CONTRIBUTIONS TO 2012 CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATES State

Office District

Illinois

Indiana

Iowa

Kentucky

Louisiana

Maine

Maryland

Massachusetts

Michigan

Minnesota

Mississippi Missouri

OCTOBER 2012

H H H H H H H H H H S S S S H H H H H H H H H S H H H H H H H H H S S S H H S H H H S S H H S S H H H H S H H H H H S S H H H

9 10 10 11 12 14 16 16 17 18

2 4 5 6 8 1 2 3 4 3 5 6 1 3 3 4 5 6

1 2 4 5 8 2 7 8 12 13 14 2 3 4 5 8 1 5 7

Candidate Schakowsky, Janice D. Dold, Robert J., Jr. Schneider, Bradley S. Foster, G. William (Bill) Costello, Jerry F. Hultgren, Randy Kinzinger, Adam Manzullo, Donald A. Bustos, Cheri Schock, Aaron J. Bayh, Evan Donnelly, Joseph S.*# Lugar, Richard G.* Mourdock, Richard E.* Mullen, Brendan B. Rokita, Theodore E. Burton, Danny L. Pence, Mike Bucshon, Larry D. Braley, Bruce L. Loebsack, David W. Boswell, Leonard L. Vilsack, Christie McConnell, Mitch Yarmuth, John A. Rogers, Harold D. Chandler, A. Ben, III Scalise, Steve Landry, Jeffrey M. Boustany, Charles, Jr. Fleming, John C., Jr. Alexander, Rodney M. Cassidy, William Collins, Susan M. Snowe, Olympia J.* King, Angus S., Jr.* Pingree, Chellie M. Michaud, Michael H. Cardin, Benjamin L.* Edwards, Donna Hoyer, Steny H. Van Hollen, Chris Brown, Scott P.* Warren, Elizabeth* McGovern, Jim Capuano, Michael E. Levin, Carl Stabenow, Debbie* Rogers, Michael J. Dingell, John D. Conyers, John, Jr. Peters, Gary Klobuchar, Amy J.* Kline, John P., Jr. Paulsen, Erik McCollum, Betty Ellison, Keith M. Nolan, Richard M. Wicker, Roger F.* McCaskill, Claire* Carnahan, John R. (Russ) Cleaver, Emanuel, II Long, Billy

Party D R D D D R R R D R D D R R D R R R R D D D D R D R D R R R R R R R R Ind. D D D D D D R D D D D D R D D D D R R D DFL DFL R D D D R

Status

2011-2012 Contributions

Career

Committees

I I C C N I I N C I N O N O O I N N I I I I C I I I I I I I I I I I N O I I I I I I I C I I I I I I I I I I I I I C I I N I I

2,000 6,500 2,600 1,000 -500 1,500 4,000 2,000 1,000 5,500 -10,000 2,000 26,500 2,500 1,000 3,000 6,000 1,000 1,500 3,500 5,000 3,000 1,000 13,000 2,500 8,500 4,000 11,500 7,000 2,500 4,500 5,000 6,000 1,000 18,000 5,000 2,000 1,000 55,680 5,000 29,250 -500 16,000 2,500 2,500 2,500 1,000 39,800 2,500 2,500 2,500 8,000 45,000 5,500 11,000 3,000 2,500 1,000 10,500 44,500 6,000 5,000 2,500

34,145 13,500 2,600 17,000 8,500 2,000 7,000 9,000 1,000 20,000 82,500 12,000 96,950 2,500 1,000 4,500 149,336 83,250 2,500 9,500 12,000 41,675 1,000 498,141 13,000 16,000 28,500 30,500 9,500 13,500 12,000 21,000 10,000 112,000 102,500 5,000 5,676 15,250 148,695 9,500 264,525 4,000 20,000 2,500 9,575 4,500 729,937 166,406 6,000 15,200 5,000 36,000 77,835 23,000 18,500 8,750 5,500 1,000 60,400 63,835 35,100 10,500 2,500

C, I

THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

FR(NE) W FR(NE) B FR FR(NE) AS A(D, FO), I B A FR(NE), I C W AS A C A(D), AS, HS C, I AS B, FR(NE) Min. Whip B AS, HS

AS, HS, I B C C C AS W A, B AS, C AS, C, HS FR HS 25

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PRO-ISRAEL PAC CONTRIBUTIONS TO 2012 CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATES State

Office District

S S S Nebraska S S S Nevada S H H H New Hampshire H New Jersey S H H H H H H H H H H H New Mexico S S New York S S H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H North Carolina H H H H North Dakota S S Northern Mariana Islands H Ohio S S S H H H H H Montana

26

1 2 4 1 1 2 3 3 6 7 9 9 10 10 11

1 2 3 4 6 6 8 9 10 13 14 16 17 20 22 23 24 24 25 26 4 5 8 12

At-L.

1 2 3 8 13

Candidate

Party

Status

2011-2012 Contributions

Career

Baucus, Max Rehberg, Dennis R. (Denny)*# Tester, Jon* Nelson, E. Benjamin* Bruning, Jon C.* Berkley, Shelley*# Heller, Dean* Titus, Alice Constandina (Dina) Marshall, Kate† Horsford, Steven A. Shea-Porter, Carol Menendez, Robert* Andrews, Robert E. LoBiondo, Frank A. Runyan, Jon Adler, Shelley Pallone, Frank, Jr. Lance, Leonard Pascrell, William J., Jr. Rothman, Steven R. Payne, Donald M. Rice, Ronald C.† Frelinghuysen, Rodney P. Heinrich, Martin T.*# Wilson, Heather A.* Gillibrand, Kirsten E.* Schumer, Charles E. Altschuler, Randolph King, Peter T. Israel, Steve J. McCarthy, Carolyn Ackerman, Gary L. Lancman, Rory Jeffries, Hakeem Weprin, David I.† Nadler, Jerrold L. Rangel, Charles B. Crowley, Joseph Engel, Eliot L. Lowey, Nita M. Tonko, Paul D. Hinchey, Maurice D. Reed, Thomas W., II Buerkle, Ann Marie Maffei, Daniel B. Slaughter, Louise M. Higgins, Brian Price, David Foxx, Virginia Kissell, Larry W. Watt, Melvin L. Berg, Richard A.*# Heitkamp, Heidi*

D R D D R D R D D D D D D R R D D R D D D D R D R D D R R D D D WFP D D D D D D D D D R R D D D D R D D R D

I C I N N C I O N O C I I I I C I I I N N N I O O I I C I I I N O O N I I I I I I N I I C I I I I I I O O

2,000 5,000 30,500 8,500 1,000 63,500 20,000 1,000 2,500 1,000 2,500 55,000 16,500 4,000 1,500 1,000 12,000 4,000 2,000 30,000 7,500 1,000 1,000 12,000 5,000 20,000 -500 5,000 2,500 3,953 1,000 2,000 1,000 7,800 2,000 1,000 1,000 3,500 31,000 18,000 1,000 2,500 1,000 2,500 2,500 2,000 2,000 5,000 1,500 500 1,000 25,000 2,500

351,648 7,500 40,724 107,760 1,000 389,555 20,000 14,100 2,500 1,000 9,500 183,318 102,025 29,750 1,500 1,000 88,550 11,000 11,853 113,503 36,250 1,000 12,350 23,000 41,250 82,450 83,885 12,500 29,000 55,012 7,825 57,350 1,000 7,800 2,000 29,000 25,500 109,157 300,418 195,238 1,000 9,780 1,000 2,500 18,500 63,880 11,600 60,827 5,000 8,500 2,750 25,000 2,500

Sablan, Gregorio K.C. Brown, Sherrod* Brown, Warren P. Mandel, Josh* Chabot, Steve Schmidt, Jeannette H. Kilroy, Mary Jo Boehner, John A. Ryan, Timothy J.

D D Ind. R R R D R D

I I N C I N N I I

2,000 28,750 6,000 8,000 3,500 10,000 5,000 11,500 1,000

2,000 92,500 6,000 8,000 20,000 14,000 20,012 95,500 8,500

THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

Committees A A(HS), HS A, AS W C

FR(NE) AS AS, I AS C C B, W A(D, FO) FR A(D, HS) AS AS HS, I FR(NE)

W W C, FR A(FO, HS) B A(D) W FR(NE) FR(NE), HS A(HS) AS W

A(FO) FR(NE) FR House Spkr AS, B OCTOBER 2012

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PRO-ISRAEL PAC CONTRIBUTIONS TO 2012 CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATES State

Office District

H H Oregon S H H H Pennsylvania S S H H H H H H H Rhode Island S S H South Carolina H South Dakota S H Tennessee S H H Texas S H H H H H H H H Utah S H Vermont H Virginia S S S H H H H Washington S H H H H West Virginia S Wisconsin S H H H H Wyoming S

Ohio

Presidential

14 16 1 3 4 3 8 8 12 13 15 17 1 1 At-L. 5 9 2 12 16 18 20 30 33 35 3 At-L.

6 7 10 11 1 5 7 9 1 3 4 7

Party

Status

2011-2012 Contributions

Career

Committees

LaTourette, Steven C. Sutton, Betty S. Wyden, Ronald L. Bonamici, Suzanne†Blumenauer, Earl DeFazio, Peter A. Casey, Robert P., Jr.* Toomey, Patrick J. Kelly, George J., Jr. (Mike) Fitzpatrick, Michael G. Boockvar, Kathryn Critz, Mark Schwartz, Allyson Y. Dent, Charles W. Holden, Timothy T. Langevin, James R. Whitehouse, Sheldon, II* Cicilline, David N. Scott, Timothy Thune, John R. Noem, Kristi Lynn Corker, Robert P., Jr.* Cooper, James H.S. Cohen, Stephen I. Dewhurst, David H.* Poe, Ted Granger, Kay Reyes, Silvestre Jackson-Lee, Sheila Gonzalez, Charles A. Johnson, Eddie Bernice Veasey, Marc A. Doggett, Lloyd Hatch, Orrin G.* Chaffetz, Jason Welch, Peter Allen, George* Kaine, Timothy M.* Warner, Mark R. Goodlatte, Robert W. Cantor, Eric I. Wolf, Frank R. Connolly, Gerry Cantwell, Maria* Inslee, Jay R. Rodgers, Cathy McMorris McDermott, James Smith, Adam A. Manchin, Joe, III* Baldwin, Tammy*# Ryan, Paul D. Kind, Ron Moore, Gwendolynne Dufffy, Sean Barrasso, John*

R D D D D D D R R R D D D R D D D D R R R R D D R R R D D D D D D R R D R D D R R R D D D R D D D D R D D R R

N I I I I I I I I I C I I I N I I I I I I I I I O I I N I N I O I I I I O O I I I I I I N I I I I O I I I I I

3,000 4,500 1,000 7,000 2,500 1,000 60,400 1,000 10,000 1,500 1,000 2,000 12,000 500 2,500 9,500 36,500 12,000 1,000 -500 500 19,500 4,000 2,500 1,000 10,000 2,500 1,000 1,000 4,500 1,000 1,000 1,000 17,500 6,000 5,000 10,500 9,500 2,500 4,500 1,500 1,000 2,500 3,500 2,000 1,350 4,000 14,250 27,500 14,615 12,500 2,500 2,500 4,500 16,491

30,000 24,000 345,962 7,000 6,500 8,600 77,400 31,250 12,500 20,000 1,000 8,000 60,650 13,750 14,000 32,000 108,500 18,000 1,000 54,230 3,000 33,500 30,250 24,000 1,000 15,000 18,000 24,000 9,000 5,500 1,000 1,000 5,500 75,200 11,000 9,000 62,900 9,500 41,500 4,500 219,230 74,000 16,500 6,344 5,500 1,350 6,000 23,325 36,500 19,615 21,250 3,500 2,500 6,000 27,491

A AS B, I

Gingrich, Newt

R

N

250

91,912

Candidate

2011-2012 Total Contributions: Total Contributions (1978-2012): Total No. of Recipients (1978-2012): OCTOBER 2012

THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

B, W FR(NE) B, C FR AS B, FR(NE) A(FO, HS) AS, I B FR B, C FR AS FR A(D, FO) AS HS C B, W B

B, C, I Maj. Ldr. A(FO) FR(NE) C C C W AS AS C B, W W B FR

$1,893,989 $52,821,354 2,353 27

mcarthur_28-30_Congress Watch 8/29/12 10:15 AM Page 28

Congress Passes Iran Sanctions Bill— Harsh, but It Could Have Been Worse CongressWatch

PHOTO BY MOLLY RILEY-POOL/GETTY IMAGES

By Shirl McArthur

President Barack Obama (seated) signs the United States-Israel Enhanced Security Cooperation Act as (standing, l-r) Richard Stone, chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), former AIPAC chairman Howard Friedman, U.S. Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA) and AIPAC board chairman Lee Rosenberg look on in the White House Oval Office, July 27, 2012. he day before Congress adjourned for its August electioneering recess, the House T and Senate passed an amended version of H.R. 1905, the far-reaching and harsh Iran sanctions bill introduced by leading Israelfirster Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) in May 2011. The House originally passed the bill last December. Then, as reported in August’s “Congress Watch,” the Senate passed the bill in May after replacing the House text with that of the slightly pared-down S. 2101, introduced in February by Sen. Tim Johnson (D-SD). Instead of going to conference to reconcile the two versions, where it likely would have faced attempts by war hawks to further toughen it, Ros-Lehtinen and Johnson privately negotiated a slightly stronger, amended version, the “Iran Threat Reduction and Syria Human Rights Act of 2012.” The new version passed the House under “suspension of the rules” (meaning limited debate and no amendments) by a roll call vote of 421-6 on Aug. 1. Those voting no Shirl McArthur, a retired U.S. foreign service officer, is a consultant based in the Washington, DC area. 28

were Reps. Justin Amash (R-MI), John Duncan (R-TN), Tim Johnson (R-IL), Walter Jones (R-NC), Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) and Ron Paul (R-TX). The Senate passed it the same day by voice vote. The amended bill expands sanctions under the Iran Sanctions Act of 1996, sanctioning companies that deal with Iran’s petroleum, petrochemical or natural gas sectors, as well as companies that offer goods, services or infrastructure to Iran’s energy, financial services or consulting industries. It also sanctions companies that insure or reinsure Iran’s oil sector or operate in joint ventures with or insure the National Iranian Oil Company. Companies that insure the National Iranian Tanker Company, sell or lease tankers to Iran, or transport crude oil from Iran also would be sanctioned. Finally, the bill establishes sanctions with respect to human rights abuses in Syria. Some of the sanctions relating to persons participating in Iran’s energy sector and certain military activities include a “U.S. national security interest” presidential waiver authority. The Syria sanctions also include presidential waiver authority. THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

While harsh, the bill as passed is not as bad as it might have been. It still includes the provision inserted in the Senate bill by Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) that “nothing in this act or the amendments made by this Act shall be construed as a declaration of war or an authorization of the use of force against Iran or Syria.” And it includes a modified version of the provision inserted in the Senate bill by Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) that military options remained on the table. The nonbinding “sense of Congress” provision urges “a comprehensive policy that includes economic sanctions, diplomacy, and military planning, capabilities and options.” It also includes a clause permitting the export or re-export of goods, services or technologies for aircraft produced in the U.S. in certain circumstances. It does not include language proposed in the Senate by Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL) and in the House by Reps. Ted Deutch (D-FL) and Robert Dold (R-IL) declaring Iran a “zone of proliferation concern.” And it does not expand existing sanctions on the Central Bank of Iran to apply to all Iranian financial institutions, nor does it penalize the directors of the board of the international clearinghouse SWIFT for allowing banks to evade the Iran sanctions. President Barack Obama signed the bill on Aug. 10 (not to have signed it would have given fodder to Republican charges that he is somehow “soft on Iran”). As also reported here in August, the House in May passed the AIPAC-promoted H.Res. 568, which says that “containing” a nuclear Iran is not an option, and “urges the president to reaffirm the unacceptability of an Iran with nuclear-weapons capability.” In the Senate, the identical S.Res. 380, introduced in February by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), met with resistance, because it could be seen as an authorization for use of force. So Graham in May introduced S.J.Res. 41, a slimmed-down version of S.Res. 380, which concludes with, “nothing in this resolution shall be construed as an authorization for the use of force or a declaration of war.” It still has not passed, but has gained two co-sponsors and now has 80, including Graham. On June 15, 44 Senate war hawks signed a OCTOBER 2012

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letter to Obama, originated by Sens. Roy Blunt (R-MO), Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and Charles Schumer (D-NY), urging the president to cut off negotiations with Iran unless Tehran “immediately” shuts down the Fordo uranium enrichment facility, freezes all uranium enrichment above 5 percent, and ships all uranium enriched above 5 percent out of the country. Previously, Schumer sent a separate letter to Obama outlining the same conditions. On the positive side, the previously described H.R. 4173, introduced in March by Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA), which would urge that the U.S. pursue all diplomatic avenues to avoid a war with Iran, has gained four cosponsors and now has 32, including Lee. Also, H.R. 5743, the FY ’13 Intelligence Authorization bill passed by the House on May 31, includes an amendment proposed by Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) to highlight the risks associated with a military attack on Iran. It says that “not later than 60 days after the enactment of this Act, the Director of National Intelligence shall submit to the congressional intelligence committees a report containing an assessment of the consequences of a military strike against Iran.” Some of the previously described antiIran measures continue to plod along. H.R. 3783, introduced in January by Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-SC), to counter Iran’s presence and activities in the Western Hemisphere, has gained three co-sponsors and now has 83, including Duncan. H.R. 4070, introduced in February by Rep. Bob Turner (RNY), to “clarify” certain provisions relating to blocked Iranian assets in the U.S., has gained 16 co-sponsors and now has 57, including Turner. And H.R. 4228, introduced in March by Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX), “to direct the Secretary of State to designate Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force as a foreign terrorist organization,” has gained two co-sponsors and now has 21, including McCaul.

Congress Passes, President Signs U.S.-Israel Security Cooperation Bill As reported in the August issue, the House passed H.R. 4133, the “U.S.-Israel Enhanced Security Cooperation” bill in May. On June 29 the Senate passed the similar S. 2165, introduced in March by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA). Like H.R. 4133, the Senate bill’s stated purpose is “to enhance strategic cooperation between the U.S. and Israel,” and its provisions amount to a wish-list of mostly defense-related goodies for Israel (apparently the “cooperation” is only one-way). Ignoring the Constitution’s granting foreign policy authority to the president, the bill also OCTOBER 2012

includes a list of pro-Israel “policy” statements, including one “to reaffirm our unwavering commitment to the security of the State of Israel as a Jewish state” and one “to veto any one-sided anti-Israel resolutions at the U.N. Security Council.” The only one even suggesting peace with the Palestinians would declare it to be U.S. policy “to assist Israel with its ongoing efforts to forge a peaceful, negotiated settlement of the IsraeliPalestinian conflict that results in two states living side by side in peace and security, and to encourage Israel’s neighbors to recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state.” One provision in S. 2165 not found in H.R. 4133 extends the Israel loan guarantee authority until Sept. 30, 2015. When passed it had 73 co-sponsors, including Boxer. Then, rather than going to conference to reconcile the two bills, the House simply took up S. 2165 and passed it by voice vote on July 17. Obama signed it on July 27 as P.L. 112-150. Also, on July 19 the House passed H.R. 5856, the FY ’13 Defense Appropriations bill. It includes $948,736,000 for the socalled “Israeli Cooperative Programs.” The bulk of that amount, $680,000,000, is for the Iron Dome short-range missile defense program. As widely reported, congressional leaders have agreed on a “continuing resolution” to continue all appropriations for FY ’13—which begins Oct. 1 of this year—at the FY ’12 level until March 30, 2013. Before then Congress will probably roll most of the appropriations bills into a large “omnibus” bill, but the defense appropriations bills usually get passed separately, so this amount for Israel probably will stand. Other previously described pro-Israel measures that have made some progress include H.Res. 630, introduced April 24 by Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ). Its only “resolved” clause says the House “fully supports Israel’s lawful exercise of self-defense up to and including action to stop Iranian aggression, including a strike against Iran’s illegal nuclear program.” It has gained 10 co-sponsors and now has 18, including Gosar. The problematic H.R. 5850, introduced in May by Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA), has gained 13 co-sponsors and now has 34, including Sherman. It would provide for the inclusion of Israel in the visa waiver program, which Israel has not qualified for because the number of Israelis coming to the U.S. on tourist visas and illegally staying on is too high. And the troublesome H.Con.Res. 115, introduced in March by Rep. Ann Marie Buerkle (R-NY), “recognizing the 64th anniversary of the independence of the State of Israel,” has gained one co-sponsor and now has THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

129, including Buerkle. After 17 questionable, and sometimes false, “whereas” clauses, the fourth of the six “resolved” clauses would seem to tell Israel that it’s okay to attack Iran. Even the AIPAC-promoted Jerusalem Embassy bill, H.R. 1006, introduced in March of last year by Rep. Dan Burton (R-IN), has gained six new cosponsors and now has 65, including Burton. Among other things it would remove the presidential waiver authority included in the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995. Even while recovering at home after a stroke, Kirk, one of Israel’s most loyal members of Congress, managed in a Twitter message to criticize the BBC’s Olympic coverage for not listing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

Congressional Interest in Syria Heats Up With events in Syria getting uglier, Congress remains divided over how to react. The Aug. 6 Washington Post published an op-ed piece by Senate war hawks Graham, Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and John McCain (R-AZ) decrying the Obama administration’s “hands off approach” and urging direct military aid for Syrian rebels. On the other hand, Rep. Paul, with two co-sponsors, on June 21 introduced H.R. 5993 to prohibit the use of funds to support “directly or indirectly, military or paramilitary operations in Syria by any nation, group, organization, movement, or individual.” On Aug. 2 Rep. Steve Pearce (R-NM) introduced H.Res. 770, expressing the sense of the House that Obama “should request authorization before sending the U.S. Armed Forces into Syria.” In the Senate, Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA) on Aug. 2 introduced S. 3498 “to provide humanitarian assistance and support a democratic transition in Syria.” Russia’s support for the Syrian government also got attention. On July 25 Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), with one co-sponsor, introduced S.Con.Res. 54 “to oppose the sale, shipment, performance of maintenance, refurbishment, modification, repair and upgrade of any military equipment from or by the Russian Federation to or for the Syrian Arab Republic.” In the House, Rep. Laura Richardson (D-CA), with six co-sponsors, on July 26 introduced H.Res. 742 “condemning the government of the Russian Federation for providing weapons to the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.” Of the previously described measures, only S.Res. 435, “calling for democratic change in Syria,” introduced in April by Sens. Casey and Marco Rubio (R-FL), has gained further support. It has gained two cosponsors, and now has a total of 12. 29

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Kirk Seeks to Redefine Palestinian Refugees For several years Kirk has been a foe of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) that provides services to Palestinian refugees—even though these services are supported by the Israeli government. In the Senate Appropriations Committee he took a different approach, proposing an amendment to S. 3241, the Foreign Operations Appropriations bill (which includes foreign aid), that would require the State Department to report on how many refugees receiving UNRWA assistance are descendants of those displaced in 1948, as opposed to those who were actually displaced. Foreign operations subcommittee chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) strongly objected to the amendment, citing a State Department letter pointing out that “the status of Palestinian refugees is one of the most sensitive final status issues confronting Palestinians and Israelis.” In the end, Leahy proposed a substitute, which was passed by the committee, modifying Kirk’s language and adding a clause saying the State Department report should include “the extent to which the provision of such services to such persons furthers the security interests of the U.S. and of other U.S. allies in the Middle East.” A telling June 12 article in the Israeli publication Haaretz reported that Kirk’s amend-

ment got its start in the Jerusalem office of Knesset Member Einat Wilf, who worked for months with AIPAC lobbyists and Kirk’s deputy chief of staff, Richard Goldberg, who “is promoting the senator’s legislative efforts” while Kirk is recovering from a stroke. At any rate, it is unlikely that the Kirk/ Leahy amendment will make it into the large “omnibus” appropriations Congress is expected to pass before the end of next March, as described above. Of the previously reported anti-Palestinian bills, only H.R. 5303, introduced April 27 by Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA), has gained support. It says that no funds may be provided to the Palestinian Authority (PA) unless the secretary of state certifies that certain accounting provisions have been met, and “the PA no longer engages in a pattern of incitement against the U.S. or Israel and is engaged in peace preparation activities aimed at promoting peace with the Jewish State of Israel.” The bill has gained two co-sponsors and now has 31, including Royce.

Islamophobia Alive and Well in the U.S. House of Representatives In June five Know-Nothing-Party Republicans, led by Rep. Michele Bachmann (MN), wrote to the inspectors general of the departments of Defense, Homeland Security, Justice and State and of the Directorate of

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THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

National Intelligence asking that they investigate the extent to which the Muslim Brotherhood and “other radical groups” have infiltrated their organizations. The letter to the State Department specifically cited as a secret Muslim Brotherhood “agent” Huma Abedin, a Muslim-American aide to Secretary Hillary Clinton and the wife of Jewish former Rep. Anthony Weiner (DNY), who before he resigned in disgrace was a perennial member of the Washington Report “Hall of Shame.” The letters elicited scathing reactions from all sides, including from Republicans McCain and House Speaker John Boehner (OH). In an eightminute speech on the Senate floor, McCain called the accusations “nothing less than an unwarranted and unfounded attack,” and said they “have no logic, no basis and no merit. And they need to stop now.” Boehner called the accusations “dangerous.” Muslim-American Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) wrote to Bachmann challenging her accusations. Bachmann and her fellow inquisitors, Reps. Trent Franks (AZ), Louie Gohmert (TX), Tom Rooney (FL) and Lynn Westmoreland (GA), did not back down. Bachmann even sent a 16-page response to Ellison repeating her accusations.

Aid to Egypt, Pakistan Comes Under Renewed Attack The defense appropriations bill referred to above also included an amendment proposed by Gosar prohibiting aid to countries or groups, including the Muslim Brotherhood, that pose “threats to the international community.” In addition, 35 House Republicans, led by Rep. Joe Walsh (IL), wrote to Boehner, Majority Leader Eric Cantor (RVA), Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD) urging them to “withhold all U.S. aid to the Egyptian government” until its new government agrees to abide by “Egypt’s treaties, promote peace with Israel, and continue to recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state.” Aid to Pakistan came under fire over the jailing of Dr. Shakil Afridi, who played a part in the capture of Osama bin Laden. The defense appropriations bill also included an amendment offered by Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX) to cut $650 million in aid to Pakistan. And Senator Paul on June 4 and 6 respectively introduced S. 3260, with no co-sponsors, and S. 3269, with seven co-sponsors, prohibiting aid to Pakistan until Afridi is freed. The similar H.R. 5924 was introduced in the House by Rep. Connie Mack (R-FL) with three cosponsors. ❑ OCTOBER 2012

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Egypt: A Step in the Right Direction SpecialReport

By George S. Hishmeh hatever one fears as a result of the

command in Egypt, it still could be considered a step in the right direction, since the ruling military leaders have been shafted and the country’s first elected president in six decades landed on top. If nothing else, it may spell the elimination of military rule—a hope that is prevalent in many neighboring Arab countries, evident in the demands heard, loud and clear, during the democracy-wielding Arab Spring. At lightning speed, Mohamed Morsi, the first Egyptian to be elected president in 60 years on June 24, swept the seven top Egyptian military leaders out of office in August. All were members of the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), headed by Field Marshal Mohammed Hussein al-Tantawi, a defense minister for 20 years during the regime of the ousted president, Hosni Mubarak, and whose second term had been renewed only the previous week. Also kicked out were the army chief of staff, Sami Hafez Anan, and the heads of the air force, air defense branches and the navy. Moreover, Morsi, a former leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, nullified a constitutional declaration issued by SCAF just before he assumed the presidency that restricted his authority by empowering the military. But on Aug. 12 the president countered by issuing his own declaration, giving himself broad legislative and executive power—a step that may be limited if the new constitution that is currently being drafted, hopefully in a hurry, does not favor his position by awarding him total power. Surprisingly, there was no public objection from the military leaders, who were replaced by a younger generation of officers—Field Marshal Tantawi is in his late 70s and had served as de facto president since Mubarak’s downfall. This gave rise to speculation that the step may have been negotiated with the outgoing military leaders behind closed doors. The new younger members of SCAF include Gen. Abdul Fattah al-Sissi, a former head of military intelligence and now defense minister; Sidqi Subhi, a former army George S. Hishmeh is a Washington-based columnist. He was the former editor-in-chief of The Daily Star of Lebanon. OCTOBER 2012

MARK WILSON/GETTY IMAGES

Wsudden and unexpected change in

Less than two weeks after their July 31 meeting in Cairo with U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta (c), Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi (r) fired Gen. Hussein al-Tantawi (l). commander, as new chief of staff; and Mohammed al-Assar, assistant to the defense minister, a position he held previously. Michele Dunne, director of the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East, writes that “al-Assar’s mention might be read as a signal of reassurance to the United States, as he has been responsible for handling military relations with Washington for years.” (U.S. military aid to Egypt totals some $1.5 billion annually.) The Washington Post reported on Aug. 14 that the Obama administration had “exhaled a collective, if perhaps a temporary, sigh of relief” on learning that General alSissi was named defense minister, because he was well-known to U.S. officials. One of those unnamed officials said the new Egyptian minister had previously “espoused cooperation with the United States and the need for peace with neighbors,” presumably Israel. Nevertheless, the paper reported that “still, the level of U.S. influence with the new Egyptian government remains uncertain and hard to predict.” On the other hand, it seemed obvious that the two senior government officials—Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta—who visited with Egyptian officials in Cairo recently must have been surprised by the sudden turn of events there, THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

since both never indicated that any serious changes in the Egyptian hierarchy were imminent. Yet, a senior military official maintained that “there isn’t a lot of concern at this point.” A high point in the U.S. reaction, a socalled “red flag,” has been Sissi’s acknowledgment that Egyptian military officials had conducted “virginity tests” on female demonstrators during the revolution in Cairo’s Tahrir Square (see May 2012 Washington Report, p. 44). For the record, General Sissi told human rights activists that the tests were carried out so that women would not claim to have been raped during interrogation, but The Washington Post underlined that the Egyptian general had acknowledged that the tests were a mistake. The days ahead may still be full of surprises, nationally, regionally and internationally. The main issue remains the new constitution, whose authors are still a guessing game. New hurdles are anticipated, including more security problems in the Sinai, where 16 soldiers were killed by unidentified militants on Aug. 5—an event that helped President Morsi to step forward and dislodge the old guard. All depends on whether his key supporters, the Muslim Brotherhood, can usher in a period of tranquility. ❑ 31

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The Kurds Stir the Regional Pot SpecialReport

A PEOPLE WITHOUT A COUNTRY, OLIVE BRANCH PRESS, 1993

By Patrick Seale

hile the world’s gaze is riveted on

WPresident Bashar al-Assad’s life-and-

death struggle with his domestic and foreign enemies, the Kurds have seized the opportunity to boost their own political agenda. In a dramatic development, Kurdish forces in late July seized five Kurdishmajority towns in northern Syria, which lie in a strip of territory along the Turkish border. The Syrian government has allowed them to do so by withdrawing its troops. These events have aroused ancient fears in Turkey and Iraq, as well as quiet jubilation in Israel, which has long had a semiclandestine relationship with the Kurds, and welcomes any development which Patrick Seale is a leading British writer on the Middle East. His latest book is The Struggle for Arab Independence: Riad elSolh and the Makers of the Modern Middle East (Cambridge University Press). Copyright © 2012 Patrick Seale. Distributed by Agence Global. 32

might weaken or dismember Syria. Kurdish politics are fiendishly complicated but, in the present context, several groups deserve special mention: • The Democratic Union Party (PYD), formed in 2003 and led by Salih Muslim Muhammad, is by far the strongest single Kurdish group in Syria. It is armed and disciplined, and has not hesitated to use force against rivals and opponents. • The Kurdish National Council (KNC), formed in October 2011, is a loose (largely unarmed) political alliance of 11 Syrian Kurdish parties or factions. • The Kurdish Workers Party, or PKK, is a militant Kurdish organization in Turkey, which has waged war against the Turkish state in the interests of Kurdish independence over the past several decades. Ankara considers the PKK a terrorist organization and has regularly bombed its clandestine bases in the Qandil mountains of northern Iraq. The Syrian PYD is closely affiliated to the PKK, some would even say it is a political front for it. THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

• The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) rules a semi-independent Kurdish entity in northern Iraq, with a population of about 5 million. Erbil is its capital and its leader is President Massoud Barzani, first elected in 2005 and re-elected in 2009. This Kurdish autonomous enclave was born out of the long wars which Iraq’s former dictator Saddam Hussain waged against the Kurds. In its present form, the KRG took shape after the first Gulf war of 1991, when the United States protected the Kurds by setting up a no-fly zone in northern Iraq. The KRG was then consolidated when the U.S. and Britain invaded Iraq in 2003, overthrew Saddam Hussain, and prepared the ground for the restructuring of Iraq as a federal state of separate Arab and Kurdish entities. This is the background to the alliance which President Barzani negotiated at Erbil on July 11 between the PYD and the KNC, giving them joint responsibility for the border strip between Syria and Turkey—with the PYD, the stronger partner, in the driving seat. The withdrawal of Syrian troops made this Kurdish takeover possible.

Kurdish Ambitions Needless to say, these events have fired the ambitions of some Kurdish militants who imagine that a Kurdish Regional Government might now come to birth in northern Syria, on the model of the one in northern Iraq. The English-language edition of Rudaw (an Iraqi Kurdish periodical), carried a piece on July 23 by a Kurdish journalist, Hiwa Osman, in which he wrote: “The Kurdish Region of Syria? Yes, it is possible. Now is the time to declare it!” A Turkish journalist, Mehmet Ali Birand, went further still when he wrote that “a mega-Kurdish state is being founded,” potentially linking Kurdish enclaves in Turkey, Iraq and Syria. Turkey is understandably alarmed by this resurgence of expansionist Kurdish goals. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has accused Syria of giving the PKK “custody” of northern Syria and has warned that Turkey would “not stand idle” in the face of this hostile development. “Turkey is capable of exercising its OCTOBER 2012

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right to pursue Kurdish rebels inside Syria, if necessary,” he declared. He clearly finds intolerable the prospect of the PKK establishing a safe haven in northern Syria, from which to infiltrate fighters into Turkey. He has sent Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu to Erbil to ask Massoud Barzani—no doubt in forceful terms—what game he thinks he is playing. There is fevered speculation in the Turkish press that Erdogan is planning a military attack on northern Syria to create a buffer zone, with the twin objectives of defeating and dispersing Syrian Kurdish forces and of creating a foothold, or safe zone, for Syrian rebels fighting Bashar al-Assad. What of Syria’s calculations? There are three possible reasons why President Assad withdrew his troops from the Kurdish border region: He needs the troops for the defense of Damascus and Aleppo; he wants to punish Erdogan for his support of the Syrian opposition; and he is anxious to conciliate the Kurds, so as to dissuade them from joining the rebels. In fact, he started wooing them some months ago by issuing a presidential decree granting Syrian citizenship to tens of thousands of Kurds— something they had been seeking for more than half a century. What does Iraq’s Prime Minister Nuri alMaliki think of these developments? He is clearly watching the Syrian crisis with anxious attention. If Assad were to fall and be replaced by an Islamist regime, this could revive the hopes of Iraq’s minority Sunni community—and its al-Qaeda allies—that Maliki and his Shi’i alliance could also be toppled. Another of Maliki’s worries must be the possible influx into Iraq from Syria of thousands of militant Kurds who would serve to strengthen Kurdish claims to Kirkuk and its oil. What are the Kurds’ own objectives? In spite of the concessions Assad has made to them, they have no love for him. But nor do they like the opposition. The PYD is hostile to the Turkish-based Syrian National Council, which it considers a Turkish puppet. More generally, the Kurdish national movement, which is essentially secular, has long been at odds with the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, and dreads its coming to power in Damascus. The PYD leader Salih Muslim Muhammad is more philosophical. He was quoted as saying: “The ruling powers in Damascus come and go. For us Kurds, this isn’t so important. What is important is that we Kurds assert our existence.” The Syrian Kurds do not expect to win their independence from the Syrian state. They know OCTOBER 2012

that it is not a realistic goal: Kurdish enclaves in Syria are too scattered. They do seek, however, a large measure of autonomy, in which they no longer face discrimination, and in which their rights, both political and cultural, are guaranteed. Erdogan is no doubt watching how the PYD and the KNC run the Kurdish towns they now control on the Syrian border. If they behave, he will not intervene. But if

they start infiltrating fighters into Turkey, he is bound to react forcefully. For its part, the PKK has warned that, if the Turks intervene, it will turn “all of Kurdistan into a war zone.” A major factor of instability has thus been added to an already volatile region. The Kurdish pot is simmering. If it boils over, it risks scalding everyone within reach. ❑

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Between Turkey and Israel, the Wounds Run Deep SpecialReport

OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT

By Marvine Howe

Turkey’s President Abdullah Gul at his summer residence in the Tarabya resort north of Istanbul, overlooking the Bosphorus. n the surface, it would seem that rela-

Otions between Turkey and Israel are

flourishing once again, two years after the Mavi Marmara disaster, when Israel Defense Forces assaulted a Turkish cruise ship on a humanitarian mission to Gaza, killing eight Turkish citizens and a young Turkish-American. While diplomatic relations have been downgraded to the level of second secretary, Turkish Airlines, which has been operating four flights daily between Istanbul and Tel Aviv, announced it would increase flights to 32 a week in October. Commercial trade also is up between the two countries, and while new military cooperation has been suspended, old defense contracts have been respected. Both senior Turkish and Israeli officials insist they want to restore the normal, friendly relations that prevailed before May 31, 2010, when Israeli commandos accosted the flotilla of six passenger and cargo ships in international waters of the Mediterranean. Marvine Howe is a former New York Times bureau chief in Ankara and author of the forthcoming Al Andalus Rediscovered: Iberia’s New Muslims. 34

But the two sides appear locked in their original positions. Turkey contends that the flotilla was an international volunteer effort to bring relief to the blockaded Gaza Strip, and demands an apology from Israel for its armed attack on the Turkish passenger ship and the death of nine civilians and injuring of 20. Israel argues that the flotilla organizers were radical Islamists, whose humanitarian mission was a provocation to be followed by other shipments with military aid, presenting a security threat. The Mavi Marmara was the lead ship of the international flotilla, with nearly 700 participants from 36 countries, bearing 10,000 tons of humanitarian aid, with the aim of piercing the Israeli blockade of Gaza. It was organized primarily by a Turkish Islamic volunteer agency, the Humanitarian Relief Foundation, which has sent aid to countries around the world devastated by earthquakes, floods, famine and conflict. Known by its Turkish initials IHH, the charity organization is well known in Turkey but banned by Israel as a “terrorist organization,” because of its contacts with Hamas. The flotilla’s co-sponsor was the Free Gaza Movement, a coalition of proPalestinian groups and human rights activists, who had succeeded in sending small vessels with medical supplies through the blockade into Gaza twice in 2008. A Turkish court on May 29, 2012 formally pressed charges of manslaughter against four Israel Defense Forces officers who were commanders at the time of the Mavi Marmara incident: Israel’s former military chief, Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, the former commander-in-chief of the Israeli navy, Eliezer Marom, former chief of Israeli military intelligence Amos Yadlin, and the former intelligence chief of the Israeli air force, Avishai Lavy. The indictment said the four face nine consecutive life terms in prison for “inciting to kill.” “Killing people is unacceptable, especially when their only purpose was charity,” Ramazan Ariturk, a member of the Turkish team of lawyers representing the victims of the Mavi Marmara raid, declared in an August interview. “We can’t bring the people back, but we want to prevent this from happening again.” A founding partner of the Elmadag Law Firm at Istanbul’s World Trade Center, Ariturk said THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

that investigations underway show that 174 Israeli soldiers landed on the unarmed ship, and 37 have been fully identified. Turkish lawyers, in conjunction with attorneys from other countries involved in the case, namely France, England and Belgium, also presented the case to the International Court of Justice a year ago. “I believe there will be results,” Ariturk said confidently. Israel has already offered $6 million in compensation through the Turkish Embassy and would have given $10 million, Ariturk disclosed, ”but we rejected their offer.” He thinks the Israeli government regrets not having apologized to Turkey and paid compensation to the families at the outset. “In the long run, Israel will lose,” the attorney stated. “Turkey can’t go back to the old relations.” Turkish diplomatic sources who followed the case closely stress that the Israeli government had been informed that the flotilla would not breach the blockade and had been instructed to head south to Egypt after its show of protest. The main problem, according to these sources, is that Israel cannot admit that it was wrong to attack the flotilla in international waters. “They should have said straight away: ‘we’re friends and friends make mistakes,”’ said a Turkish diplomat, “and it would have been much easier to reach an accord.” According to this source, there have been three secret high-level Israeli-Turkish meetings in Belgium and Geneva to work out an Israeli apology. “But they failed because [Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin] Netanyahu feared [Foreign Minister Avigdor] Lieberman would pull out of the coalition government,” the diplomat said, adding that while the meetings have stopped, there are still back channel phone calls. He stressed that Turkey is not demanding that Israel lift its blockade but that it ease the restrictions to allow humanitarian aid through. “It’s their move now if they want to restore relations, but I think they won’t solve the problem until there’s a change in government,” confided the Turkish diplomat. Over the summer, as the situation in Syria disintegrated dangerously, Israeli leaders made conciliatory statements toward Turkey, apparently in hopes of a rapprochement in light of the new common threat. “We want to restore relations with OCTOBER 2012

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Turkey,” Netanyahu told a group of Turkish journalists in Jerusalem, adding that Turkey and Israel are “stable and important countries in an unstable region.” Earlier, Yigal Palmor, a spokesman for Israel’s Foreign Ministry, told Turkish journalists that agreement had been reached on an apology, but it had been put on hold because Turkish officials had posed new conditions. He referred to a declaration by Turkey’s prime minister demanding that Israel lift the blockade on Gaza and statements by other officials that Turkey could not guarantee that private sources would not bring legal action over the Mavi Marmara case. The Israeli official also made public the wording of an apology, which reads: “If possible operational mistakes led to unintentional damage and unintended loss of life, then Israel apologizes.” Turkish observers have noted this is not a legal admission of wrongdoing. “If the Israelis want to talk and reach an accord, then why don’t they?” a high level Turkish official, who requested anonymity, responded. Declaring that Israel has been isolated by its estrangement with Turkey, the official disclosed an underlying grievance the government bears against its erstwhile ally. “The problem is that Israel never appreciated what we did; we gave them an opening to the Islamic world. Turkey is the only Muslim country to invite a high Israeli official, President Shimon Peres, to address parliament, in November 2007. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was the first Muslim to pay a state visit to Israel in 2005 and offered to serve as a Middle East peace mediator.” More than anyone, undoubtedly, Turkey’s ancient Jewish community, which numbers about 20,000, would like to see a peaceful resolution to the Mavi Marmara crisis. I met two leaders of The Jewish Community of Turkey organization in a pleasant café up the hill from the restored synagogue—carefully guarded after two major terror attacks by the rogue Palestinian Abu Nidal in 1986, and by al-Qaeda in 2003, which had made a deep impact on the community. The group’s vice president, Ishak Ibrahimzadeh, said that in the tense period following the Mavi Marmara incident, police had been put on guard to avoid any “misunderstandings, such as reactions to Jewish institutions through manipulation.” Israel “could and should have handled the case better,” the Jewish businessman said. On the other hand, he added, Turkey’s prime minister handled the aftermath of the incident “carefully and responsibly,” declaring that the issue was between the OCTOBER 2012

two governments and not the people of the two countries. The prime minister also stressed that Turkish Jewish citizens should not be linked to what was happening, and thereby the community felt safer. Deniz Baler Saporta, the Community’s executive director, said the flotilla group and their organizers should have been better considered and evaluated more seriously by the Israelis, and the case should be handled “more responsibly.” Asked if the Jewish community would remain in Turkey, Saporta responded directly, “We believe we have a future here though we still have to make progress in our country for a better collective future.” There were no special laws against Jews, she emphasized: “We’re treated as everyone should be treated; still, issues such as preventing hate speech have to be dealt with more strongly, and the press has to act accordingly and should show the necessary sensitivity.”

Ankara’s Independent Policy The question is how Turkish–Israeli relations ever became so close in the first place. Turkey, with an estimated population of 80 million—99 percent of whom are Muslim—has observed an independent and seemingly contradictory policy on the Arab-Israeli question. The first Muslim country to recognize the state of Israel in 1949, and a member of NATO since 1952, Turkey has, however, supported the Arabs at key junctures, including the 1967 and 1973 wars with Israel; denounced the move of Israel’s capital to Jerusalem in 1980; condemned the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982; and has consistently taken pro-Palestinian positions. But from 1990 to 1997, Ankara signed a number of accords with Israel that openly challenged the Arab policies toward the Jewish state, according to Deniz Tansi, professor of international relations at Yeditepe University in Istanbul. It was the Kurdish problem that revived old strains between Turkey and its Arab neighbors, which had at one time been subjects of the Ottoman Empire. In 1986, the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, carried out its first armed attack in eastern Turkey, and has waged a deadly guerrilla war against the Turkish state ever since. For a long time, the militant nationalist Kurdish group was based in Syria, which has border and water problems with Turkey. Iraq and Iran have also played the Kurdish card against Turkey at different times. Against this background of continued tension with their neighbors, a group of Turkish military commanders flew to Israel in February 1996 and signed a farTHE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

reaching Military Cooperation and Training Pact. This was soon followed by other accords for upgrading Turkish fighter jets and tanks, military training, defense procurement and intelligence. Under a Free Trade Accord, Israel soon became Turkey’s main export market in the region. When the new conservative Justice and Development Party came to power in 2002 through a landslide electoral victory, observers expected a significant change in Turkey’s Western-oriented foreign policy. Known by its Turkish initials, the AK Party was led by former Istanbul Mayor Erdogan, Abdullah Gul, former parliamentarian, and other reformists from the banned Islamist-inspired Refah Party, but also included social conservatives, nationalists and independents. From 2002-2009, however, the AK Party government was absorbed by its overriding ambition to join the European Union. With the charismatic Erdogan as prime minister and the rational Gul foreign minister and now president, Turkey pursued its open, pro-Western policies, including the close ties with Israel, while engaging in reforms demanded by the European Union involving human rights, Kurdish rights and reducing the political power of the military. According to Sedat Ergin, a widely respected columnist for the Turkish daily Hurriyet, the breach in Turkey’s partnership with Israel occurred over the latter’s threeweek assault on Gaza in late 2008 and early 2009, in which at least 1,300 Palestinians and 14 Israelis were killed. During a debate on Gaza at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Prime Minister Erdogan vented his rage on his former friend, Israeli President Peres. “When it comes to killing, you know very well how to kill,” Erdogan said, and stormed out of the Forum. The Turkish leader was particularly incensed over the Gaza assault because he had spent the previous eight months promoting Israeli-Syrian peace talks, which fell another victim of the Gaza attack. Back in Istanbul and around the Middle East, which had seen Erdogan’s clash with Peres on YouTube, the Turkish leader was hailed as a hero. “Every time he slams Israel, Erdogan gains popularity at home and in the Arab world,” Ergin commented. But the Turkish journalist stressed that the situation was dangerous because it was generating hate speech, where people were beginning to blame Israel for everything that’s bad. “There must be an apology for Mavi Marmara. We can’t go back to the high intensive cooperation of before,” he acknowledged, “but the situation must be improved.” ❑ 35

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The Syrian Debacle: Search for an Exit By Fehmy Saddy, Ph.D.

SpecialReport

weapons is “safely” in the hands of military commanders who would use them judiciously is cited as further justification for CIA involvement in the Syrian crisis.

JOSEPH EID/AFP/GETTYIMAGES

U.S. Strategic Objectives

Syrians inspect damage at the site of a car bombing in the mainly Druze and Christian suburb of Jaramana, on the southeastern outskirts of Damascus, Aug. 28, 2012. s the Syrian crisis enters its 18th

Amonth, all parties involved seem to

have reached the conclusion, grudgingly, that only a political solution can end the human tragedy and provide any hope for a better future for the Syrian people. What began as a peaceful revolution in the context of an Arab Spring, representing a people’s aspirations for freedom, has turned into an East-West power play in which the Syrians themselves are being sacrificed. Whether supporting the Syrian regime or the opposition, it is their own interests that regional and international players are trying to advance—with disastrous consequences. Regardless of which party ultiFehmy Saddy, Ph.D. is president of FS Partners SA. The author of numerous articles and editor and contributor to several books, he served in the Syrian Foreign Service in the late 1960s, earned degrees from Damascus University Law School and American University School of International Service and Washington College of Law, and has taught at the American University of Beirut, Kuwait University, University of Maryland and American University in Washington, DC. 36

mately prevails, all Syrians will be losers. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton traveled to Turkey in mid-August to “assess” with Turkish authorities the need for further actions against the Syrian regime. Her visit came on the heels of new sanctions issued by Washington. The astute American diplomat announced a $5 million donation to help address the humanitarian needs of the 1.5 million Syrians who are internally displaced or refugees. This token support—amounting to $3.30 per person—apparently is intended to guarantee Washington, along with its regional allies and clients, a role in planning Syria’s future. But that is not the only contribution the U.S. is making to the opposition. As is its wont, the CIA is overseeing the distribution of arms supplied by regional actors to certain opposition factions, and providing training in the use of U.S.-supplied telecommunication equipment. Washington wants to ensure that weapons do not fall into the wrong hands, meaning alQaeda—but not meaning Islamists willing to follow its instructions. Syria’s announcement that its stockpile of chemical THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

Shortly after the crisis erupted, the United States announced that President Bashar alAssad had lost his legitimacy to rule. Beyond the rhetoric, however, Washington’s timid and limited involvement has led to escalation of the conflict and its expansion into a civil war. A strong and determined U.S. position from the outset, in coordination with Russia, could have prevented the conflict from spreading. Moscow stated repeatedly that its interests lie with the Syrian people, signaling that it was willing to work out a solution that would remove President Assad from power. Indeed, in an interview with Barbara Walters, President Assad himself signaled that he would not hold on to power if the Syrian people no longer want him as their president. These gestures were ignored, however, because the U.S. had other considerations in mind. Even though it knew that Assad would not give up power voluntarily, and that dislodging him could only be achieved with Russia’s support, accepting Moscow’s offer would have defeated U.S. strategic objectives. Russia, after all, is America’s rival in the struggle for control of the Euro-Asian land mass. Therefore, the Syrian crisis offered the U.S. an opportunity to exploit. Firstly, Moscow’s influence in and arming of the garrison state leaves a gap in NATO’s plan to encircle Russia with a missile “defense” system. Secondly, bringing down the Syrian regime would break the strategic link among Iran, Iraq and the Hezbollah in Lebanon, thereby making it easier to attack Iran in case the military option is chosen. And thirdly, a civil war in Syria would polarize an Arab country which has long prided itself on its social cohesion. This scenario, of course, has been the fantasy of Israeli strategists for decades, as a way to affirm that Israel, as a state based on religion, is not an anomaly in the context of the Middle East’s mosaic societies. Not surprisingly, this line of thinking is OCTOBER 2012

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not lost on Russia, which continues to support the Syrian regime, even while expressing its disgust at the atrocities committed by its client. Russia’s alliance with Iran and Syria is fundamental to maintaining its influence in the Middle East. From Moscow’s perspective this is a zero-sum game, and under no circumstances will it give in to international pressure. It is quite clear that the Free Syrian Army and the plethora of volunteer fighter brigades cannot stand up to the overwhelming military arsenal the Syrian regime has at its disposal. In other words, short of foreign military intervention, the regime’s killing machine cannot be stopped. Cognizant of these facts, the U.S. and its NATO allies have been reluctant to endorse the idea of secure no-fly zones in Syria. This not only would pit NATO forces against Russian arms in a proxy war, but it would also increase the risk of the use of chemical weapons. But times have changed as well: it is no longer the 1990s in Kosovo, just after the break-up of the Soviet Union, when the U.S. reigned supreme and heralded the dawn of a New American Century. Today Russia is a wealthier, stronger and more confident country under President Vladimir Putin, who is determined to rebuild his country’s military power. By contrast, the United States is a poorer, deeply divided and demoralized country under President Obama, whose sole design for America’s future at the moment is to be reelected for a second term. This leaves the U.S. with only one option, supplying the Syrian opposition with some advanced weapons. This escalation, however, would only deepen the crisis and extend the human tragedy—and, in any case, it is unlikely to bring down the regime anytime soon. Even Secretary of State Clinton acknowledged that she could not predict when this would happen—despite the fact that she claims the demise of the Syrian regime is a foregone conclusion. Therefore, Syrians should be asking themselves how much longer they should endure the killing and devastation until the regime is brought down, and by what means. Most importantly, they should be asking themselves what benefits they would gain from bringing Syria under American influence.

elected government by instigating a military coup in 1949—three years after Syria became independent of France, and only one year after Israel declared its independence. Washington played a key role in all successive Syrian military coups up to 1970, when Gen. Hafez al-Assad carried out the last one. Whenever the security of Israel was perceived to be at risk, the U.S. took immediate measures to ensure that Israel maintained supremacy. During the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, for example, it mounted an air bridge to supply Israeli forces with military equipment and munitions to reverse the balance of forces on the ground. Israel is the only country in the world that has access to the highest U.S. military technology through a strategic military cooperation agreement. To bring the account current, in his 2000 meeting in Geneva with then-President Bill Clinton, President Hafez al-Assad sought and received the American’s endorsement of his succession plan, thus enabling the establishment of the Assad dynasty. More recently, when it could not use its own “enhanced” investigation techniques on American soil, the U.S. used the Syrian regime’s efficient torture apparatus as part of its “rendition” program. Therefore, Syrians must reflect seriously on whether the U.S. is the right partner to build democracy in Syria. Nevertheless, some radical elements of the opposition have chosen to ignore the above facts and allied themselves with the U.S. and its regional allies and clients. The Syrian National Council, dominated by the Muslim Brothers, has objected consistently to a dialogue with the Assad regime without preset conditions. Taking a page from Machiavelli’s The Prince, Syrian-American Islamists operating under the guise of the Syrian American Council have even “schmoozed” with organized American Jewry and sought its assistance in creating a “Strategy for a Free Syria.”

Ending the Stalemate Today, Syria is living through its golden age of barbarism. Every day brings more casualties, more atrocities and more refugees, while the country is being dismantled piece by piece. As stalemate sets in, it is time for the Syrians themselves to ponder an exit that safeguards the territorial integrity of their homeland and preserves its social cohesion. The opposition’s outright rejection of dialogue with the regime is untenable. On the contrary, the current stalemate makes dialogue not only a necessity but, given the alternative to dialogue, a test of true patriotism. After all, in the absence of dialogue the most likely outcomes are the disintegration of the homeland and the shredding of the social fabric. According to diplomatic and conflict of resolution principles, parties to a conflict can only make concessions when they are offered a way out. The Assad regime feels trapped by sanctions and threatened with annihilation. Thus it has circled the wagons and is determined to fight to the finish. It, too, seems willing to pay the enormous costs of dismembering the country, destroying its social fabric and reducing to rubble the remains of its cultural heritage. Therefore, it is imperative at this juncture for secular and moderate Syrians from across the political spectrum to come together and engage in a serious dialogue to find an exit out of the current debacle. The call for a cessation of hostilities for three months is an idea that should be seriously considered. Such a cease-fire in place would provide a cooling-off period during which the Syrians themselves would engage in discussions to find an acceptable solution. It will not be easy, but the refusal even to try negotiation is the ultimate failure—and one which all Syrians would come to regret. ❑

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U.S. Designs for “Democracy” A cursory review of Washington’s historic policy toward Syria is instructive. As Miles Copeland recounts in The Game of Nations, the U.S. aborted Syria’s first democratically OCTOBER 2012

THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

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“Worlds Within Worlds: Imperial Paintings From India and Iran” SpecialReport

By Barbara G.B. Ferguson he sumptuous exhibit at the Smithson-

Tian’s Sackler Gallery in Washington, DC,

“Worlds Within Worlds: Imperial Paintings From India and Iran,” marks the first time the lavish manuscripts of the Timurids of Central Asia and Mughals of India have been publicly displayed together. These great Mughal and Persian paintings are “completely intertwined. The challenge is that we have two incredibly rich traditions and collections,” said the Sackler curators of the exhibit, Drs. Massumeh Farhad and Debra Diamond, during a recent press tour at the museum, located on the National Mall. “The Mughals were the apogees of sophistication in the Islamic world, and they created an art that was utterly revolutionary and totally Indian and deeply connected to the broader world, including Europe,” said Diamond. “Each of these Mughal paintings contains a ‘world within a world.’ The central paintings have symbolism and allegory around their borders, which adds dynamism, which is why we called the exhibit: ‘Worlds within Worlds.’” India’s Mughal rulers (1526–1857) descended from two great ruling lineages, the Timurids and the Mongols. The Timurid were regarded as the epitome of cultural sophistication throughout the Islamic world. Although known as the Mughals— a derivation of the Persian word “Mongol” and the source of the English word mogul—they most proudly claimed descent from the legendary leader Timur (Tamerlane), who died in 1405. The Mughal Empire extended across India and Persia—today’s Iran—and was led by Muslim rulers descended from Genghis Khan. Their rule linked Persia with India’s Hindu Rajput kingdoms. “The Mughals affirmed their legitimacy as heirs of the Timurids through artistic, literary, and architectural patronage,” the Sackler curators said. “They avidly collected Timurid manuscripts, paintings and calligraphy, while Persian court artists were given important supervisory roles at the Mughal royal atelier.” Journalist Barbara G.B. Ferguson has covered the Middle East from Washington, London and Paris. 38

Emperor Jahangir Embracing Shah Abbas of Persia. (All images courtesy Freer Gallery of Art)

“As Mughal power and influence grew in the 16th century, the emperors sought to create a distinctive culture that drew upon India’s diverse communities, knowlTHE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

edge systems and artistic traditions. The three greatest art patrons—the emperors Akbar, Jahangir and Shah Jahan—encouraged their artists, most of whom were born OCTOBER 2012

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Humayun Seated in a Landscape.

in India, to create distinctive and intricate paintings rich with color from the Mughal Empire,” explained Diamond as she led the group throughout the exhibit’s four rooms of artwork. “The Mughal manuscripts and paintings open up worlds within worlds. As visual manifestations of each emperor’s political ambitions, personal interests and ideals of beauty, they delight the mind and astound the eye,” Diamond said. To showcase their power, influence and wealth, emperors from the 1500s hired painters and writers to make lavish books, known as folios. The works, which took years to complete and could consume every hour of the artists’ lives, served to define the ruler’s legacy as world leaders. Farhad described these artists as “the Michelangelos and the Rembrandts of the Islamic world.” A theme that still rings true today is the subtle, or not so subtle, antagonism between emperors who wanted to project themselves as greater than anyone else. In one amusing example, two world leaders are painted together, but one is far superior than his adversary. The two paintings display Jahangir, whose Persian name means “Conqueror of the World.” His nemesis was Shah Abbas the Great, the shah of Iran, generally considered the greatest ruler of the Safavid dynasty. Although the two great men are shown together, in reality they never met. “Jahangir sees himself as cosmopolitan OCTOBER 2012

and a world ruler,” noted Diamond, an expert in Indian court paintings, pointing to a painting. “He clearly also has a big ego, as [in] the paintings he has done with both himself and Shah Abbas, he portrays himself as more elegant and better dressed than Shah Abbas.” In another painting, which Diamond refers to as the “bear hug” painting, Jahangir portrays himself “squishing” Shah Abbas, protecting and portraying himself as being the more powerful figure. Entitled “Emperor Jahangir Embracing Shah Abbas of Persia,” it is clear that not only is Jahangir better dressed, but he is younger, stronger and more vibrant. Clearly, the artwork is powerful imagery, perhaps used as a form of propaganda at the time. According to the curators, the Jahangir paintings were done during a period of uneasy détente with Shah Abbas. Although in Jahangir’s dream the two rulers embraced, he still wanted to show his superiority—so he had his artist, Abu’l Hasan, cleverly manipulate symbols of sovereignty in the two Jahangir/Abbas paintings. One sees the globe behind the two men, easily viewed as a play on Jahangir’s name, “World Seizer,” which also alludes to his earthy rule. This sets the stage for his duplicitous bear hug of the smaller, less opulently dressed Shah Abbas. No symbolic detail is missed. Beneath the two rulers’ feet, for example, Jahangir’s lion mount looks as though he is nudging Shah Abbas’ lamb out of Persia. Egos were not in check with these emperors, and each had his own leading painters, calligraphers and illuminators. They were not too modest to have their artists portray them splendidly. Portraits of the fifth Mughal emperor, Shah Jahan, son of Jahangir, best known for commissioning the Taj Mahal, reflect the formality and grandeur of his reign. In one painting, angels—that’s correct, angels—bear the gold Timurid crown studded with rubies and emeralds, emphasizing the magnitude of the emperor’s reign. And, just to cover all his bases, in the same painting three Muslim holy men are further sanctifying his imperial authority. To his credit, in later life Jahangir allowed artists to portray him “realistically—the opposite of being aggrandized. In one painting he has a saggy chin, sour look, and his paunchy belly,” THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

Diamond pointed out. But historical context is key: the painting depicts Jahangir’s military victory over his son, Shah Jahan, which most certainly explains the sorrowful look on his face. The paintings of Shah Jahan, whose name means “King of the World,” are not unfamiliar to the eye, as their calligraphy flowers look very similar to those on the Taj Mahal. His portraits depict Shah Jahan as the very embodiment of wealth and power, with border imagery laced in exquisite gold-leaf detail. As with his most famous building project, Jahan used the finest of details to convey his point. “We wanted to show something fabulous and the interconnections between worlds,” Diamond explained. The exhibition is among a number of events and shows marking the Sackler Gallery’s 25th anniversary this year, and is the first to highlight the museum’s Persian art collection. It brings together 50 such masterpieces, and remains on view through Sept. 16. For those who miss the exhibit, a beautiful book titled The Imperial Image: Painting for the Mughal Court (2012) is available at the Sackler/Freer Library or online at <www.acsaa.us/news/ member-publications/828-book-beachmugha court>. ❑ Shah Jahan with Asaf Khan.

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Will Lakhdar Brahimi’s Credentials and Credibility Help Him With Syria Assignment?

United Nations Report

PATRICK KOVARIK/AFP/GETTYIMAGES

By Ian Williams

Lakhdar Brahimi, the new United Nations peace envoy to Syria, speaks to the press following a meeting with French President François Hollande at the Elysee Palace in Paris, Aug. 20, 2012. akhdar Brahimi has a long record of working on behalf of the United Nations. The good-humored and quietly spoken diplomat has a strong track record of cutting through rhetorical obfuscations and getting to the underlying reality. As a former Algerian freedom fighter, he has an exemplary record—especially compared with most of the sundry hereditary officials around the Arab world—which is second to none. Indeed, as one of the “Elders,” the independent group of global leaders brought together in 2007 by Nelson Mandela, Brahimi has a global diplomatic reputation based on strong principles. Of course, he picks up the Syria baton

L

Ian Williams is a free-lance journalist based at the United Nations who blogs at <www. deadlinepundit.blogspot.com>. 40

that his fellow Elder, Kofi Annan, did not so much drop as cast it aside in disgust. I had always suspected that Annan’s intention was to test to the limit the sincerity of Moscow and Beijing—and he did. But their shamelessness knows fews bounds. Brahimi is a logical successor—an astute choice by Ban Ki-moon. To affirm Brahimi’s diplomatic bona fides one need look no further back than his work in Iraq as U.N. special envoy in the dark days after the U.S. invasion, when he was roundly attacked by Israel’s U.N. envoy, Dan Gillerman. The occasion was Brahimi’s “undiplomatic” lapse into the truth, when he told a French radio station that Israeli policies toward Palestinians, and Washington’s support for those policies, hindered his search for a transition government in Baghdad. THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

“The problems are linked, there is no doubt about it,” he said. “The big poison in the region is the Israeli policy of domination and the suffering imposed on the Palestinians.” Brahimi complained of the difficulty of dealing with Iraqis in the face of “Israel’s completely violent and repressive security policy and determination to occupy more and more Palestinian territory.” The more things stay the same—the worse they get! Now of course, Israel has occupied even more territory than anyone conceived possible. In Iraq, and previously in Afghanistan, Brahimi’s credibility and reputation for integrity enabled him to pull together disparate elements into coalitions of the grudging, at least. As the endgame in Syria looks far off and bloody, if anyone can pull off a compromise among the various elements, it has to be him—not least since he is securely insulated against allegations of being part of any terrorist or Zionist plot. It is just possible that his veteran Third World credentials—almost in at the foundation of the Non Aligned Movement— might give him more credibility to dissuade the Russians and Chinese from their support for the Syrian regime, which is every bit as unprincipled as Washington’s unconditional support for Israel.

Target Iran or Target Obama? As Syria disintegrates and Hillary Clinton wrings her hands, the secretary of state must console herself that the mass killings there take attention away from Iran— which Israel is threatening to attack. These are times when it appears that we are observing a parallel universe in which the laws of logic and reason have been spun around, in which the Red Queen often believes three impossible things before breakfast. The psychopathic wing of the Israeli government wants to attack Iran, no matter what arguments against that reckless and illegal action are produced. Frankly, with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu one cannot be sure whether this is a pathological hatred of any rival military power in the region—in which case, with Syria and Iraq gone, if Iran were removed from the equation then one could suspect that Turkey OCTOBER 2012

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would suddenly move up the pariah ladder. But it is equally probable that the Israeli prime minister wants to ensure that President Barack Obama is not re-elected. Netanyahu has what we can only hope are substantial fears that a second-term Obama would remember all the insults and campaigns waged against him by the rightwing Israeli leader, as well as the U.S. president’s own tarnished international reputation because he allowed Netanyahu to thwart his earlier outreach to the Arab and Muslim world. We have come a long way since the Zimmerman telegram—it is now the hasbara leak. The current bright ideas emanating from the Israel lobby—sorry, I mean senior Middle East advisers in Washington— really tax belief. In an Aug. 17 New York Times op-ed, Dennis Ross, the former Clinton administration Middle East peace coordinator who currently is a “counselor” at the AIPAC spin-off Washington Institute for Near East Policy, advised that the way to stop Israel from attacking Iran was to give it the bunker busters, tanker planes and other weaponry necessary for it to attack Iran effectively. So, the way to stop Jack the Ripper was to leave large bags of surgical instruments about for him? Along similar lines, the Israeli leak factory Debkafile declared that Obama was going to pledge that the U.S. will attack Iran later, in order to abort Netanyahu attacking earlier. So Israel, which does not have the capability to attack Iran on its own, will refrain from doing so only if the U.S. provides it with the weaponry to do so, or attacks in its place. And the reward would be that Netanyahu would have succeeded in his main aim, which is to make Obama a oneterm president. What is missing here is any sense that the Iraq debacle taught America’s various pro-Likud factions anything at all about international law, let alone international relations. There is no legal mandate whatsoever for Israel, or indeed the U.S., to attack Iran. On the contrary, the constant threats from Israel would possibly constitute a defense for a pre-emptive attack by Iran on Israeli, and maybe even U.S., military positions. Certainly under the version of international law espoused by both of them on various occasions, Iran could justify, say, mining Israeli harbors! Of course, in reality Iran is not in a superpower position that could support such novel legal interpretations. But consider Obama. He has spent his first term embroiled in two wars, one of which he opOCTOBER 2012

posed not least because Bush began it against international law and without U.N. authority, allegedly on the issue of weapons of mass destruction. U.S. intelligence, and many Israeli intelligence authorities, aver firmly that Iran does not (yet, at least) have a nuclear military program or capability. Indeed its leading political and religious figure issued a fatwa against such immoral weapons. The U.N. is not going to threaten to issue an ultimatum to Iran to stop a program it does not have—so if Obama were to go ahead, his position would be even weaker than that of George W. Bush. That is, of course, quite apart from the human casualties and financial consequences for a fragile U.S.—and, indeed, global—economy of a war that would threaten much of the world’s oil supplies.

SOLVING SO LV VI N G 9 9-11 -11 THE DECEP PT TION THA AT CHANGED THE WORLD

“Brilliant painstaking analysi y s leadiing to an unexpected but entirely loggica ical conclusion. n.”

Washington Echoes Tel Aviv’s “Advice” In that context, it is reassuring that Ban Kimoon scorned Netanyahu’s “advice” to stay away from September’s Non Aligned Summit in Tehran. Indeed, he boldly also repudiated similar U.S. advice as well. With a straight face, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters that Iran “is a country that is in violation of all kinds of U.N. obligations and has been a destabilizing force.” Most of the Non Aligned, indeed most of the world, might think that a country building illegal settlements in defiance of U.N. resolutions and constantly threatening to make war on another country fitted that description better than Iran, no matter what reservations they had about Tehran’s human rights policy or support for Syria. Hillel Neuer, who founded “U.N. Watch” to scrutinize the world organization—albeit only in relation to Israel—condemned Ban’s attendance but urged him to “at the very least, bring with him the latest U.N. General Assembly resolution detailing Iran’s massive human rights violations, the report by the Human Rights Council’s Iran monitor documenting the country’s ‘striking pattern of violations of fundamental human rights guaranteed under international law,’ and the six Security Council resolutions on Iran’s illegal nuclear program.” In its way, all that is fair enough. But we wonder when U.N. Watch ever called upon the secretary-general to take the much longer list of resolutions addressing Israeli crimes to Mr. Netanyahu. Tapping the same rich vein of chutzpah, Israel’s Soviet-born Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman sent a letter to the foreign ministers of the Middle East Quartet, callTHE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

“If you’re onllyy going to read one book about 9-11, this would be it. t.”

Available ffrrom bookshops, Amaz Am mazon, or

www w.BOLL LYN.com ing on them to press for new elections in the Palestinian Authority to replace President Mahmoud Abbas. In a whole new dimension of chutzpah, Lieberman described Abbas, seen by many Palestinians as a little too pacific, as “an obstacle to peace.” “The Palestinian Authority is a despotic government riddled with corruption,” Lieberman wrote. “This pattern of behavior has led to criticism even within his own constituency. Due to Abbas’ weak standing and his policy of not renewing the negotiations, which is an obstacle to peace, the time has come to consider a creative solution, to think ‘outside the box,’ in order to strengthen the Palestinian leadership.” As his comrade in buffoonery, Humpty Dumpty, said, “When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.” Lieberman’s concern with “strengthening” the Palestinian leadership is an example of outstandingly Orwellian doublethink, worthy of Goebbels. His government has locked up any strong Palestinian leadership whenever it gets the chance—and, to underscore its contempt, defied U.N. and EU censure to announce the building of yet more settlements in East Jerusalem for Jews only. U.N. Watch of course, maintains total silence on that inconvenient issue. ❑ 41

abourezk_vidal_42-44_Outside the Beltway 8/29/12 8:52 PM Page 42

Gore Vidal (1925-2012)

Outside the Beltway

By James G. Abourezk

COURTESY JAMES ABOUREZK

trition in such attacks on him and his ideas, as he not only continued to be the scourge of Israel Lobbyists, but he struck out on any issue and at anyone he considered to be less than an honest person. I learned that Gore’s father, Gene “Pick” Vidal, was born and raised in Madison, South Dakota, and was a football and basketball star at the University of South Dakota. From there, he went to West Point, which is where Gore was born, and ultimately became Franklin Roosevelt’s aviation chief. Gene became acquainted with Amelia Earhart, and was (L-r) The author, director Mike Nichols, journalist Diane Sawyer and the late Gore Vidal in Ravello, Italy. alleged to have had an af’ve been reading the numerous obitu(Upon once being called an anti-Semite fair with her, a piece of gossip that Gore alaries of Gore Vidal following his death by Alan Dershowitz, I responded in writ- ways denied. Gore was portrayed by a July 31. Some were straightforward, re- ing that the common definition of anti- young actor in the movie about Earhart. I had arranged for Gore to speak at a spectful, and some hagiographies were Semite is one who hates Jews—but that it full of praise for his literary talents. Oth- was not Jews whom I hated, only Alan commencement at the University of South Dakota one year, and the students took ers were full of denunciations—I read Dershowitz.) two such writings, one by David GreenI have no idea what set off Greenberg, him to his father’s home town of Madison, berg entitled “Stop Eulogizing Gore but Gore and Podhoretz had a long-run- where he saw his father’s birthplace. I also invited him to speak to an AmeriVidal,” and one by Gore’s old nemesis, ning battle of words in which, not surprisNorman Podhoretz, the former editor of ingly, Gore emerged victorious. It was in can-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee Commentary Magazine—a propaganda the 1980s that Gore, apparently in retalia- (ADC) convention a number of years ago. weapon designed to enthrall members of tion for something Podhoretz had written The audience, of course, was made up of a the Israel Lobby. Podhoretz’s article on about him, wrote an article in The Nation mixture of both Christian and Muslim Gore was reprinted from a Commentary Magazine that managed to slice and dice monotheists—the kind of membership piece published in that magazine in Podhoretz (whom he called “Poddy”) along ADC has always had. Gore’s speech was a 1986. (Woody Allen once suggested that with his wife, Midge Decter, labeling them very clever critique of monotheism, so the magazine Dissent should be merged as more loyal to Israel than to the United clever, in fact, that at the end the audience with Commentary, and that the name be States. This accusation of dual loyalty was, gave him a standing ovation. He was being stalked that day by one of changed to Dissentary.) Both Greenberg of course, determined by Podhoretz and his and Podhoretz, to no one’s surprise, fellow travelers to be an anti-Semitic rant. the minions of the Israel Lobby, a writer managed to label Gore as an anti-Semite. I had read the Nation piece as well as the named Leon Wieseltier, who postitioned That label is now commonly used by countless letters to the editor of The Nation himself in a front row seat, the better to hear pro-Israel Zionists who are unable other- by Podhoretz’s friends defending Pod- what Gore was about to say. He was easily wise to defend Israel’s brutal occupation horetz from Gore’s charge. Not once, how- recognizable, and, as Gore later wrote in an of Palestinians. ever, did Podhoretz have the courage him- essay describing his speech, he identified self to write to complain. He was satisfied Wieseltier as a secret agent, “…code name Weasel, recognizable by his red-rimmed eyes Former U.S. Sen. James G. Abourezk (D-SD) to have his friends do it for him. What I enjoyed most about the entire af- and white fright wig.” (Wieseltier’s hair was is founder of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and author of the fair was that, as each letter came into the both long and grey in color.) Gore’s frontal attack on the Israel Lobby memoir Advise and Dissent (available from magazine, it was handed over to Gore for a the AET book store) and Through Different brief response, each of which was both cost him, however. He once told me that usually when one of his books was pubEyes, a debate on the Middle East conflict. cutting and funny. He currently practices law in Sioux Falls, SD. Apparently, Gore found intellectual nu- lished, the first printing would be at least

I

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THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

OCTOBER 2012

abourezk_vidal_42-44_Outside the Beltway 8/29/12 8:52 PM Page 43

300,000 copies. But after his set-to with the Lobby, his publisher cut down the first printing of his books to 200,000. Either number normally would be enough to make an ordinary author jump for joy, but here I’m making the point that a writer, along with others who disagree with Israel’s policies, pays the price for such disagreement. Gore lived for years in the small village of Ravello, Italy, on the Amalfi Coast, but he also had a home in the Hollywood Hills, and at one time, a penthouse apartment in Rome which he eventually gave up to move entirely to Ravello. His villa, which he called La Rondinaia, sits on a cliff overlooking the Mediterranean. Access to the villa involved walking along a narrow path for perhaps a quarter of a mile from the front gate before arriving at the home. That worked fine until the declining health both of Gore and that of his partner, Howard Austen, made the trip too difficult. Howard described to me what it took to get Gore to a hospital emergency room once while they were living there. He had to run to the village of Ravello to find four strong young men to come to the house and carry Gore in a stretcher to a point where he could be taken by taxi to the hospital. When that all became too much of a worry, Gore sold his villa and moved to his Hollywood home, which is where he died. He had been in a wheelchair for a number of years, making living much more complicated than he wanted. Gore was known as a prolific name-dropper, but instead of being bored by this, it made for some of the most interesting gossip one could only imagine. I was a guest at his villa at the same time actress Claire Bloom was there, along with her daughter, an opera singer whose father was actor Rod Steiger. Gore told me that when England’s Princess Anne stayed at his villa, she confessed to him that the royal family in England spent most of their time drinking so as to ease the boredom of doing nothing but being a member of the royal family. I had dinner one evening in Ravello with Gore, Diane Sawyer and her husband, Mike Nichols, and Howard Austen. When I was a guest at Gore’s villa, I stayed in the same bedroom where Gore had hosted, at different times, actor Robert Downey, Jr., the musician Sting and his family, as well as Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon and their children. Gore proudly announced that, during Bill Clinton’s presidency, Hillary Clinton drove down from Rome to visit him in Ravello. I attended a dinner in Gore’s honor in the Beverly Hills Hotel in Hollywood, hosted by OCTOBER 2012

an unknown (to me) admirer of Gore along with a couple hundred guests. I was asked, along with my own guest, Myra MacPherson, a former Washington Post writer and a longtime friend from Washington, DC, to sit at Gore’s table. Joining Gore at his table was the director Peter Bogdanovich, actress Karen Black, actor Michael York, along with other Hollywood luminaries. Farrah Fawcett sat at the table next to us. Paris Hilton stopped by to say hello and to be seen by Gore and his guests. When she left the table, Michael York announced, “I have just met a legend.” Gore reminded me of the Pope in those kind of situations, mostly because there was always a long line of celebrities anxious to visit him wherever he was living so they could kiss his ring. What is interesting about those who have waited until after his death to attack him in the press is that even his enemies will grudgingly admit that he was one of the great writers of this and of the last century. I’m sure that most were fearful of his retribution when he was still alive, as conservative icon William F. Buckley learned the hard way during a televised debate he had with Gore. Delivering the coup de grace during the debate, Gore called Buckley a “crypto-Nazi,” then later apologized, saying he meant instead to call him a “crypto-fascist.” I’ve read many of his novels, but in my view, Gore was an essayist without equal in America. His writing, like his thinking, was sharp and crisp, wasting no time in making his point, which I guess is what gave his life meaning. ❑

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Gaza’s Challenge… Continued from page 12

Egypt’s military responded to the attack with what has been described as its “most powerful” action in years. The next morning, security police raided the homes of several Egyptians in the northern Sinai town of El-Arish suspected of having ties with jihadi groups, and detained them pending investigations, according to Egyptian security officials. The army then targeted known militant hideouts, including the Al Halal Mountains, which the Mubarak regime had been unable to breach in the past. Helicopters and tanks were deployed to assist in the mass arrest of Egyptian Bedouins. The Aug. 23 issue of Alahram Alarabi, the Egyptian publication most critical of Israeli politics, published an interview with Maj. Gen. Ahmed Rajai Attia, one of the founders of Egypt’s Special Operations unit, in which he accused an Israeli unit named 242, which the Mossad has operated in the Sinai since 1971, of playing a role in the attack. In another incident on Aug. 26, Egyptian Ibrahim Madhan was killed while riding a motorcycle in the Sinai Peninsula some 15 kilometers (9 miles) from the Israeli border. According to security officials, parts of a missile were found next to his body. Egyptian officials told the Associated Press that there are two possible scenarios: an Israeli missile strike or that Madhan’s motorcycle struck a land mine—but the shallow depth of the crater did not suggest the latter. An Israeli official said Israel was not involved. Madhan had been arrested by the Egyptian military in connection with the Aug. 5 attack on the army, but was soon released.

Folk Art Mavens . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

More Hard Times for Gaza

Helping Hand for Relief and Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . Inside Back Cover

Palestinians living on the Gaza side of the Sinai border were also affected, as Egyptian security forces launched a massive offensive against the tunnels used for smuggling everything from soap and baby food to building supplies and petrol into the besieged enclave that is home to 1.7 million people. De facto Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh telephoned Egyptian President Dr. Morsi to offer assistance with security and investigation, but denied any Gaza involvement in the attack. Rather, he strongly condemned it, leading prayers to honor the fallen soldiers the following day in front of the former Egyptian embassy in Gaza.

Kinder USA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 Muslim Link . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Radio Baladi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Solving 9-11 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 Syrian American Council . . . . . . 33 United Palestinian Appeal (UPA) . . . . . . Inside Front Cover Zakat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

43

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While Hamas closed the tunnels in southern Gaza for a few days, Egypt’s response has been to completely shut down the Rafah border. Cairo also ordered the destruction of countless other smuggling tunnels running under the 15-kilometer (9mile) border. The loss of these lifelines not only exacerbated the crisis in Gaza, but also deprived the de facto Hamas government of a major source of tax revenue. The destruction of the additional tunnels means that supplies of such basics as food, fuel and medicine will quickly become depleted. Egypt’s closing of the border also created a shortage of oil, for both cooking and transportation. In a cascading effect, the inability to move goods has caused the cost of construction materials to skyrocket. Since the attack, the price of gravel and cement already has risen 40-60 percent. Should the border remain closed, more than 17,000 Palestinian construction workers may be laid off, Palestinian economist Omar Shaban noted. According to Palestinian Ministry of Health spokesman Ashraf Al Qedra, the border closure and destruction of the tunnels have left hundreds of sick men, women and children stranded in Gaza, unable to reach outside hospitals and medical care. Additionally, Gaza border officials say, thousands of Palestinians now find themselves in limbo, unable to catch planned flights to Saudi Arabia for umrah (pilgrimage to Mecca, one of the five pillars of Islam) and hajj. According to Eid Heneef, a travel agent in Gaza City, a week of border closure resulted in the loss of $4 million in flight reservations, accommodations and transportation paid in advance by thousands of people planning to go to Saudi Arabia for umrah. The Hamas government has indicated a willingness to cooperate with the Morsi administration in shutting down the tunnels—but only if the Rafah border crossing is opened permanently, allowing the free movement of passengers and cargo between Gaza and Egypt’s free trade zones. After the complete closure of the border, followed by a period of tight restrictions in which only the most urgent cases were allowed to leave Gaza via the Rafah crossing, Egypt has decided to open the border six days a week. Still, there will be a daily limit on the number of Palestinians who may cross through, according to Egyptian and Palestinian border officials. Even with Mubarak gone, Gaza’s future remains unclear, and the effect of the Sinai attack on the 1979 Camp David Agreement has yet to play out. So far Morsi, who is 44

scheduled to visit Washington in September, has acted decisively, even when faced with humanitarian issues, but the international community has yet to weigh in on his leadership during the first crisis facing his government. Should Israel carry out its threat to attack Iran, and drag the U.S. into the disaster, Egypt will have a major decision to make. As for Gaza? Only time will tell. ❑

Human Cost of War… Continued from page 13

or the prospect thereof, forces them to take action. Does the mainstream news media encourage a culture of war that conditions its citizens not to think about the human suffering of foreign citizens? Could it be that our corporate-controlled media do not want Americans to care about the fact that the bodies of men, women and children in Iran will be torn apart by the massive bombings, air attacks, or deteriorate slowly and painfully from radiation-related sicknesses that will accompany exposure to depleted uranium from “bunker buster” bombs? When was the last time that footage of the dead and wounded from the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan or Pakistan came across the television screen? Even for those Americans who seek out alternative media sources, chances are that the WikiLeaks airing of the now-famous “Collateral Murder” video may have been the first—and possibly last—exposure to the brutality and outright criminality of these wars. The German “Panorama” program produced an excellent segment on the leaked “Collateral Murder” video, featuring the U.S. soldier, Ethan McCord, who arrived after the slaughter and disobeyed orders by rushing one of the wounded children to get medical treatment. The fact that such a program would be aired in Germany, where it had unusually broad and intense resonance, but not in the United States says a great deal about the self-censorship that now pervades the U.S. news media when it comes to the death and destruction caused by American warfare. The U.S. news media was not always so reticent about showing the bloody realities of war. When U.S. television aired graphic, prime-time images of wounded American soldiers and terrified villagers in Vietnam, Americans responded by forming a massive anti-war movement that eventually THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

forced an end to the conflict in Southeast Asia. Neocon pundit Norman Podhoretz, a vigorous supporter of the Vietnam War as well as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, was disgusted by the U.S. withdrawal from Southeast Asia and believed it was necessary for American society to get over the “Vietnam Syndrome”—namely, what he termed “the sickly inhibitions against the use of military force.” (A principal public-relations goal of the Reagan and Bush-41 administrations was to cure the American people of this “Vietnam Syndrome,” a process that progressed through the small wars of the 1980s, like the invasion of Grenada, to the mid-sized invasion of Panama to the larger-scale Persian Gulf war against Iraq. After the slaughter of that 100-hour ground war ended, President George H.W. Bush declared, “By God, we’ve kicked the Vietnam Syndrome once and for all.”) Since the post-9/11 launch of U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the corporatecontrolled mainstream media have been remarkably successful at keeping the realities of war away from the TV screens. News executives have heeded the complaints of war hawks complaining about “unpatriotic” coverage of war and have clamped down tightly on images that might turn public opinion against war. Until recently, this censorship of war casualties included a prohibition on the broadcasting of images of military coffins arriving at Dover Air Force Base. Ignoring the grim realities of war also has allowed for its glamorization through television programs such as “Stars Earn Stripes.” The absence of pro-peace voices in the mainstream media also has contributed to isolating Americans from the realities of war, stoking irrational fears and contributing to the dehumanization of the victims of war as the faceless “Other.” The value of compassion for our fellow humans is often portrayed as weakness in mainstream media discourse—a development that must give immense satisfaction to Podhoretz and others of his ilk who railed against the “sickly inhibitions” against violence that infected Americans after the Vietnam War. As the stakes rise for U.S. involvement in a reckless and ill-advised Israeli military adventure against Iran, let us not forget that those who advocate such wars are almost always comfortably ensconced in locations and lifestyles that ensure they will never have to see a battlefield, a mangled corpse or a deformed child in their lifetime. ❑ OCTOBER 2012

adas_45_New York City and Tri-State News 8/28/12 7:22 PM Page 45

New Israel Fund Hosts Panel on Israel’s Response to African Asylum Seekers By Jane Adas

New York City and Tri-StateNews changes. Meanwhile, Israel denies asylum seekers work permits and welfare benefits. The NGO community, including ACRI and the Hotline for Migrant Workers, is trying to supply refugee assistance that the government does not provide. El-Ad described the government’s response as intimidation to let the refugees know they are not wanted. Israel is therefore building “the largest holding facility on the planet for asylum seekers,” which will hold more than 10,000 refugees. There, as the result of a law enacted in January 2012, those refugees who make it through the Sinai will be locked up for a minimum of three years. Another law in the pipeline would criminalize anyone providing aid of any kind to “infiltrators,” with penalties of up to five years in prison. Lenkinski observed that Israel is not the only country dealing with refugees, and recommended that it be part of a global conversation rather than isolating itself. Because Israel was founded by refugees, she said, its draconian policies are especially disappointing. She regretted the government’s tendency to frame every problem as “us against them”—with the “us” getting ever smaller. ❑

he New Israel Fund

Thosted a discussion enti-

STAFF PHOTO J. ADAS

tled “Seeking Solutions, Not Incitement: Israel’s Refugees and Asylum Seekers” at its New York office on July 9. Hagai El-Ad, executive director of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), and Libby Lenkinski, its director of international relations, explained how the situ a t i o n o f u n we l c o me African refugees in Israel came about, what brought it to the point of crisis, what in their view should be done, and what, instead, the Israeli government is doing. Hagai El-Ad (l) and Libby Lenkinski of ACRI. Since 2006, African refugees from troubled areas have been gated outbreak of violence against Jews in coming through the Sinai to the Israeli bor- 1938. According to El-Ad, Israel has no clear der. From there, Israeli authorities take them by bus to a station in the Hatikva neigh- policy on the status of non-Jewish refugees, borhood in southern Tel Aviv, a poor area nor an official process for vetting asylum relacking in infrastructure and unprepared to quests. Whereas up to 80 percent of asylum accommodate so many additional people, seekers in other countries are found to be now numbering about 50,000. While this is genuine, in Israel only 0.2 percent are. This, not a small number, El-Ad acknowledged, he explained, is because Israel prefers to neither is it catastrophic, considering the view non-Jewish refugees as illegal immihundreds of thousands of African refugees grant workers rather than refugees or genin neighboring countries. Nevertheless, he uine asylum seekers, which would lead to views the situation as unfair to both the state obligations. Yet more than 60 percent refugees and the residents of south Tel Aviv. of the refugees in Israel are from Eritrea, a The refugees should be the state’s burden, country that ranks below North Korea in El-Ad argued, but the Israeli government’s human rights violations. They will not be strategy is to label them “infiltrators” and returned until the situation in Eritrea portray them as a demographic threat (Advertisement) which, in the words of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, will “cause the negation of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state.” At an anti-migrant rally in Tel Aviv on May 23, speakers, including members of the Knesset, inflamed the audience by calling the refugees “a cancer in our body” and accusing them of being rapists and criminals. (See August 2012 Washington Report, p. 10.) Thus incited, the crowd rioted—smashing windows, setting fires, and beating up Africans in the streets. Lenkinski said some have compared the mob’s actions to Kristallnacht, the Nazi government-instiJane Adas is a free-lance writer based in the New York City metropolitan area. OCTOBER 2012

THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

45

pasquini_46-47_Northern California Chronicle 8/29/12 8:54 PM Page 46

Madaa Creative Center Provides Children of Silwan With Comfort, Care and Protection

Northern California Chronicle

STAFF PHOTOS PHIL PASQUINI

By Elaine Pasquini

ABOVE: Children coloring at the Madaa Creative Center in Silwan. INSET: Israeli military weapons used by soldiers against residents of Silwan were found in the street by neighborhood children.

trances in the ancient wall of Jerusalem’s Old City, children, as well as their parents and other family members, continue to suffer arrest by Israeli soldiers and harassment and injury by Jewish settlers attempting to take over their historic homeland. (See December 2009 Washington Report, p. 16.) The Madaa Creative Center, working in partnership with the Berkeley-based Middle East Children’s Alliance (MECA), offers these children care, comfort and protection. Founded in 2007 by Jawad Siyam, its beloved director, Madaa—“horizon” in Arabic—is open daily from 10 to 5. On a recent visit to Palestine, this reporter and her photographer husband visited the center, presently located in the Wadi Hilweh Information Center of Silwan. Upon entering the tiny premises, we were shocked to see a collection of military weapons—including tear gas canisters, concussion grenades and rubber bullets—which had been used by Israeli soldiers against the Silwan residents. In a library lined with books, children were drawing and coloring—a favorite activity of children everywhere. In the second room, youngsters were busy on the center’s comElaine Pasquini is a free-lance journalist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. 46

puters, a luxury unavailable in most of their own homes. Due to their harrowing experiences with police or settlers, the children at first were wary of strangers, but eventually warmed up to us, especially after viewing their photographs on a digital camera. On the day of our visit a psychologist from Doctors Without Borders was also on hand to treat some of the children who have been severely traumatized and suffer from aggression, apathy, sleeplessness and bedwetting. “The center provides a safe place for the children to come and keeps them off the street, where they are subject to attacks by the military and settlers,” explained Silwan resident Ahmad Qaraeen, one of the center’s founders. Qaraeen is well acquainted with settler Kids at the Madaa Creative Center look at photos on Phil violence, as he was shot Pasquini’s iPad, as co-founder Ahmad Qaraeen (r) looks on. STAFF PHOTO E. PASQUINI

n the Palestinian village of Silwan, located

Ioutside Bab el-Silwan, one of the en-

in the knee and thigh at close range by an Israeli settler in 2009, necessitating his using a crutch. A year later, in the street in front of the center, another Jewish settler attempted to run him down with his automobile. In addition to the rooms at the information center, Madaa’s activities are conducted in rented apartment units or small houses or offices. MECA is attempting to raise $43,000 to enable Madaa to purchase the main building it has been renting, which houses the youth club, music, dance, theatre, art and women’s activities, along with a support program for children who have been arrested. “Purchase of this building is crucial to Madaa’s day-to-day work,” said MECA director Barbara Lubin. “It means a better life for families today and a way to hold onto the land for the future.” Located on Jerusalem’s southeastern slopes, Silwan was illegally annexed by Israel in 1967, and its residents given the orange identity cards which denote residency, rather than the blue ones denoting Israeli citizenship. Since then the Israeli government has failed to provide adequate or proper educational facilities, and the infrastructure is neglected and crumbling. Half of Silwan’s 55,000 residents are under age 18, and according to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), 75 percent of the children live below the poverty line. To donate to help the children of Silwan, visit <https://www. mecaforpeace.org/civicrm/contribute/trans act?reset=1&id=28>.

THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

OCTOBER 2012

pasquini_46-47_Northern California Chronicle 8/29/12 8:54 PM Page 47

STAFF PHOTO PHIL PASQUINI

of medicine,” Pasquini related. “Some of them have died because they have not had access to a timely infusion. In the West Bank children are unable to get the treatment that they deserve, and this is a terrible humanitarian crisis.” For more information or to contribute to the PCRF visit: <www.pcrf.net/projects/ ped-cancer-department>.

Ramadan Iftar at Sacramento State Capitol California Senate President pro tem Darrell Steinberg, Assembly members Mariko Yamada and Roger Dickinson, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, California Chapter (CAIR-CA) and Muslim Americans in Public Service (MAPS) co-hosted an Aug. 8 Ramadan iftar at Sacramento’s state capitol rotunda for members and staff of the California state legislature and leaders in the local Muslim, civil rights and interfaith communities. “For the past nine years, we have been here—different faiths, cultures and ethnicities—to share a meal and get to know one another,” Mark Farouk, MAPS member and chief consultant for the California Assembly banking committee, told the crowd. Expressing his thoughts on the annual Ramadan celebration, Steinberg added, “In this building we argue and disagree about a lot of things, but there is one thing that binds us above all others and that is our fervent commitment to California being a place of inclusion, peace, and a place not just of tolerance, but acceptance.” Resolutions from the California State Board of Equalization and State Assembly were then presented to CAIR Sacramento Valley chapter president Wazhma Mojaddidi and executive director Basim Elkarra in recognition of the organization’s outstanding and ongoing civil rights work. ❑

ABOVE: (left to right) Dr. Mohammad Najajreh, Salim Qaru, Rima Qaru and Palestine Children’s Relief Fund social worker Niveen Abed in one of the rooms of the newly constructed pediatric cancer ward of Beit Jala’s Al Hussein Hospital. RIGHT: Six-year-old Sarrah from Ramallah is being treated for acute leukemia at the Al Hussein Hospital in Beit Jala. Only two rooms are available for treatment until the new ward is completed.

Update on West Bank Cancer Ward

OCTOBER 2012

STAFF PHOTO PHIL PASQUINI

On July 26, Washington Report staff photographer Phil Pasquini discussed his recent visit to the West Bank’s first pediatric cancer unit with “Arab Talk” radio host Dr. Jess Ghannam. In his weekly program, airing Thursdays at 2 p.m. on KPOO public radio station 89.5 FM, Ghannam conducts interviews and delivers up-to-date news about the Middle East. Working together, the Palestinian National Authority Ministry of Health and the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund (PCRF) are building the first public Pediatric Oncology Department in the West Bank to serve the medical needs of children with cancer. Presently, Pasquini explained, Palestinian children in the West Bank who are suffering from cancer are treated in only two rooms in the Al Hussein Hospital in Beit Jala, which is totally inadequate for some 200 patients in need of treatment. Dr. Mohammad Najajreh, one of only two pediatric oncologists at the hospital, gave a tour of the hospital’s new unit under construction to Pasquini, this reporter, Rima and Salim Qaru of the PCRF’s San Francisco Bay Area chapter and PCRF social worker Niveen Abed. “The need for this new facility is overwhelming,” Pasquini told Ghannam. “Children get chemotherapy treatment and then have to leave, regardless of how sick they may be.” Upon completion, the new unit—which will accommodate 16 patients—will have a day treatment center, a pharmacy, two isolation rooms, a procedure room, a small kitchen, and a playroom with large glass windows. Acute leukemia is the most common form of cancer in young people in the West Bank, Pasquini noted, and, due to a shortage of funds, drugs to treat the cancer are not always available. The doctors are also trying to treat patients from Gaza, but it is difficult for Gazans to travel to the West Bank. Some pa-

tients can be treated in Israel, but most West Bank residents are not allowed entry into Israel. “It is an immeasurable human tragedy,” Pasquini lamented. “It really is a tragedy and, in fact, a double tragedy,” interjected Ghannam, a clinical professor of psychiatry and global health sciences at the University of California, San Francisco, school of medicine, who travels frequently to Palestine. “First of all you have kids who do not have access to the appropriate care that they are entitled to and deserving of,” he elaborated. “Then you have the added problem of aspects of the occupation that are actually promoting, creating and enhancing the kinds of cancer that children are getting. When Israel occupies Palestine in all of its complex ways—militarily, socially, economically—it has a profound impact on the people and, of course, the most vulnerable are the children. What we are seeing are staggering cancer rates among Palestinian children, especially childhood lymphoma, which is quite disturbing and easily treatable.” “As a physician, Dr. Najajreh told us it is very frustrating to see patients making progress and then when they come back, the doctors are not able to help them due to lack

CAIR-CA chairman Masoud Nassimi holds a Resolution presented to CAIR by Betty Yee (right) on behalf of the California State Board of Equalization at the Ninth Annual Capitol Ramadan iftar. Other CAIR officials (from left): Adel Syed, Zahra Billoo, Wazhma Mojaddidi, and Basim Elkarra. THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

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Expert William Picard Discusses Yemen’s Political, Economic Plight

STAFF PHOTO S. TWAIR

By Pat and Samir Twair

Yemen expert William Picard. illiam Picard grew up hearing mar-

Wvelous tales of Yemen which, from

1991 to 1999, his attorney father represented in international disputes. His passion for the country of myrrh and incense was cemented in 1999, when he made his first visit there at the age of 17. In January 2010 Picard, along with student and academic activists, founded the Yemen Peace Project (YPP), dedicated to increasing better understanding between Americans and Yemenis. It was in his capacity as director of YPP that he discussed at a July 22 Levantine Cultural Center program his latest fact-finding trip to Yemen the previous month. Picard’s encyclopedic knowledge of the little known country strategically placed on Saudi Arabia’s southern flank was illustrated with slides that transported the audience from Yemen’s prehistory to its current status of warfare, corruption and poverty. Picard is no dilettante when it comes to Yemen. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 2010 with a double major in modern Middle East studies and Southwest Asian conflict studies. Fortunately, his wife, Dana Moss, shares his intense interest in the region and is studying for a Ph.D. degree in sociology at the University of California at Irvine. Her academic specialty is social and revolutionary Pat and Samir Twair are free-lance journalists based in Los Angeles. 48

movements in the Middle East, as well as revolutionary activism among Yemenis in the U.K. and U.S. Both have studied Arabic and, although they say they’re not fluent in the language, they manage “to get by.” Asked how he finances his volunteer work for the YPP, Picard explained, “I work 50 hours a week as a researcher for a Washington, DC law firm, and then spend my spare time on YPP

projects.” Summarizing Yemen’s history, Picard told his audience that from the 10th to the mid-20th century, parts of the western highlands were ruled by theocratic leaders and tribal confederations, until the Yemen Arab Republic was founded in 1970. The rest of the country, from Aden east, was under British control until the Union Jack came down and the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen—the only Marxist state in the Arab world—was formed in 1967. The two Yemens fought at times, but following the fall of the U.S.S.R., the north absorbed the south in 1990. When the two Yemens united, Picard continued, Ali Abdullah Saleh, an uneducated soldier from a tribal family south of Sana’a who became president of North Yemen in 1978, became president of the new republic. According to Picard, Saleh remained in control by playing every tribe, party and group against the other, essentially dismembering the republic. The three major threats to Saleh’s regime, which collapsed in November 2011, are viable, Picard said. The north is home to the Huthi movement of the Zaydi Shi’a sect, which in the 1990s was concerned about the spread of Salafism. In Picard’s opinion, Saleh viewed the Zaydis as a counterweight to Saudi influence and funded some groups founded by Hussayn al-Huthi, who later claimed the Zaydis had been weakened by Saleh, who had his hands in the pockets of THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

Southern California Chronicle the West. The Saleh regime was unable to destroy the al-Huthi movement, which controls regions in the north. In the south is the Peaceful Southern Movement (YSP), known locally as alHirak. It formed in earnest in 2007, Picard said, demanding equal citizenship, reparations and economic opportunities. By 2010, it called for full southern independence as the South Arabian Republic. In 2009 the third movement, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), merged with its Saudi counterpart, with Nasser alWihayshi, once Osama bin Laden’s personal secretary, as its chief. When the jihadis returned from fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan, Saleh paid them to fight his enemies in the south and allowed them to sack the port city of Aden. After September 2001, the U.S. pushed Saleh to attack the AQAP—with the result that the Yemenis viewed Saleh as an agent of the U.S. Noting that Yemen’s new president, Abdu Rabu Mansur Hadi, was Saleh’s long-time vice president, Picard said that many activists therefore maintain that the revolution is ongoing. He described the aftermath of Saleh’s corrupt rule as a nation on the threshold of failure, with a drastic water shortage, half the population critically food insecure, 300,000 Yemenis internally displaced and 50 percent of the labor force unemployed. Aid is coming from the Gulf, but it’s insufficient, according to Picard. “The U.S. has done next to nothing to alleviate the humanitarian crisis and utterly failed to connect with the Yemeni people on the diplomatic level,” he concluded. “U.S. humanitarian and development assistance would dampen anti-American sentiment while weakening AQAP.” YPP is working with Hemmat Shabab to establish the country’s first food banks, and has launched a Pens for Peace program connecting sixth graders and their teachers in the U.S. and Yemen via e-mail and video chatting. In 2011, it sponsored an exhibition of photos from Yemen in Washington, New York and Los Angeles. To learn more about YPP, visit its Web site at <www.YemenPeaceProject.org>. Sponsors of the informative program were L.A. Jews for Peace, Friends of OCTOBER 2012

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PBS requested that the film be edited to 56 minutes. It was an official entry at the Venice Film Festival (Aug. 29 to Sept. 9). Singh will submit “Valentino’s Ghost” to PBS in January, so be sure to check your TV listings in early 2013.

Sabeel, Jewish Voice for Peace and the Levantine Cultural Center.

“Valentino’s Ghost” to Air on PBS in 2013

GEORGE BARNES, 1926, UNITED ARTISTS

STAFF PHOTOS S. TWAIR

Whenever we crossed paths with filmmaker Michael Singh over the past seven years, he would update us on the progress ADC Focuses on o f h i s d o c u m e n t a r y, Southland “Valentino’s Ghost.” We finally saw an uncut 95As part of its effort to rejuminute version of this exvenate its chapters, the cellent narrative about American-Arab Anti-DisMuslims, Arabs and Israel at a July 17 crimination Committee (ADC) has been fund-raiser in the Southern California sending its national president, Warren Islamic Center. David, and his wife, Amal, on recruitDuring the post-screening quesment trips throughout the U.S. From tion-and-answer session with Singh Aug. 1 to 5, the couple attended a sesand actor Mike Farrell, who narrated sion of the Bethlehem Association and the documentary, the filmmaker, who an ADC town hall in San Diego, met grew up in India, said he was struck with relatives of slain ADC regional diby how Islam is marginalized in the rector Alex Odeh, and appeared at a U.S. He decided that someone should fund-raiser in Orange County. The make a film about this anomaly. As whirlwind trip ended Aug. 5 at an the producer/writer of Discovery’s ADC town hall meeting and dinner in “Chicago’s Lifeline” series, he ultithe Los Angeles Levantine Cultural mately realized that “someone” would Center. have to be himself. ADC’s mission is to protect, preserve PBS, which approached Singh about and promote Arab Americans and the documentary in 2000, was the their cultural legacy in the U.S., David film’s chief sponsor. It took about explained. When his grandfather emithree years to make “Valentino’s grated to the U.S. from Lebanon’s Ghost,” spread across a decade of TOP: Actor Mike Farrell (l) and filmmaker Michael Bakaa Valley, he went on, immigration fund-raising. Singh selected the title Singh discuss Singh’s documentary, “Valentino’s officials at Ellis Island used his middle because in the Hollywood of the Ghost.” ABOVE: National ADC president Warren name, Daoud, and bequeathed him the 1920s, Rudolph Valentino embodied David. surname of David. Years later when he the irresistible sheikh whom Western was sworn in as an American citizen, women fantasized American diplomats in Tehran drew more he protested that David wasn’t his family would carry them headlines than the war in Vietnam. As if name. But when he was told there was a away into the Sa- this weren’t enough, the viewer sees how $100 fee to legally change his name, he Muslims are denigrated in Hollywood dropped the subject. hara Desert. So what hap- films as terrorist bombers and lecherous oil According to David, widespread prejupened in the ensu- billionaires or as the enemy of Christ, cul- dices against Arab Americans are worse ing decades to that minating in the 9/11 attacks on New York’s today than they were 30 years ago. Among romantic image? Twin Towers and the Pentagon. But, as the the examples he cited were Rep. Michele Singh addressed narrative stresses, the media failed to ask Bachmann’s rants against Muslim Amerithis in segments of or investigate why these acts of violence cans in U.S. government service, the New the film dealing were perpetrated or what caused such ha- York Police Department’s spying on Arabwith the phenome- tred. American students, and discrimination in He took it for granted that Arabs and nal success of the the workplace and at airports. Rudolph Valentino as Muslims would not be believed by Amernovel and movie Positive steps taken by ADC include a “The Sheikh.” “Exodus,” which ican audiences, Singh explained, so he in- white paper it will present to the Treasury glorified Israelis as heroic and portrayed terviewed historian John J. Mearsheimer, Department documenting how organizaPalestinians as vengeful savages. This led journalist Robert Fisk, the late Gore Vidal tions with tax-free 501(c)(3) status are to Arabs being viewed as similar to the so- and Harvard professor Niall Ferguson, funding illegal settlements in Israel, and efcalled barbaric Native Americans of the among others, to interpret recent history. forts to establish a U.S. postage stamp comU.S. frontier, then on to the horror of the Humor offsets this serious subject with memorating poet Khalil Gibran. The group 1972 Munich Olympics, and later the Iran pertinent comments by standup comics also hopes to digitize files of 32 years of hostage crisis, when the plight of captured Ahmed-Ahmed and Aron Kader. ADC history. ❑ OCTOBER 2012

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The Ongoing Campaign to Secure the Release Of Convicted Spy for Israel Jonathan Pollard Israel andJudaism

JACK GUEZ/AFP/GETTYIMAGES

By Allan C. Brownfeld

Israeli protesters hold portraits of former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and convicted spy Jonathan Pollard (to the right of Kissinger) during a July 17 protest in front of the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv calling for Pollard’s release. he efforts of the Israeli government

Tand a number of leading American

Jewish organizations to gain the release of convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard are growing. Even some prominent former U.S. government officials have joined this campaign, among them former CIA Director R. James Woolsey and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Early in July, Israeli President Shimon Peres promised to continue to work for Pollard’s release in a meeting with the spy’s wife, Esther, in Jerusalem. When he was in Washington, DC in June, Peres asked President Barack Obama to commute Pollard’s sentence. Among those who have recently called Allan C. Brownfeld is a syndicated columnist and associate editor of the Lincoln Review, a journal published by the Lincoln Institute for Research and Education, and editor of Issues, the quarterly journal of the American Council for Judaism. 50

for Pollard’s release are the Union for Reform Judaism, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, and Anti-Defamation League director Abraham Foxman. Pollard was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1987 for stealing more than a million pages of highly classified documents for the Israelis. U.S. Attorney Joseph deGenova told reporters outside the courthouse, “It is likely he’ll never see the light of day again.” The Israeli government, after years of denial, finally admitted in 1998 that Pollard “acted as an official Israeli agent.” In his book, Capturing Jonathan Pollard: How One of the Most Notorious Spies in American History Was Brought to Justice (available from the AET Book Store), Ronald J. Olive, who served for many years as a naval intelligence investigator, reports, “It is alleged that Israel doubles the salary yearly for Israeli spies caught and imprisoned on foreign soil. If PolTHE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

lard’s spy salary of $2,500 a month plus the promised $30,000 annual bonus were doubled (the figures come from Pollard) he would earn approximately $3.6 million over 30 years. In my knowledge, no other spy in history, in jail or released from it, has been so handsomely rewarded.” From his prison cell, an unrepentant Pollard still claims to have been doublecrossed by U.S. prosecutors, who had promised not to seek a life sentence. Olive explains that the government did not recommend the term. Instead, it was meted out by U.S. District Judge Aubrey Robinson, Jr. after reading a still-secret memo from U. S. Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger detailing the grave damage Pollard had done to national security. It has been alleged that the material Pollard provided led to the murder of U.S. intelligence agents in the Soviet Union and elsewhere—agents who were named in the documents he turned over to the Israelis. As part of Pollard’s plea agreement, he swore not to disclose any classified material he obtained while working for the U.S. Navy. Further, he swore not to “provide information for purposes of publication or dissemination” unless it was reviewed by the director of naval intelligence. “To the astonishment of prosecutors and investigators,” explains intelligence specialist Joseph Goulden, “three weeks before [Pollard’s] sentencing, Wolf Blitzer, a correspondent for The Jerusalem Post, wrote a long article stemming from a jailcell interview with Pollard. It also ran in The Washington Post under the headline ‘Pollard: Not a Bumbler, but Israel’s Master Spy.’ Pollard told Mr. Blitzer what he provided the Israelis: reconnaissance satellite photography of PLO headquarters in Tunisia, specific capabilities of Libya’s air defenses, and far more.” “In general,” wrote Blitzer, who now works for CNN, “Pollard gave Israel the pick of U.S. intelligence about Arab and Islamic conventional and unconventional military activity, from Morocco to Pakistan and every country in between. This included both ‘friendly’ and ‘unfriendly’ Arab countries.” According to Goulden, “The U.S. AtOCTOBER 2012

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torney’s Office considered voiding the plea agreement and putting Pollard on trial but decided not to bother, given that the life sentence was at hand. When Pollard comes up for parole, hopefully some government lawyer will dust off the already violated plea agreement and cite it as a reason to keep him beyond bars.” Discussing the campaign on behalf of Pollard’s release, Martin Peretz, a longtime friend of Israel who edited The New Republic from 1974 until 2011, wrote in the June 25 Wall Street Journal: “There is no end in sight for the campaign to persuade President Obama to let convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard go free....the agitation, a phobic mixture of fantasies of Pollard’s innocence and imaginings of antiSemitic motives on the part of an indeterminate officialdom, has been relentless.” Noted Peretz: “All kinds of comparisons are being made. One is to the great democrat Natan Sharansky, who was kept in the Siberian gulag for 13 years and released because there was no evidence at all of his espionage against the Soviet Union...A different analogy that comes to mind is the ongoing zeal among nutty left-wingers for the release of Black Pan-

ther Mumia Abu Jamal, imprisoned in Philadelphia for 30 years after having murdered a policeman in a revolutionary act. This effort never stops.” In the case of Pollard, Peretz wrote, “There is no doubt about his guilt, no illusion of his innocence. And he did not spy for Zion out of idealistic motives. This is a retrospective improvisation. In fact, before he decided to deliver reams of sensitive intelligence and defense documents to Israel’s security apparatus, he was negotiating with Pakistan—yes, Islamic and Judeophobic Pakistan—to do similar chores for it. (Pakistan is not the only regime with which he was dickering as a prospective agent.) Still, there are folks in the American Jewish community and in Israel who cannot let go of their image of Pollard as a man of virtue and bravery. Hence the stubborn unrest...on his behalf.” When Israeli President Peres was in Washington in June to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom, Israeli literary figures Amos Oz, A.B. Yehoshua and David Grossman wrote, “We feel we cannot reconcile your receiving it when the U.S. is still holding Pollard in prison....Re-

ceiving the medal would make a mockery of Israel.” Peretz concludes his op-ed by noting, “What makes a mockery of Israel is pretending that Pollard is a man of virtue, a martyr, when he wasn’t even a gull.” Before his death in 2006, the man who hired Pollard in 1979 as a civilian intelligence analyst for the U.S. Navy was sharply critical of those who lobbied on Pollard’s behalf. Rear Admiral Sumner Shapiro, director of naval intelligence from 1978 to 1982, was offended as a Jew by the role Jewish groups played in calling for Pollard’s release: “Whether it was Pollard’s initiative or the Israelis’, the idea that an American Jew would spy for anyone bothers the hell out of me....to have Jewish organizations line up behind this guy and try to make him out a hero of the Jewish people, it bothers the hell out of me.” The time may come when, for humanitarian reasons, Jonathan Pollard may be released from prison. But to clamor for his release because, somehow, he is a man of virtue, a martyr, or the victim of prejudice holds the motives of those promoting the cause open to serious question. ❑

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in the late 1880s. Many immigrants from will continue indexing the tables until all Little Syria and other such neighborhoods 50 states have been entered online. Anyone around the country are searchable via the can volunteer at its Web site, <www.the 1940s Census Project Made Available census. 1940census.com>. Volunteers download Online for the First Time Anyone hoping to find a specific person the indexing software and transcribe tables in 1940 can search census from the site. The transcribed tables then data online. The handwritten get added to the database, making it possicensus ledgers have been re- ble for more people to access and use the leased, and many of these ta- census data than ever before. —Mallika Patkar bles have been meticulously indexed state by state by the 1940s Census Community Muslim-American Activism Project. The records are available free online at <www. Muslims in America Working to Archives.com>, where either Help Their Neighbors a street address or geographic Like other faiths, Islam encourages believcode called the enumeration ers to strive for virtue, devotion and good district can lead to the will. Unfortunately, the peaceful religion of records of a specific person. Islam is too often misrepresented by the Additionally, all of the data sensationalist U.S. mainstream media, which also are available at <www. prefer to report on radical manifestations of A photo of Little Syria in New York from the National Ancestry.com>, a site which the faith. can be accessed at Family For the countless number of needy AmerArchives. History Centers or at the Na- icans who have benefited from the charity of their Muslim neighbors, the media’s deThe National Archives released the once- tional Archives in Washington, DC. Among the many notable Arab-Ameri- piction of Muslims could not be further confidential 1940 census on April 2, 2012, giving both professional and family histo- can immigrants who can be traced in the from the truth. Indeed, Muslim charitable rians a valuable opportunity to reconstruct census through these methods is Salloum organizations in the United States provide a American life in a fascinating era. A May Mokarzel, publisher and editor of The Syr- broad variety of services, including health 23 Washington Post article entitled “A ian World, a respected community news- clinics and food for the homeless. The Muslim Community Center of MaryGlance Back 72 Years” described the excit- paper. He can be traced by entering his ing opportunities now open to Americans name, place of birth (Syria) and residence land (MCC) is one such Muslim organizainterested in researching their genealogy. in 1940 (New York, New York) into <An tion. The MCC opened the doors of its medThey can now use digitalized and indexed cestry.com>. His family members, neigh- ical clinic on June 14, 2003 to uninsured paimages of the original census ledger, bors and others can then be traced through tients of all races, ethnicities, faiths and national origins. The paid physicians and volscanned from more than 4,000 rolls of mi- his records on the site. There has been unprecedented interest unteers who staff this clinic treated more crofilm, to search for family members, including many refugees who were stream- in the 1940 census because of its availabil- than 2,500 of the 8,000 patients it registered ing into the U.S. in 1940. The Post article ity online. The Census Community Project in 2011. made no mention of any Arab-American population more than 70 years ago. It turns out the 1940 Census, which counted 132 million people living in the United States, and the Characteristics of a Population books, published shortly after that census in 1940, do not include statistics pertaining to Arab Americans because they weren’t categorized as a race. Nine in 10 Americans were white, and almost everyone else was African American. The books do, however, divide the population by country of origin, giving clues as to the size of the Arab-American population in 1940. America attracted a wave of Arab immigrants from greater Syria in the 1930s. In fact, in Washington, DC in 1940, the largest population of Arab-American immigrants was Syrian. This was also true in Masjid Muhammad invited the whole community to an Eid Carnival, a Family Fun Day, and New York City—in fact, the city’s first an Eid Block Party to celebrate the first three days of Eid al-Fitr in Washington, DC’s Ward Arab-American neighborhood, Little 5. (L-r) Allen Cage, Imam Talib Shareef, DC Mayor Vincent Gray, Jihad Abdus-Salaam (beSyria, was established in Lower Manhattan hind the mayor), Albert Sabir and Rodney Hawkins. 52

THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

OCTOBER 2012

PHOTO COURTESY MASJID MUHAMMAD

STAFF PHOTO M. PATKAR

Arab-American Activism

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OCTOBER 2012

tion, saying, “We have really established a lovely wonderful relationship with people who have come from the church. It has turned into a beautiful fellowship where we find more common good in our faiths than in our differences.” It is deeply regrettable that the media fail to exhibit the existence of humanity and moderation Kelso Richard Stewart (c) celebrates his 101st birthday at the within the Muslim faith. iftar dinner with his grandson and niece. This failure not only exaggerates religious turbulence and disagree- grandson showed a photo, on his cell ment, but also spawns it by creating a false phone, of the letter of congratulation Stewneed for defense and retaliation. art received from President Barack Obama Instead of marking holy holidays such as and Michelle on his birthday. While HarRamadan and Eid al-Fitr by the number of vey isn’t Muslim, his niece worships at the casualties in various Middle Eastern coun- mosque. She recently discovered their famtries, American society ought to mark these ily’s DNA came from Qatar, so it seemed dates by celebrating the virtuous and hon- only right that Stewart, who lives in the orable actions of the Muslim people living neighborhood on Gainesville Road, join out their faith. —Marwan Ayad the festivities on the Embassy of Qatar’s night to host an iftar at museum. Embassy of Qatar Sponsors Iftar —Delinda C. Hanley Amir N. Muhammad welcomed two rooms full of worshippers and guests to a fast- Lessons From the National breaking iftar, sponsored by the Embassy of Sept. 11 Memorial Qatar at the Islamic Heritage Museum in A visit to the 9/11 Memorial in lower ManWashington, DC on Aug. 13. The museum, hattan, New York is even more moving than which collects, archives and exhibits Mus- one would expect. The entire world lim American history from across the coun- mourned with this country after the hortry, helps combat misinformation and Is- rific 2001 attacks, but two “wars against terlamophobia, Muhammad told his guests. ror” and 11 years later, Muslim-, Sikh- and More than 1,000 people have visited the Arab-Americans who have nothing to do museum, located at the former Clara with terrorism are still enduring hurtful beMuhammad School, since it opened to the public on April 30, 2011. Its exhibits have travelled abroad to Qatar and Nigeria. As U.S. Embassy Cultural Affairs Officer in Qatar, Mahvash Siddiqui said she recalled some jazz bands and country music shows that flopped. Tasked to “change hearts and minds” she invited Muhammad to come to Doha with his “Forgotten Roots” exhibit, including images of mosques in America. Over 1.4 million visitors came to that event and learned all about Muslims in America. Howard Harvey, a WWII vet and career diplomat, spoke about the challenges he faced “joining the Foreign Service as a man of color.” He said he still attends funerals, weddings and celebrates the births of children of the many friends he made in Algeria and Morocco. Kelso Richard Stewart celebrated his 101st birthday with a cake at the iftar, sur- The names etched on the 9/11 memorial tell rounded by his proud family. Stewart’s the story of our nation. STAFF PHOTO D. HANLEY

STAFF PHOTO D. HANLEY

The MCC is an ideal example of how a non-profit charitable organization should function. The center operates with financial and technical support from the Primary Care Coalition (PCC) of Montgomery County and is part of the county’s effort to provide adequate health care to over 80,000 uninsured, low income residents. Providing for one’s neighbors is deeply rooted in the Islamic tradition. Zakat, or charity, is one of the five requirements of Islam. The Prophet Muhammed himself once said, “He who sleeps on a full stomach whilst his neighbor goes hungry is not one of us.” This teaching continues to inspire Muslims today. The Islamic community of Masjid (Mosque) Muhammad in Washington, DC is a prime example of the manifestation of the Prophet’s words. Masjid Muhammad, which dates back to the mid 1930s, states as its mission: “[To be] a model, productive, and balanced Islamic community that values and serves the needs of our members and takes seriously the trust and responsibility of citizenship.” This promise is fulfilled by the Masjid’s participation in the Self Help And Resource Exchange Program (SHARE). The SHARE-DC program was launched by the Associated Catholic Charities and the Knights of Malta in April of 1990 and has been an outlet for many churches and volunteer groups working hand-in-hand to feed needy families and the elderly in the nation’s capital. Masjid Muhammad joined SHARE in 2004, as its members were looking for the most effective method to provide food donations to those in need. SHARE functions by providing program participants with access to its Maryland warehouse, which is filled with donated food. Once a week the food is retrieved by participating organizations and delivered to recipients on a monthly basis at absolutely no expense. Each package contains 13 or14 items, consisting of 5 to 7 pounds of meat, fresh fruits, vegetables, and staples such as rice, pasta and potatoes; larger families receive two packages. Alva Abdussalaam coordinates the Masjid Muhammad’s participation in the SHARE program. She praised the SHARE program’s efficiency and flexibility, and explained their willingness to substitute pork products with beef or poultry for masjids. Thanks to the joint cooperation of a few masjids and many churches, the SHARE program exemplifies something that may be more common than many realize: interfaith cooperation. Abdussalaam described the Muslim-Catholic relationship in this coali-

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barred from international flights and almost missed the memorial service. Khalid Shahid, 25, of Pakistani heritage and an administrator for the law firm Cantor Fitzgerald, was planning his wedding to his high-school sweetheart. Waleed Iskandar, 34, a Lebanese of Palestinian Christian origin, was on American Airlines Flight 11, en route from Boston to Los Angeles to tell his parents about his recent en- Syrian American Council (SAC) VIPs (l-r) Hussam Ayloush, Shahir Raslan and Dr. Mahmoud Khattab, SAC national gagement. Mohammad Sallahud- chairman, at “Save the Children” iftar. din Chowdhury, 38, who had a master’s degree in physics from Human Rights Bangladesh, was working as a waiter at the WTC’s Windows on the World restaurant. His second child was born two days Extremism After Wisconsin Sikh Shooting Discussed after his death. This year, when President Obama hosted The New America Foundation in Washinghis fourth White House iftar dinner on ton, DC held a discussion on extremism and Aug. 10, he introduced Muslim chaplains, hate crimes on Aug. 23 titled “What Do We educators and government employees, in- Make of Extremism After Wisconsin?” Hacluding Huma Abedin, whom he praised roon Moghul, research fellow for the New for her tireless work in the White House, America Foundation’s National Security the U.S. Senate and, most exhaustingly, the Studies Program, moderated. State Department. Pointing to the Qur’an Spencer Ackerman, senior reporter for that belonged to his predecessor Thomas Wired.com, set the tone with his concenJefferson, the president said, “And that’s a tration on the issue of anti-terrorism civilreminder, along with the generations of pa- ian surveillance, which unfortunately fotriotic Muslims in America, that Islam—like cuses heavily on Muslims. The systematic so many faiths—is part of our national surveillance of the Islamic community imstory.” plies “a presumption of guilt on the entire Reading the names of 9/11 victims, one Muslim population,” he argued. can see that they came from India, Greece, Ackerman described how this presumpthe Middle East, Iran, Ireland, Scotland, tion has been implemented in America’s France, Germany, Poland—just about largest city, New York, where the police everywhere. Visitors to the memorial can have been spying on American Muslims read those names and know that in Amer- and their mosques. Such probes, Ackerman ica people of every race, religion and eth- pointed out, are en route to being proven nicity are valued as they live, love, work unnecessary, considering the fact that six and die. That is the most important lesson years of undercover operations have failed of the 9/11 Memorial. —Delinda C. Hanley to yield a single tip, lead or conviction. The audience was presented with both a SAC Raises Funds For Syrian legal and Sikh perspective by Amandeep Children Sidhu, an associate at the McDermott Will Nearly 1,000 people attended a July 28 & Emery law firm. The attorney, who also “Save the Children” iftar sponsored by the serves as southeast regional director for the Syrian American Council/Los Angeles, the Sikh Coalition, analyzed where progress has Muslim Public Affairs Council and eight been made and where there is still a defiother organizations in the Anaheim Hilton ciency in combating hate crimes. In the afHotel. More than $200,000 was raised dur- termath of the Sikh Temple shooting in Oak ing the fund-raising portion of the program Creek, Wisconsin, on Aug. 5, he expressed which will go to the Syrian Sunrise Foun- gratitude that the federal government has dation to benefit children made homeless or shown genuine support by ordering the flag to be flown at half-staff from Aug. 6 to 10, orphaned during the conflict in Syria. —Samir Twair and for the First Lady’s personal visit on STAFF PHOTO S. TWAIR

havior from some of their fellow Americans. Would the memorial which honors the men, women and children killed on Sept. 11, 2001 and Feb. 26, 1993 add fuel to the fire? The memorial’s twin reflecting pools each cover an acre and feature the largest man-made waterfalls in North America. But they are insignificant compared to the names etched on the bronze panels surrounding the pools. Those names say it all. Thirty-two Muslims were killed on 9/11, according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR): 29 of them at the World Trade Center (WTC) and three in the hijacked planes. (USA Today says that 60 of nearly 3,000 people killed were Muslim.) American Muslims represent at least 1 percent of the total U.S. population, so it is not surprising that more than 1 percent of the people killed on 9/11 were Muslim. Last year, during the White House’s annual Ramadan iftar dinner, President Barack Obama remembered the Muslim Americans who died on 9/11, as well as the Muslim-American servicemen and women serving in Iraq and Afghanistan who have been killed since then. “Muslim Americans were first responders…the EMTs…the nurse who tended to so many victims, the naval officer at the Pentagon who rushed into the flames and pulled the injured to safety,” the president said. “They were Americans by birth and Americans by choice, immigrants who crossed the oceans to give their children a better life...” Obama called for “an America that doesn’t simply tolerate people of different backgrounds and beliefs, but an America where we are enriched by our diversity.” He asked people to remember “that here in the United States there is no ‘them’ or ‘us’; it’s just us.” One of the 9/11 heroes was former police cadet Salman Hamdani, who volunteered his skills as an EMT at the Trade Center. “People of all faiths died that day,” including Muslims, his mother Talat told USA Today last year. “It is not fair to hold us responsible.” Another hero, Abdu Malahi, 37, of Yemeni descent, grew up in Brooklyn and worked at the WTC Marriott. He ran from floor to floor warning guests to evacuate and escorting them to the stairways before he died. Rahma Salie, 28, of Sri Lankan descent, and her husband, Michael Theodoridis, 32, who converted to Islam to marry her, lived in Boston and were expecting their first baby. The couple were passengers on American Airlines Flight 11 on their way to a wedding in California. After their deaths, several of Rahma’s Muslim relatives were

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STAFF PHOTO M. AYAD

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(L-r) Spencer Ackerman, Haroon Moghul, Amandeep Sidhu and Haris Tarin discuss the “othering” of Muslims and perceived Muslims in the U.S.

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ident George W. Bush’s response to the spike in hate crimes against Muslims and perceived Muslims in the aftermath of 9/11 as one such example. Bush defended the Muslim community and recognized it as an integral component of America’s democratic framework, he noted. —Marwan Ayad

We Still Have Not Forgotten August 4 was probably the hottest evening of the year in Albany, NY––and it was also before sunset during Ramadan. But activists, mosque members, journalists, filmmakers, and representatives of 25 community, civil liberties, advocacy, religious, and peace and justice groups put away their water bottles and marched up Central Ave. to mark the eighth anniversary of the arrests of two Albany Muslims, Yassin Aref and Mohammed Hossain, in a fictitious FBI sting operation on Aug. 4, 2004. Their 2006 trial was based on fear, secret evidence and government overreach—and their convictions for money laundering and material support for terrorism have cost them and their families 15 years of their lives. So every year since 2006 we’ve reminded the Capital District and the media

PHOTO COURTESY J. FINLEY

Aug. 23 with victims. Nevertheless, Sidhu went on to discuss the faults and shortcomings of hate crime prevention. The FBI has decided not to characterize the massacre as an attack on the Sikh community, he noted. Instead, it will most likely be considered as an attack on the Muslim community, or be placed in the “other” category. This issue of hate crimes against minority groups appeared daunting, as Sidhu warned the crowd that “there was a 60 percent increase in the proliferation of white, neoNazi, white supremacist hate groups in the United States since 9/11,” according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. Political will and leadership to spread peace and unity is also lacking, argued Haris Tarin, director of the Washington, DC Muslim Public Affairs Council. The Qur’anburning controversy and Rep. Michele Bachmann’s accusation that Muslims in the highest ranks of public service are betraying their nation are two examples he cited to highlight the toxicity toward Muslims that exists in too many American political and social corners. Tarin emphasized the correlation between political extremism and violence, saying, “the hate crimes are taking place, the violence is taking place—this is not occurring in a vacuum. Over the 9/11 decade there have been very deliberate mechanisms, institutions and processes by individuals, foundations and groups that have created this environment of fear and hate which translates into violence.” The result, according to Tarin, has been a radicalized political environment that unfortunately benefits many politicians. As Muslims have become viewed as a national security threat, making Islamophobic comments has become a tactic many politicians employ to gain votes. However, Tarin did stress that political figures could use their power to create peace and unity. He pointed to former Pres-

that these two working-class, law-abiding Muslims were targeted and entrapped in a fake plot by a paid criminal informant, and that the government admitted no terrorist activity ever took place. Sponsored by the Muslim Solidarity Committee (MSC), Project SALAM, and the Aref-Hossain Capital Region Chapter of the National Coalition to Protect Civil Freedoms (NCPCF), the march’s theme was “We Have Not Forgotten.” Once we reached the Masjid As-Salam, where Aref was imam and Hossain prayed, a roster of speakers helped us remember not only “our prisoners” but scores of other victims of pre-emptive prosecution nationwide. An iftar meal, sponsored by five area restaurants, was then served, followed by a moving candlelight vigil during which nearly 100 prisoners’ names were read aloud. Many are incarcerated in the two “Muslim prisons”: the Communication Management Units (CMUs) in Illinois and Indiana, and the Florence, CO high-security Admax. Family members of prisoners joined us in solidarity, giving the events a secondary theme of “Remember the Women and Children.” These included (for the first time) the entire Aref family: Yassin’s wife, Zuhur Jalal, sons Salah and Azzam Muhiddin, and daughters Alaa and Dilnia Muhiddin. The Hossain family was represented by Fatima Hossain, Mohammed’s wife, daughters Khadija, Habiba and Halima, and son Abu Horayra. Both families still live in Albany. Marlene Jenkins of Albany, mother of prisoner Tarik Shah; Sharmin Sadequee of Atlanta, sister of prisoner Ehsanul “Shifa” Sadequee; Alicia McWilliams of the Bronx, NY, aunt of prisoner David Williams of the Newburgh 4; and Shahina Parveen of New York, mother of prisoner Shahawar Matin Siraj, also participated or spoke of their an-

Marchers mark the eighth anniversary of the arrests of Albany, NY Muslims Yassin Aref and Mohammed Hossain. THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

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STAFF PHOTO D. SPRUSANSKY

STAFF PHOTOS SAMIR TWAIR

Comedian Mike Ismail of guish, anger, and activism. Norfolk, VA then took to the Other speakers included Macstage to open the comedy porGregor Eddy of the Dr. Rafil tion of the evening. Ismail kept Dhafir Support Committee; Joe the crowd laughing with his Lombardo of the United Naobservational humor on topics tional Antiwar Coalition ranging from the male psyche (UNAC) and Bethlehem Neighto racial stereotypes. Recalling bors for Peace; Steve Downs, an incident he witnessed at the executive director of NCPCF; airport when the TSA prohiband event hosts Kathy Manley, ited an elderly man from taking Cathy Callan, and masjid presihis nail clippers past security, dent Shamshad Ahmad. To Ismail quipped, “If we want to great applause, Fahd Ahmed, save America, give grandpa his legal and policy director of toe-nail clipper back.” DRUM (Desis Rising Up and Well-known comedian MayMoving), announced the hiring Several hundred Muslims gathered Aug. 19 in the 40-year-old soon Zayid, co-founder of the of a national coordinator for a Claremont Mosque in California for an early dinner and games New York Arab-American campaign to get government infor the children to celebrate Eid al-Fitr. Comedy Festival, then took to formants out of mosques, so the the stage and immediately had tragedy of Aref-Hossain would the audience cracking up with not happen again. her self-deprecating humor. “Before [my father’s arrest],” Zayid, who suffers from ceresaid 15-year-old Salah Muhidbral palsy, joked about the vardin, “I didn’t know something ious ways her condition has imlike this would happen in pacted her life. On being a desAmerica. I didn’t know they ignated driver in college, Zayid, would take people who were whose condition causes her to innocent.” Fahd Ahmed exhave sudden and erratic tended Salah’s thought, arguing spasms, quipped, “Every time that “if we stay quiet, if we stay the cops pulled us over, they afraid, we only make the govthought I was drunk….There’s ernment campaign easier. We something very wrong with me have to speak out.” More than 10,000 Muslims celebrated the close of Ramadan at being a designated driver.” Besides speaking out, you three services held at 7, 8 and 9 a.m. Aug. 19 in the Los AngeZayid proceeded to joke can also contribute to the Arefles Convention Center. Dr. Maher Hathout delivered the Eid about her experiences traveling Hossain Family Fund, which Khutba and Dr. Saleh Kholaki led the Eid prayer. in Gaza each December—a has assisted both families since slow time in the comedy indus2006 (c/o Law Office of Stephen Downs, 26 Dinmore Rd., Selkirk, NY, traditional Palestinian music on the oud. As try. She recalled a friend of hers question12158). And you can join us in our work to attendees broke their Ramadan fast, they ing the visits, asking, “Who goes to Palesstop the pre-emptive prosecution, profiling, clapped and sang along to the wonderfully tine at Christmas?” Zayid’s response: “Uhh…Mary and Joseph.” and prison abuse of Muslims and others in performed tunes. Zayid also joked about her treatment by the government’s “war on terror.” InforIsraeli authorities when she arrives at the mation is available on our Web sites: Tel Aviv airport. She playfully suggested <http://nepajac.org/Aref& that the Israeli army must love her since Hossain.htm>, <www.projectsalam.org>, they talk to her each time she enters the and <www.civilfreedoms.org>. country. She also poked fun at an Israeli air—Jeanne Finley port security agent who determined that the shoes she was wearing constituted a seMusic & Arts curity threat. When Zayid opened her luggage to allow the agent to select a more apNight of Comedy Benefits propriate pair of shoes, she only had three Palestinian Children pairs of the same shoes. “I had a Charlie Brown moment,” she joked. A night of culture, humor and charity was On meeting her husband in Gaza, Zayid enjoyed by all at the Jerusalem Fund’s Aug. explained, “I went to the only place I can 10 benefit for Palestinian children with disget a husband. Why? Because they can’t abilities titled “Yalla Idhak! A Night of Comrun.” She also joked about the challenges of edy with Maysoon Zayid.” The benefit was held at the 5th & K Busboys and Poets in Maysoon Zayid performs at the Jerusalem living with a Gazan refugee husband in the Washington, DC. Fund’s benefit for Palestinian children at Bus- U.S.: his unibrow, his tendency to begin sentences with the phrase “When I was in The evening began with the playing of boys and Poets in Washington, DC. 56

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prison,” his stereotypical falafel business, and his confusion regarding the difference between a tollbooth and a checkpoint. Zayid spent a significant amount of time joking about her family. She discussed her mother-in-law’s persistent pleas for her to have a child. Even though she repeatedly informs her “monster-in-law” that having a child would kill her due to her cerebral palsy, she always responds, “Just try once.” Zayid dedicated her performance to her father, who died in late June. Zayid is actively involved in charity work for children with disabilities in Palestine. For more information on her career and her scholarship program, visit <www.maysoon.com>. —Dale Sprusansky

Golden Age in the south. Anne Barber-Shams studied painting and glass in Venice and Padua, Italy, as well as earning degrees in art in California and Oregon. She first became involved with the situation in Palestine in 2001, and has since participated in numerous solo and group shows, concentrating on the subjects of building bridges to peace through art. For more information please visit <www.thejerusalem fund.org>. —Dagmar Painter

shelter in the mosque of an elderly sheikh where he meets an independent-thinking, hijab-wearing young woman, Dina. Wilson wrote of her conversion to Islam in her 2010 memoir, The Butterfly Mosque. —Pat McDonnell Twair

Anne Barber-Shams’ Exhibition: “Mihrab: Metaphorical Portal”

“Guardians of the Mosque”: African Palestinians of Jerusalem

PHOTO COURTESY JERUSALEM FUND

STAFF PHOTO SAMIR TWAIR

PHOTO COURTESY JERUSALEM FUND

“Guardians of the Mosque,” a photography exhibit which will be on view at the Jerusalem Fund Gallery in Alif the Unseen, a First Washington, DC from Nov. 9 Novel to Dec. 1, depicts a community almost unknown to the West: G. Willow Wilson’s prescient A f r i c a n Pa l e s t i n i a n s i n first novel, Alif the Unseen, was Jerusalem. New York-based written just before Egypt’s unphotographer Andrew Courtfinished revolution began in ney has spent the last two January 2011, she stated at a decades establishing his relaJuly book signing in Los AnAnne Barber-Shams pairs her painting with odes by poets of the period. tionship with the 50 families geles’ Skylight Bookstore. who make up this minority The story takes place in an unnamed emirate where a hacker opposed The Jerusalem Fund Gallery in Washington, community. His black-and-white large-scale to the regime calls himself Alif. As he flees DC hosts its first exhibit by Oregon artist images depict the daily lives and struggles the authorities for his dissident messages, Anne Barber-Shams, “Mihrab: Metaphori- of these black Palestinians, whose ancestors Alif comes into possession of a priceless cal Portal,” opening on Sept. 14. 2012 and came to Jerusalem from Chad, Sudan, Nigetome, Alf Yeom (One Thousand and One running through Oct. 26. Barber-Shams ex- ria and Senegal generations ago. They have Days), the reverse of One Thousand and One plores the depths of the mihrab, which she traditionally held the keys to the city’s IsNights that was narrated by the jinn. While translates as meaning refuge, and its signif- lamic holy sites, and thus have been called on the lam, Alif’s foremost enemy is a man icance in the three monotheistic traditions “Guardians of the Mosque.” known as the Hand of God, who also is en- of Andalusian Spain, in jewel-like paintings gaged to a woman Alif loved. Alif takes steeped in the culture of the Golden Age of El-Andalus. Eleven acrylic paintings on paper, embellished with gold leaf, study the evocative shapes of doorway, gate, arch and niche— literal architectural and metaphorical portals from one place to another. The artist sees the mihrab as a portal uniting the ancient common ground found during the Andalusian period, where for 700 years the three monotheistic cultures of Muslims, Christians and Jews intermingled and flourished, bringing forth architectural, artistic, scientific and scholarly riches. Barber-Shams pairs these paintings with nine odes by Muslim, Christian and Jewish poets of the period, calligraphed in metal leaf on marbleized Mylar (strong polyester film). She sees the odes as seeds of peace created during a turbulent time, the Dark Ages of Mohammed Hassan Bulalla, photographed Northern Europe contemporaneous with by Andrew Courtney in the African PalestinG. Willow Wilson with her novel. the liberal cultural understanding of the ian community. OCTOBER 2012

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The families live near the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque, in apartments built in the 14th century. During Ottoman rule, until 1918, the buildings were used as prisons. Courtney captures sensitive portraits of community elders, such as Ali Jiddah and Mohammed Hassan Bulalla strolling through the quarter, as well as of the next generation of children, with images such as the one in the home of Ali Jiddah and his daughter Hibah. The accompanying text tells the community’s story. ”It is noteworthy that the African Palestinians of Jerusalem consider themselves proud, steadfast Palestinians. Since the 1967 war and occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem, most of the community has been directly involved in resisting the Israeli occupation. Many have served long sentences in Israeli prisons, as have many other Palestinians in the territories. As a result of the 1967 war, a quarter of the African-Palestinian community became refugees in surrounding countries, particularly Jordan and Lebanon. To this date, they are still not allowed to return. Ali Jiddah served 17 years of a life sentence before his release in a 1985 prisoner swap. He now works as a political tour guide in the Old City.” Photographer Andrew Courtney is an artist, teacher and activist. For many years a still photographer and activist for global social change, Courtney’s portfolios of photographs made in Sandinista Nicaragua, Vietnam, Apartheid South Africa, Cuba and the Palestinian territories remain an important legacy of his craft and his world view. In recent years filmmaking has been the focus of his work. His film company, Red Hill Films, engages documentary themes and issues of important social concern. —Dagmar Painter

Waging Peace New DC Boycott Campaign Aims to Burst the SodaStream Bubble The DC Metro chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace held its second boycott action in sweltering heat on Aug. 5 at Columbia Heights Shopping Mall after kicking off a new Washington, DC-based SodaStream boycott campaign in July. Its primary purpose is to persuade shoppers at the mall to stop buying SodaStream products, which are manufactured in an illegal Israeli settlement, and to convince the mall’s stores that sell SodaStream products to de-shelve them. 58

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Mohammed Rezeq, a student from Gaza, and (behind him) Steve Fake speak to interested shoppers outside the Columbia Heights Shopping Mall in Washington, DC. SodaStream manufactures beverage carbonation devices for home use. The company markets its products as “environmentally friendly,” but as the boycott campaign’s handout materials emphasize, “there is nothing wholesome about the destruction of Palestinian life, land and water resources!” While SodaStream is relatively new to the U.S. market, its American sales are rapidly climbing. Many retail stores in the DC area are now stocking and heavily promoting its carbonation machines and multiple flavorings. The company announced on Aug. 8 that sales in the Americas were up a stunning 109 percent over last year and now constitute almost 30 percent of total revenues. As of May 2012, SodaStream was being sold in over 2,900 Walmart locations in the U.S. The following month, according to the equity research firm Monness Crespi Hardt & Co., the machines were selling out. In addition to Walmart, other DC-area stores that carry SodaStream include JCPenney, Sears, Macy’s, Bloomingdales, Kohl’s, Williams and Sonoma, and Crate and Barrel, as well as several locally owned hardware stores such as Strosniders, Fragers, Ace Hardware and Old Takoma Park Hardware. One of the most egregious aspects about SodaStream is that it labels its products as being “Made in Israel,” when its main production site in fact is located in the Mishor Edomin Industrial Zone, which is part of the huge illegal Israeli settlement of Ma’ale Adumim. It thus enjoys tax incentives and lax regulatory enforcement, as well as additional support from the Israeli government. Company profits support the Israeli economy, not that of the Palestinians, and the THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

Ma’ale Adumim settlement itself is strengthened by the factory’s tax contributions to road construction and municipal employee salaries. SodaStream factory workers suffer from harsh working conditions, including being paid well below the minimum wage despite their entitlement under Israeli law to the same rights as Israeli workers. Shelley Cohen Fudge, Chapter coordinator of Jewish Voice for Peace DC Metro, stated that, “Jewish Voice for Peace endorses boycotting settlement products in order to raise awareness about the Israeli occupation. We refuse to remain silent as the illegal settlements gobble up ever more Palestinian land, as the economic strangulation, restrictions on movement and other human rights abuses that Palestinians must endure steadily mount.” Many passersby were especially drawn to the live music at the August boycott action, especially the traditional African-American spirituals with new lyrics that highlight the problems associated with SodaStream products. Shoppers were eager to sign “Stop Stocking SodaStream” cards distributed by boycott campaign participants, which were designed for store managers at Target, Bed Bath and Beyond, Best Buy and Staples, all of which are located in the mall. While local store managers of large national chain stores do not have the authority to make stocking decisions, they can inform their corporate headquarters about the complaints they receive from store customers concerning SodaStream. “One man told me, after passing through our gauntlet of boycotters and reading our flyer, that he was seriously reconsidering his request to his wife the previous week to buy OCTOBER 2012

him a SodaStream machine for his birthday,” said protester Steve Fake. “It felt very satisfying to turn around a potential SodaStream customer into a potential boycott participant due to our persuasive message!” Several Palestinian students from the West Bank and Gaza, carrying signs reading “Come talk, I’m Palestinian,” joined the August boycott action. They engaged with many shoppers and passersby who expressed surprise about SodaStream’s manufacturing plant location, as well as about the dire situation in the occupied territories. At the conclusion of the August boycott action, several of the boycott organizers and Palestinian students attempted to deliver a large stack of “Don’t Stock SodaStream” cards that had been signed by prospective store shoppers to store managers, urging them to remove SodaStream from their stores. Junior-level store managers at two of the stores, Target and Staples, expressed hostility toward the boycott participants and refused to accept the stack of cards. Undeterred, organizers of the DC-based boycott campaign said they plan to continue the boycott campaign by holding monthly boycott actions and handing out flyers at the entrance of Columbia Heights Shopping Mall until the stores there stop selling SodaStream. The next boycott action at the mall is scheduled for Sept. 16 at 2 p.m. Endorsers of the new DC-based boycott campaign include the Washington Interfaith Alliance for Middle East Peace and the Sabeel DC Metro chapter. For more information about the boycott campaign, e-mail <jvpdcmetro@gmail.com>. —Jamal Najjab

Colorado Peace Campers Learn About Occupation, Join BDS Protest The Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission (PPJPC) in Colorado Springs, CO conducts a Peace Camp every summer—a oneweek day camp for children ages 6-15. Kids take on different crafts and projects every day which focus on Peace with Self, Peace with Neighbors, Peace with the Earth, Peace with the World, and Becoming Peace Builders. The PPJPC also has a Middle East Peace Project (MEPP), a small committee of activists engaged in education, advocacy and humanitarian aid for the people of Palestine. Each year our humanitarian aid project sponsors a volunteer to go to Palestine to take part in the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) work camp to rebuild a destroyed Palestinian home. This summer the MEPP also partnered with the Peace Camp to involve the kids in OCTOBER 2012

PHOTO COURTESY GENIE DURLAND

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Peace Campers in Colorado Springs learn about BDS, then join a protest of Tribe and Sabra products. our monthly Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS) witness against Sabra and Tribe products at a local supermarket. The global BDS movement targets Tribe, which is owned by Osem, a key supporter of the Jewish National Fund, and Sabra Dipping products, owned by the Straus Group, which prides itself on its vigorous support of Israel Defense Forces. The Peace Campers listened to short presentations from last year’s ICAHD ambassador, Sylvia Sedrak, and committee chairperson Jimi Hummer. Sylvia, Jimi and other MEPP members taught the kids about the occupation and how people can vote with their dollars by boycotting certain products that help continue Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians. MEPP members then helped the campers make their own signs and banners to participate in our local monthly Sabra and Tribe BDS action. Forty-two Peace Campers joined MEPP members for the action. You could hear “Honk for Peace” being chanted blocks away. One of the signs read, “If kids are protesting, you know there is something wrong!” Others said “Don’t let Israel terrorize Palestine” and “No More House Demolitions.” One child actually took the entire tag board and colored a Palestinian flag! The most inspiring part was that they really understood the crux of the problem and were so eager to act publicly. We hope our project can be an example for others. After all, we are doing what we do in Colorado Springs—one of the most powerful bastions of Christian Zionism in the U.S. —Genie Durland

Youth on Opposing Sides of Conflict Tell a New Story New Story Leadership (NSL), an organization based in Bethesda, MD, brings 10 THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

young professionals from conflict zones to live and work in Washington, DC each summer. On July 6, NSL held its annual joint conference with the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in Washington, DC. The conference featured two panels of 2012 Israeli and Palestinian NSL participants, as well as Irish and South African NSL alumni. In his opening remarks, NSL director Paul Costello explained the organization’s desire to “invest in a new generation of young people.” Stories from the youth are “profoundly important in inspiring change,” he said. By living in pairs, one Palestinian and one Israeli, with the same host family, NSL students obtain a direct and personal experience of American life. Nitzan Regev-Sanders, a 26-year-old Israeli, opened the first panel by explaining how, despite her military background, she devotes her life to fighting for peace. She described growing up in an army base and how seeing her Israeli friends’ fathers being killed filled her “with a sense of fear, not security.” “In an innocent, childlike way, I thought the only way I could save my own father was by creating peace,” Regev-Sanders recalled. She proceeded to recount a defining moment in her life when, at the age of 8, she took a stand and was the only member of her youth camp group to choose human life as more important than land. “Back then, I was the only one who stood on the side of humanity….Today, my fight is a different kind of fight. Now, I hope for a better, brighter, integrated future for the people of Israel and Palestine.” Regev-Sanders’ Palestinian host sister, Yara Owayyed, described how, as a Palestinian who grew up in Israel, she has learned to “no longer be bound by nationality.” “When I was a child, I was blissfully 59

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around Gaza and seeing the spirit of the Palestinians. She said, “This is what struck me most…the resilience of the people of Gaza.” For the past three years, Halley has lived in Jerusalem and worked in Ramallah. She spoke about the transformative nature of her time in Israel and Palestine, emphasizing the importance of inter-cultural understanding. “My role has entailed humanizing one side to the other,” she said. With all her experience in the Middle East and her experience with NSL, she said she was “optimistic for the future.” For more information visit <www.newstoryleadership.org> —Mallika Patkar and Keenan Duffey (L-r) New Story Leadership interns Diane Halley, Walid Issa and Guy Cherni. unaware of the implications of being a Palestinian Israeli,” she said. “Being a Palestinian in a Jewish, democratic state meant being a second-class citizen.” When Owayyed was 13, the state of Israel expropriated her family’s home to build a road. When she was 16, her Jewish Israeli classmates burned her hair because she was Palestinian. One of the first people from an Arab background to work at the Israeli High Court of Justice, Owayyed credits her accomplishments to her determination, and said she has an optimistic vision for the future of Palestinians. In fact, Owayyed referred to both Israelis and Palestinians as “her people.” “We need to celebrate our unifying factors, not belabor what divides us,” she explained. Rikus Wessels, a South African NSL alumnus, expressed his empathy with Owayyed because he, too, had “questioned his place in his homeland.” “Our roads to peace are different, though we are all hoping for the same result,” Wessels said. The goal of both Owayyed and RegevSanders is to inspire young Israelis and Palestinians to make a change. “The young generation needs to put itself out there and deliver the message,” Regev-Sanders said. “We already have a group. We just need to adjust ourselves to the right goal.” The conference’s second panel featured two NSL program participants and one of the co-founders of the NSL Middle East Program. Walid Issa, a 25-year-old Palestinian from Bethlehem who recently graduated from St. Cloud University in Minnesota, began by discussing his background and what brought him to the NSL program. As a child, he said, his family was poor and lived in the Dheisheh Refugee Camp in Bethlehem. However, he added, “My family is very rich when it comes to 60

compassion,” and this played a big role in influencing the way he thinks. Issa recalled witnessing the assassination of his teacher in Bethlehem in 2003: “All I could see was blood everywhere.” That was a life-changing day, he said: “On that day, I stopped seeing Bethlehem as a holy land. I stopped seeing Palestine as a holy land. I just wanted to get as far away as I could.” Issa chose peace instead of revenge, he said, explaining, “I learned how to appreciate humanity.” Ever since that tragic day, he has had one objective: “I don’t want my kids to live in fear.” He concluded by saying, “Peace is people’s gift to one another.…let us no longer live in fear.” Guy Cherni, a political science and philosophy student at Hebrew University, described his background as an Israeli who was raised with the values of the Israeli Labor Movement and served in the Israeli army. Prior to the second intifada, Cherni said, he maintained good relations with Palestinian co-workers at a local pool. Once the intifada began, however, he said, “[The] light of hope was shaded by a mountain of doubts.” Discussing the remarkable optimism of the group gathered by the NSL program, Cherni said, he “and the other people you have heard today are very different from each other.” He pointed out, though, “What binds us is our willingness to get to know each other.” He poignantly stated, “We, the young generation, respect our past…but we don’t want to live it.” Diane Halley, from Tipperary, Ireland, told the audience about co-founding NSL for the Middle East. In 2009, she participated in a European Parliament mission to Israel and Palestine following Israel’s war on Gaza in 2008. She recalled travelling THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

Grassroots Movements in Palestine The Palestine Center hosted a July 10 event titled “From Grievance to Action: Mapping Grassroots Movements in Palestine” at its offices in Washington, DC. Palestine Center intern Patrick Lavallee moderated the discussion. Adam Gallagher, writer and researcher on nonviolent movements, began by highlighting four structural impediments to the success of nonviolent civil resistance in Palestine. He cited the Israeli occupation and settlements as the first impediment. The second factor he identified is the lack of Palestinian Authority (PA) interest in nonviolent movements. The PA “are too invested in the peace process,” Gallagher commented. “I don’t see them organizing and bringing people out into the streets.” Gallagher pointed to Palestinian factionalism as the third structural impediment. “Neither of the parties, Fatah or Hamas, have much to gain from a young broadbased movement that empowers a new generation of leaders to achieve Palestinian rights,” he explained. “I don’t think that either of these groups is pushing hard for it.” Finally, Gallagher argued, a dearth of U.S. support has hamstrung Palestinian nonviolence movements. He noted that Washington was hesitant to support protest movements across the region in 2011 and that the Obama administration opposed Palestine’s U.N. statehood bid. “Because of these structural impediments,” Gallagher said, “external actors are indispensable for nonviolent civil resistance for Palestine.” Diaspora groups, unions, student groups, artists, celebrities and non-governmental organizations are among the external actors that could assist Palestinians, he said. However, Gallagher pointed out, “external support cannot bring about new grassroots movements, OCTOBER 2012

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Phyllis Bennis (l) and Adam Gallagher point out challenges to grassroots movements in Palestine.

Milestones in Palestinian Politics Human rights attorney and writer Noura Erakat, appearing at the Palestine Center on July 18, was supposed to examine the viability of the current Palestinian leaderOCTOBER 2012

ship and the legitimacy of the Palestinian Authority. Rather than focusing on the “internecine conflict between Fatah and Hamas,” however, Erakat, who teaches international human rights law in the Middle East at Georgetown University, examined some of the milestones achieved by Palestinians in the past year. She also discussed the strategies that the Palestinian leadership has pursued, including last September’s statehood bid at the United Nations. “The highlight of the U.N. statehood bid was [Palestinian President Mahmoud] Abbas’ speech to the U.N.,” Erakat said, which “probably marked the apex of his own presidential tenure. It used terms like apartheid, it reasserted the Palestinian narrative, it created and re-energized the alliances among the international community to support the Palestinian cause.”

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but can increase the capabilities already there.” Phyllis Bennis of the Institute for Policy Studies lamented “the failure of diplomacy” to settle the Israel-Palestine conflict. In her opinion, this failure can be attributed to the fact that talks have been “based on the false premise” that Israel and Palestine are equal negotiating partners. The fact that Israel is a military and economic heavyweight and has the full support of the U.S. makes basing negotiations on this premise unreasonable, Bennis said. Thus, she argued, “We need an entirely different kind of diplomacy…[one that] has a lot to do with the United Nations, and international law, and human rights, rather than power, as the question of what’s the basis of how we’re going to solve this thing.” Bennis rejected Washington’s position that direct negotiations are the only way to solve the conflict, pointing specifically to a statement made by then Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva at the 2006 U.N. general debate as one possible alternative to the status quo. “On the question of the Middle East,” Lula said, “we should be clear that the major powers have controlled the diplomacy for all these years and they have failed. Isn’t it time for the smaller countries of the world, the countries of the global South, in the context of the United Nations, to take up a new proposal?” —Dale Sprusansky

Palestinian American attorney and writer Noura Erakat. THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

Erakat went on to discuss what has happened since—especially the fact that, despite American efforts, “Palestine has been accepted as a member state within the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).” Palestine has used that position to add the Church of Nativity in Bethlehem to UNESCO’s list of endangered world heritage sites. Palestinians should also have used their membership to push for sites that are under greater threat, she added, including “Battir, a small village that sits in Area C, most of which is now under threat because it is about to be consumed by the route of the annexation wall—as well as it’s a dedicated site for the Jewish National Fund to build a green park.” Another important step taken by Palestinian officials, Erakat said, was to submit for recognition as a state within the International Criminal Court (ICC) jurisdiction, which would have allowed Palestinians to bring lawsuits against Israel for war crimes it committed during its assault on Gaza in the winter of 2008-2009. “The ICC, no surprise, rejected the application and did not admit Palestine as a state; there is no jurisdiction,” Erakat lamented. Erakat marvelled at the “really unprecedented mass hunger strikes of Palestinian political prisoners to protest their indefinite captivity under a Draconian Israeli military law known as ‘administrative detention’... the nice way of saying ‘indefinite detention.’” Khader Adnan, who was on hunger strike for 66 days before he was released, was followed by other hunger strikers, including Akram Rikhawi, and a simultaneous hunger strike by 2,500 Palestinian political prisoners. While this had nothing to do with Palestinian leadership or the statehood bid, Erakat noted, “it shook the foundations of the Israeli occupation.” She went on to cite other achievements—including those of the Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD), as well as the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign— which intend to highlight Israeli human rights violations. The Presbyterian Church (PC USA) agreed to boycott all Israeli products and settlement products to protest the occupation and only failed to achieve divestment by a very, very slight margin. Erakat didn’t hesitate to criticize the Palestinian Authority for, among other things, using its security forces to attack, rather than protect, Palestinians. To read the transcript of her remarks or watch her talk, visit <www.palestinecenter.org>. —Delinda C. Hanley 61

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(L-r) Thomas Carothers, Marina Ottaway, Laurel Miller and Jeffrey Martini discuss Democratization in the Arab World. especially considering the “structural factors” within the region, he said. Exposure to pluralism, the presence of natural resources, economic stability, and literacy are all factors that need to be considered on a country-by-country basis, he concluded. Democratization in the Arab World is available online at <www.rand.org>. —Ian McInerney

Panel Lauds Morocco’s Political Reforms Kosmos Energy, Ltd., a Dallas-based energy company with plans to explore for oil and gas offshore in Morocco, hosted a July 31 experts’ roundtable entitled “Finding a Way Forward: The U.S., Morocco and a Changing North Africa” at the Capitol Visitor Center in Washington, DC. Special guest Rachad Bouhlal, Morocco’s

ambassador to the United States, opened the panel by discussing the importance of the alliance between the U.S. and his country. “Morocco has shared common values with the United States throughout history. Not once have we not been side by side,” stated the ambassador. Moderator Haim Malka, deputy director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ (CSIS) Middle East Program, cited Morocco’s “interconnectedness” with the entire Maghreb region as another reason for its importance to the U.S. “The challenges and opportunities in Morocco affect the rest of the surrounding region and U.S. policy,” he said. Since the Arab Uprisings, Morocco has undergone a steady reform movement, culminating with the passage of its new constitution in July 2011. Audra Grant, a polit-

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The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace held a July 18 event at its Washington, DC offices to present the findings of a new RAND Corporation book titled Democratization in the Arab World. Marina Ottaway, senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment’s Middle East Program, moderated the panel discussion. Laurel Miller, a senior political scientist for RAND and the book’s co-author, kicked off the discussion by identifying the main questions the book tries to answer: “What are the challenges to democracy in the Middle East, how have other countries overcome or failed to overcome similar challenges, and how can other governments help those countries in the midst of a transition?” While the chaotic nature of the Arab uprisings has left these questions with multiple answers, Miller emphasized “the importance of taking the long view” in assessing the uprisings. “We are not predicting that democratization in the wake of the Arab Spring is going to succeed,” she said, “but based on experiences in the past and the rest of the world, much of the pessimism is unwarranted.” Co-author Jeffrey Martini, a RAND Middle East analyst, went into more specific detail, using the current situation in Egypt as an example. “We flag civilian and military relations as very consequential for the prospect of democratization in Egypt,” he explained. “In circumstances where the military has stayed in power,” Miller interjected, “negotiations have been needed in order to ease them [the military] out of their political role.” Miller cited Chile, Portugal and Turkey as countries that experienced similar transitions that took years to resolve. Thomas Carothers of the Carnegie Endowment was not as optimistic for the future of democratization in the region, saying, “I say we see tough times ahead for democracy in the Arab world.” He went on to argue that, while making comparisons to other countries is the best way to put global events into perspective, each country’s individual situation is so unique that it is nearly impossible to predict the future, especially when it comes to the possibility of democratization. Carothers also emphasized that it is important to understand that each country has its own unique groups, each with their own unique set of challenges, thereby making comparisons tricky. Attempting to draw conclusions about the Middle East is risky,

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Prospects for Arab Democratization

(L-r) Haim Malka, Audra Grant, Alexis Arieff, Dr. J. Peter Pham and Ambassador Rachad Bouhlal describe Morocco’s unique reform movement. THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

OCTOBER 2012

ical scientist at the RAND Corporation, said she believes that Morocco’s reform movement was unique in relation to the movements of its neighbors. “Reforms in Morocco developed without collapse and without calls to overthrow the monarchy,” she explained. Dr. J. Peter Pham, director of the Atlantic Council’s Michael S. Ansari Africa Center, attributed the success of the reform movement in Morocco to historical factors. “Morocco has a multi-century, organic existence that makes these reforms possible,” he argued. Pham focused his remarks on what he believed were the most important points of the constitution, including “identity politics,” or the acknowledgement of the multiple sources of culture. Such an acknowledgement is “unique for the region,” he emphasized. Another unique aspect of the constitution is its “liberal” statements on Islam, he said: while it recognizes Islam as the religion of the state, it grants free exercise of religion for all. Additionally, the constitution limits monarchal power, and Pham said he believes that parliament’s new powers under the constitution will be crucial to Morocco’s stability. In Grant’s opinion, the Justice and Development Party (PJD) will also have a more important role. “The PJD proved its mobilization capabilities and captured the attention of voters,” she said. “However, its success will hinge on its performance and ability to create jobs.” Unemployment and poverty are significant challenges still plaguing the Moroccan people, Grant emphasized. Alexis Arieff, a North Africa analyst at the Congressional Research Service, pointed out that the strengthened roles of the prime minister as head of state and of the legislature will provide increased “leverage” for Morocco’s political parties and democracy advocates. Most Moroccans, she said, generally are “happy with the direction of the reforms.” Concluding the discussion, Malka reminded the audience of the “evolving nature” of Morocco’s reform process. “Morocco has opened a new chapter of reform,” he acknowledged. “Still, more progress is yet to be made.” —Mallika Patkar

Internal Strife Hinders Iraq’s Regional Policy The Middle East Institute (MEI) in Washington, DC hosted a July 12 event titled “After the Summit: Assessing Iraq’s relations with its Arab Neighbors.” The panel, moderated by Phebe Marr, author of The Modern History of Iraq, highlighted the impact OCTOBER 2012

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(L-r) Phebe Marr, Ambassador Samir Sumaida’ie, John Desrocher and Prof. Gregory Gause discuss Iraq’s relations with its neighbors. of internal fractionalization on Iraq’s policy toward its Arab neighbors. Former Iraqi Ambassador to the United States Samir Sumaida’ie began by dividing Iraq’s modern history into three phases: pre-intervention, during the intervention, and post-intervention. “Just prior to the intervention, we were a broken Iraq,” he said. “Broken in every sense and practically backwards in every sense.” Post-intervention, however, Sumaida’ie noted the sectarian nature of the violence gripping his country has shifted from its previous incarnations. “Iraq’s sectarianism is fluid and malleable,” he said, noting the drastic “Lebanonization” of the country’s politics. Sumaida’ie concluded with recommendations for Iraq moving forward. Foremost, he urged, Iraq must improve its internal cohesion. The country’s fractured political atmosphere is causing it to be vulnerable to Iranian influence, as well as Kurdish and Syrian strife, he explained. Gregory Gause, professor of political science at the University of Vermont, discussed Iraq-Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) relations. “During times of crisis, the GCC tends to close ranks…[and] the current level of threat is high,” said Gause, referring to the GCC’s wariness toward Iraq. “The Saudis take the lead [in the GCC] when it comes to Iraqi issues,” he added candidly. In his view, the Saudis view Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki as an Iranian agent. While the Saudi elite view Iraq in geopolitical terms, Gause added, they tend to frame any political intervention in a sectarian manner and align themselves with Iraq’s Sunni tribes. Kenneth Pollack, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Saban Center for MidTHE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

dle East Policy and author of the 2002 book The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq, further dissected the Iran-Iraq relationship. “This is a [Baghdad] government that doesn’t have a particular love for Iran, but they feel there is nowhere else to turn,” he stated. “The Iraqi government is very much estranged from the Sunni world.” John Desrocher, director of Iraq affairs at the U.S. Department of State, provided the U.S. government’s view of Iraqi affairs. “Our objective is to work with Iraq to build constructive relationships with its neighbors,” he said. In contrast to Gause, Desrocher maintained that Iraq-Kuwait relations have made immense progress since 1991, painting a more optimistic view of a relationship that Gause described as superficial at best. “A modest success isn’t a bad thing given recent history,” Desrocher asserted. —Meher Ahmad

Iraq and the Politics of Oil The Middle East Institute (MEI), with the support of Shell, held an Aug. 16 event at the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) building in Washington, DC to discuss “Iraq and the Politics of Oil.” MEI scholar Allen Keiswetter moderated the panel discussion. Naufel Al-Hassan, commercial counselor at the Iraqi Embassy, began by touting the growth of his country’s oil sector. Since 2003, he pointed out, Iraqi oil production has increased by 85 percent, from 1.5 million barrels per day (bpd) to 2.7 million bpd. (Prior to the 2003 U.S. invasion, Iraq was producing 2.5 million bpd, down from its 1990 peak of 3.5 million bpd.) Oil exports have increased by nearly 130 percent over the same time period, Al-Hassan added, as Iraq exported 1 million bpd in 63

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(L-r) Naufel Al-Hassan, Raad Al Kadiri, Denise Natali and Brett McGurk discuss the intersection of oil and politics in Iraq.

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more,” she said. Senior State Department adviser Brett McGurk discussed the evolving Iraqi view of foreign oil companies. While Iraqis largely objected to the presence of international companies within their borders in the past, he said that this mindset is changing. “The debate is not why are international companies here helping us, but why not more?” McGurk said. He concluded by stating that the U.S. plays a “facilitating role” in negotiations between Erbil and Baghdad. —Dale Sprusansky

POMED Event Examines Iran’s Green Movement Consumed by the nuclear issue and the possibility of military intervention in Iran, Washington, DC has devoted a strikingly minuscule amount of time to contemplating the dynamics of the Islamic Republic’s internal politics. In an effort to revive this topic, the Project on Middle East Democracy (POMED) hosted an Aug. 9 discussion and screening at West End Cinema in Washington, DC of the 2010 documentary film

COURTESY THEGREENWAVE-FILM.COM

2003 and 2.3 million bpd in the first half of 2012. Despite the positive growth, Al-Hassan did caution that “there is a lot of area for development and improvement.” He specifically cited the insufficient number of docks in Iraqi ports and the inability of older refineries to meet environmental regulations. “The list of challenges is endless,” he acknowledged. Raad Al Kadiri, head of the Markets and Country Strategies Group at PFC Energy, highlighted the troubled relationship between oil and politics in Iraq. Calling this relationship “a very volatile mix,” he remarked that “oil is threatening the territorial integrity and fabric of the state.” Arguing that “Iraqi politics is probably more polarized now than at any point [since 2003],” Al Kadiri noted that Iraqis are engaged in a bitter dispute over the division of power and oil revenue. The Kurds see a weak central government as being “vitally important,” he explained, while Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki desires a strong central government in Baghdad. “The failure to reconcile radically different views about federalism….has been the most disruptive feature and remains the most disruptive feature of Iraqi politics,” Al Kadiri said. Denise Natali of the National Defense University’s Institute for National Strategic Studies added her take on relations between the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and Baghdad. “Relations have deteriorated considerably, especially since 2011,” she said, noting that Baghdad is unhappy with the increasingly cozy Turkish-KRG relationship. Baghdad dislikes Ankara dealing with Kurdistan as an independent entity, Natali added. Despite their distaste for Maliki’s Shi’i government, Natali said that there is a growing anti-Kurd sentiment among Iraqi Sunnis. According to Natali, many Sunnis believe that the Kurds are “overstepping their autonomy.” Sunnis “may not like Maliki, but are against what the KRG is doing even

THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

“The Green Wave” (see September 2012 Washington Report, p. 49). Alireza Nader, senior international policy analyst at RAND Corporation, began the pre-film discussion by providing an update on the Iranian Green Movement. Since the 2009 presidential election, he noted—when the movement demanded the ouster of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and rallied behind reformist candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi—the Green Movement has remained dormant due to a lack of clear objectives, leadership and organization. Indeed, Nader said, the Green Movement developed internal schisms fairly soon after its formation. Even as protesters were challenging the legitimacy of President Ahmadinejad’s re-election in the streets of Tehran, he pointed out, a split developed between the movement’s leadership and its rank-and-file members. Many in the street desired an end to the Islamic Republic and the formation of a secular Iranian Republic, but leaders such as Mousavi did not want a fundamental change of the status quo, Nader reminded the audience. While considering Iran’s government as corrupt and in need of reform, the Green Movement’s leadership professed loyalty to the ayatollah and expressed a desire to “preserve the Islamic Republic,” Nader elaborated. Many within the movement do not believe that the current form of government can be reformed, he noted, adding that “a lot of Iranians lost faith in the Green Movement because of this leadership position.” Nader also pointed out that the Iranian regime “does have a considerable amount of support among the population.” The regime controls large patronage networks, he explained, and has been able to use the nuclear standoff as a means to effectively portray itself as protecting Iran’s sovereignty from imperialism. However, Nader did warn that the regime is “facing a crisis of legitimacy,” and said that recent “cracks within the elite” have left the regime “very vulnerable.” Suzanne Maloney of the Brookings Institution’s Saban Center for Middle East Policy, stressed that the U.S. must attempt to more fully understand Iranian politics. Washington’s “inability to understand what is happening inside Iran is a huge problem today,” she said. Saying that the West is “in danger of sanctifying the Green Movement,” she argued that it is important to remember that the Green Movement was “ultimately a movement that failed.” Jamal Abdi of the National Iranian American Council stressed that Washington’s inability to understand Iranian politics is reOCTOBER 2012

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sulting in poor policy. While many U.S. policymakers believe that sanctions will help rejuvenate opposition within Iran, Abdi said that such a view is severely mistaken. In fact, he pointed out, the same middle class that fueled the Green Movement is rapidly disappearing due to the impact of sanctions. Thus, U.S. policies are “hurting and undermining” the development of a middle class in Iran and hindering the possibility of another organic opposition movement rising. After the discussion, attendees viewed “The Green Wave,” which uses the Blog entries of demonstrators and the Tweets of opposition leaders to reconstruct in animation the story of the Green Movement. The film also includes video clips of demonstrations and interviews from several Iranian exiles who left the country after participating in the Green Movement. —Dale Sprusansky

Iran Nuclear Negotiations

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The Middle East Institute (MEI) and the Center for Transatlantic Relations at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) co-hosted an Aug. 14 event at the Johns Hopkins campus in Washington, DC to discuss the findings of an MEI paper titled “Prospects for U.S.-Iran Relations on the Nuclear Issue in the Year Ahead.” SAIS Professor Daniel Serwer moderated the discussion. MEI scholar and retired senior foreign service officer Allen Keiswetter, one of the paper’s principal authors, summarized the key judgments of the 20 MEI scholars who worked on the paper: “In the short run, the negotiations are stalemated and likely to remain that way at least until the elections,” he said. “In the longer term,” he added, the scholars believe that “there are margins for negotiations.” Despite seeing the potential for constructive negotiations, Keiswetter noted that the

scholars determined that there is an “uncomfortably real possibly of Israeli military action.” He quoted contributing author Melissa Mahle’s warning that “it would be a serious mistake to dismiss the possibility of an Israeli unilateral attack….Netanyahu thinks he can do what he wants despite U.S. opposition.” On the other hand, Keiswetter noted, some MEI scholars believe that “Netanyahu’s statements are at least in part bluff, intended to press the U.S. to take a hard-line stance and to scare the Iranians into concession.” According to Keiswetter, these scholars contend that there is “more elasticity than one would surmise in Netanyahu’s remarks.” Former foreign service officer Roby Barrett, the paper’s other principal author, placed himself in the camp that believes Israel will likely carry out some kind of an attack on Iran. Moreover, he added, “I think it will be impossible for the U.S. to stop the Israelis from attacking the Iranians if they decided they had to.” Geneive Abdo, director of the Iran Program at MEI, noted the trust deficit that exists between the U.S. and Iran. The Islamic Republic “is not in favor of establishing any sort of trust with the United States,” she said, because its leaders are “convinced that the ultimate goal of the United States is regime change.” Pointing out that presidential hopeful Mitt Romney and many in Congress have made hawkish remarks regarding Iran, Abdo argued that the Iranian regime’s concerns are legitimate. In Abdo’s opinion, the fact that “Iran’s educated middle class…has been completely marginalized” hinders the negotiating process. Those Iranians most eager to break through decades of hostility with the U.S. dwell within this “no longer politically relevant” middle class, she said, lamenting that “The voices that could put pressure on

(L-r) Roby Barrett, Geneive Abdo and Allen Keiswetter discuss the likelihood of a unilateral Israeli attack on Iran. OCTOBER 2012

THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

the regime…are no longer active and no longer have influence.” —Dale Sprusansky

Police Reform Potential Path to Peace in Pakistan The Middle East Institute and the Asia Society co-hosted a July 25 event at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peacein Washington, DC titled, “Stabilizing Pakistan through Police Reform.” The event was a launch for a new Asia Society study written by Hassan Abbas, professor at the National Defense University and former government official under Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and President Pervez Musharraf. Prior to the panel discussion, Pakistan’s Ambassador to the U.S. Sherry Rehman emphasized that police reform is an issue Pakistan has been working on since 2002. Rehman was clear in her vision of the role of Pakistani police, saying she believes the military has been given an unfair and unrealistic load in the war against terrorism. Pakistani police are both the day-to-day face and soft targets of terrorists, the ambassador said. “It is very difficult, almost impossible, for the military to smoke out terrorists in urban areas.” Abbas began his remarks by laying out the challenges as well as the solutions to Pakistan’s police problems. Abbas’ extensive study of police throughout the country identified three major concerns. The first is a fundamental problem in the way policy makers try to “fix” nations. The police are a central part of a functional judicial system, he pointed out, and vital to the creation of an environment in which democracy can grow. Abbas’ second point addressed the extrajudicial killings that have been happening in Pakistan, especially in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, or FATA. Pakistanis must agree to let a judge decide if a person is guilty, he stated—all other killings are extrajudicial. His third point highlighted the need for secret service protection in Pakistan: “We asked police officers and they said, ‘50 percent of the time we are on the roads protecting VIPs,’” he said. Along with these crucial problems, there is also the underlying problem of lack of funds. One F-16 fighter plane could pay for 70 police stations, Abbas pointed out. Reforms should focus on improving police technology, personnel, training, and intelligence capability, he argued, adding that a well-defined national counterterrorism strategy is also essential to establishing a clearer role for the police in overseeing internal security. 65

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(L-r) Aitzaz Ahsan, Arif Alikhan, Prof. Hassan Abbas, moderator Amb. Wendy Chamberlin (hidden) and Amb. Sherry Rehman. Arif Alikhan next gave a brief overview of the American evolution of policing. As deputy mayor for Homeland Security and Public Safety for Los Angeles, Alikhan has had extensive experience with U.S. police institutions. He outlined three major eras of policing: The political era, the professional era, and the community-oriented era. “At the turn of the century, police were often involved in electioneering and intimidation,” said Alikhan. “But all of this applies to Pakistan,” he explained, “because when we look at the evolution of policing, there is hope.” Aitzaz Ahsan had a far different focus. As a member of the Pakistani senate as well as the former president of the Supreme Court Bar Association, Ahsan has extensive experience in Pakistan’s judicial and political arenas. He highlighted multiple historical contributors to Pakistan’s current situation, but focused on prerequisites to police reform, including a fundamental societal change to the prevailing culture, where “the measure of power in Pakistan is the ability to abuse that power.” This fundamental change must be coupled with a structural shift toward a civic society, Ahsan argued, as well as technological aid in the face of a changing battle. —Meher Ahmad

need to learn to work together for peace and abolish war and nuclear weapons.” Stephen Horn came from Blair, NE, where he is working to found a new VFP chapter, to march in the parade. “I’m upset about the continuous wars we are fighting—since I don’t know when—and the fact that most of us know it’s not going to work,” he explained. We’ve got to get away from the idea that we can police the world, invade other countries and occupy them, and not expect disastrous results, Horn insisted. “Militarily, it’s a stinking job,” Horn said of the occupation of Afghanistan. “Morally it’s a terrible thing, too.” There are very few situations that justify killing people, said Martha Skillman, who served in the Medical Service Corps during the Korean War. “I think I was most distressed over people with lifelong injuries, whether they were mental or physical,” she said. “By the time Vietnam came around, I was showing up at peace vigils. I still feel that way,” Skillman added. “I’m out here to be a spark of peace,” said

Ed Bloomer, co-founder of chapter 163. “We’re here to talk to other veterans about the unending wars that we are involved in and bases around the world that need to be shut down so that we can bring funding back home for health and education,” he emphasized. Catholic Worker and former priest Frank Cordaro is a VFP associate member who acts as media representative for chapter 163. “The folks who are going to lead the way to peace are the vets,” he stated, adding that he thinks VFP will one day be the largest veterans’ organization. According to Cordaro, people are beginning to make the connection that it’s OK to be proud to serve your country in uniform and at the same time call into question the last 50 years of wars of exploitation and empire. “We have a global empire of military bases that needs to be dismantled,” Cordaro argued. Ross Porch of chapter 161 in Iowa City said he “came over because I am a member of the Iowa Military Veterans Band, which I understand is the only veterans’ band in the country. “I was a member of the 34th Army Band for 32 years. The Iowa Military Veterans Band is performing here this afternoon, so I’m here for two purposes, to play in the band and to march with Veterans For Peace,” he said. Iraq war veteran Casey Wilson said he prefers negotiations and diplomacy, and peaceful solutions to war. “War is hell, and I don’t wish war upon my worst enemy,” he said. Al Burney carried the VFP flag, and Randy Horch held up his end of the VFP banner opposite Bloomer. This reporter is an associate member of VFP. —Michael Gillespie

Members of Veterans For Peace (VFP) Iowa chapters 161 and 163 marched for peace in Des Moines at the Iowa State Fair Veterans’ Day Parade on Aug. 13. “We’re out here today to witness as veterans to get the word out, get some exposure, and make people aware that there are better ways than war,” said chapter 163 president Gil Landolt. “We need to raise questions and change people’s minds. We 66

STAFF PHOTO M. GILLESPIE

Veterans For Peace March in Des Moines

Veterans For Peace’s Randy Horch, Ed Bloomer and Martha Skillman (l-r, foreground) led the VFP group in the Iowa State Fair Veterans’ Day Parade on Aug. 13. THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

OCTOBER 2012

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Other People’s Mail Compiled by Dale Sprusansky and Marwan Ayad

No War With Iran To the Oklahoma Gazette, July 25, 2012 Hawks in the U.S. and Israel believe military action against Iran is justified because Iran enriches uranium for its nuclear power plants and medical uses. This enrichment activity is entirely legal under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, or NPT. Nevertheless, hawks characterize this as a “nuclear weapons capability” and insist that it must cease, or be stopped by force. The U.S. and the world cannot afford another war. The House and Senate may already have passed a resolution (H. Res. 568, S.Res. 380) expressing the sense of Congress that if Iran acquires a nuclear weapons capability, “containment” options are insufficient. Containment includes diplomacy, sanctions, deterrence and inspections short of war. Since some hawks in Israel and Washington, DC regard Iran’s enrichment facilities as already “nuclear weapons capable,” this resolution ratchets up the drift toward war. Iran has no nuclear weapons and no program to develop them, according to U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak and the International Atomic Energy Agency. These same experts agree it would take Iran more than a year to produce a nuclear weapon. Ongoing inspections of Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities by the IAEA confirm that Iran is enriching uranium only to the levels permitted by the NPT for electrical power generation and medical purposes. Most of America’s senior military personnel, including 11 retired military generals and admirals, and two former secretaries of defense, have made it clear that a war against Iran is a terrible idea. In March, on CBS’s “60 Minutes,” the head of Israel’s intelligence division said that “military action against Iran would be catastrophic, possibly sparking a regional war involving the U.S. and Russia.” He also called it “the stupidest idea” he had ever heard. Bellicose language about danger from Iran is reminiscent of claims about weapons of mass destruction made by politicians and hawks and uncritically reported in the media prior to the 2003 war against Iraq. We all remember then-SecreOCTOBER 2012

tary of State Colin Powell’s solemn warnings to the U.N. Security Council about mobile chemical labs in Iraq, only to learn later that these claims—and so many others—were based on false testimony from unreliable sources. The media is once again reporting claims of a danger to the world (Iran) without balanced reporting of voices against war. This is a dangerous powder keg that can lead to a war everyone would regret. Attacking Iran could cause gas prices to skyrocket, sacrifice more American lives, and embroil the nation in another Middle East quagmire. War would also add billions more to our national debt and plunge our economy back into recession. We must all tell elected officials: Not another war! America needs to come home and defend America! Mary Francis, Norman, OK

The Nuclear Challenge To The New York Times, Aug. 16, 2012 Your editorial states with impeccable logic: “If Iran gets a weapon, other countries in the region may want one, too.” The New York Times should apply that logic to Israel and state the obvious: Since Israel has nuclear weapons, other countries in the region want them, too. Daniel C. Maguire, Milwaukee, WI

Don’t Let Israel Lead Us to War To The Maui News, Aug. 26, 2012 Speculation is growing that Israel is planning a unilateral attack on Iran’s nuclear program, or that it is using the question to increase pressure on Barack Obama to launch an American strike. America is gearing up for another war in the Middle East, as if Iraq and Afghanistan are not enough. Israel assures its citizens that the war would be limited to no more than 30 days, and no more than 500 fatalities. Israeli experts say that the Israeli economy cannot absorb the billions of dollars in lost production and preparation for a war. No American politician dare question, let alone challenge, any legitimate criticism of Israel’s nuclear arms program—they possess an estimated 200 warheads—for fear of offending the powerful American THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

Jewish lobby. We are already contributing $3 billion to Israel annually, a country with a questionable human rights record. I spent three years in Iraq, witnessing the futility of an American crusade—one that cost thousands of American lives and uncounted Iraqi dead. Sixty percent of Iran is under the age of 30—people who would rather check their e-mail than become martyrs, as they were in the Iran-Iraq war. America’s misguided attempt to topple the ayatollah was unsuccessful, through our proxy Iraq. Western governments share fears about Iran’s nuclear ambitions but oppose military action and want to give more time to diplomacy. I beg the American people not to embroil us in another war based on the pressure of Israel’s politicians. Craig Handfinger, Haiku, HI

Blaming Palestinian Culture To The Washington Post, Aug. 15, 2012 Richard Cohen rightfully celebrated the many artistic, scientific and business achievements of Jews in Europe and modern Israel in his attempt to defend the recent comments of presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Unfortunately, Mr. Cohen minimized the corrosive effects of the Israeli occupation on Palestinian economic life. This summer I took part in an interfaith delegation to Israel and the occupied territories and was greatly disturbed to see the pervasive system of ethnic segregation practiced in the land under Israel’s control since 1967. The separation wall, the system of colorcoded license plates, the identity papers and the thick maze of regulations serve to restrict and deny Palestinian Arab movement, economic opportunity and civil rights. Mr. Cohen’s (and Mr. Romney’s) explanation that the Palestinian Arabs’ economic plight is due to cultural differences makes as much sense as blaming AfricanAmerican culture for black poverty in the Jim Crow South. William F. Simonds, Potomac, MD

Romney’s Shocking Trip To The Columbus Dispatch, Aug. 6, 2012 I have been rather shocked by Mitt Romney’s recent trip to a number of for67

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eign countries, and especially the Israel segment of the trip. Romney apparently held a “fund-raiser” in Israel for his campaign for president. Why aren’t conservatives outraged? Why would a candidate for the U.S. presidency hold a campaign fund-raiser in a foreign country? What did Romney promise the audience? That he would never take any action without approval from his host country? Can you imagine the outcry that would result if a Democrat had held a campaign fund-raiser in a foreign country? Heck, a couple of years ago, conservatives complained that Barack Obama ordered Dijon mustard, instead of plain old “American” mustard, for his hamburger. And here we have the presumptive GOP nominee for president holding a fundraiser in a foreign country, and not a peep. Talk about hypocrisy. Neelam Soundarajan, Dublin, OH

Consider the Palestinians To the Detroit Free Press, Aug. 5, 2012 The great prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures must be turning over in their graves on hearing Mitt Romney’s comments about Jewish culture and material success. What happened to the tradition of acting justly, loving mercy and walking humbly with God? Let’s stand with those courageous Jewish people who are living up to the highest ideals of their tradition and opposing the brutal 45-year occupation of Palestinian lands and the subjugation of the Palestinian people. Karen M. Donahue, Detroit, MI

Israel Must Work For Peace To The [Lehigh Valley, PA] Morning Call, Aug. 16, 2012 Anthony M. Muir’s recent “Your View” on his trip to meet Israeli and Palestinian peacemakers provided a level of fact and objective insight we rarely see in the U.S. media. Many of us—including many who are Jewish by ethnicity and/or religion—are outraged by the violence and apartheid of the Netanyahu government, but I suppose his column also will bring out those who like to label any criticism of Israel as “antiSemitic,” even when the criticism was directed at the state, not the Jewish people. It takes only minimal research to see that Israel has a systematic program of destroying Palestinian homes and farms, displacing families, and actively encouraging settlers to move into the occupied territories 68

and East Jerusalem. Israel’s actions violate international law and the most minimal standards of human rights and certainly work against a two-state solution. A onestate solution might work, but only if Israel embraces a broad-based democracy that accepts dissenting voices and equal rights for all; unfortunately, the Israeli government has been moving toward greater repression and discrimination and seems determined to torpedo any peaceful solution—thus jeopardizing its own future as well. Learn the facts and demand that Israel work for peace and human rights for all. Peter Crownfield, Fountain Hill, PA

U.S. Troops Out of Afghanistan To the Los Angeles Times, Aug. 22, 2012 Re: “Afghan attacks pose threat to exit plans.” The Times writes, “American troops are dying at unprecedented rates at the hands of their Afghan allies.” Later an Afghan analyst says, “The conflict has been becoming worse, nastier— and the presence of foreign troops doesn’t seem in the eyes of many Afghans to have brought positive changes.”

WRITE OR TELEPHONE THOSE WORKING FOR YOU IN WASHINGTON. President Barack Obama The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W. Washington, DC 20500 (202) 456-1414 White House Comment Line: (202) 456-1111 Fax: (202) 456-2461 Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Department of State Washington, DC 20520 State Department Public Information Line: (202) 647-6575 Any Senator U.S. Senate Washington, DC 20510 (202) 224-3121 Any Representative U.S. House of Representatives Washington, DC 20515 (202) 225-3121

E-MAIL CONGRESS AND THE WHITE HOUSE E-mail Congress: visit the Web site <www.congress.org> for contact information. E-mail President Obama: <president@whitehouse.gov> E-mail Vice President Joe Biden: <vice.president@whitehouse.gov>

THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

After 11 years, it seems obvious from the Afghans’ point of view that the word “threat” in your headline should be replaced with the word “hope.” And with polls showing that Americans overwhelmingly want our troops brought back home, can any Republican or Democrat explain why this is not a campaign issue? Mitt Romney states that we should not reveal when we are leaving, and President Obama states we must wait until 2014. Both candidates know that as long as our youth are stationed in Afghanistan, bodies will continue to return here in flagcovered coffins. David N. Hartman, Santa Ana, CA

Hate Amid Tragedy To The Times of Trenton, Aug. 9, 2012 It is depressing to read that even as the nation mourns the mass murder of the Sikh community members in Wisconsin last Sunday, peddlers of hate, such as blogger Pamela Geller, cannot stop spewing hatred against another beleaguered community, Muslim Americans. The shooting rampage in the Sikh temple has shaken Americans of all faiths, but to Ms. Geller, it is a golden opportunity to castigate and pillory the Muslim American community once again. In a recent post on her blog, “Atlas Shrugs,” Ms. Geller accuses American Muslim organizations like the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) of “exploiting the monstrous massacre” that has fallen upon the Sikh community. On the contrary, CAIR has reached out to the Sikh community in the U.S., which has been subjected to hate crimes post-9/11 because of their dress code, which requires the males to wear a turban and grow a beard, making them resemble the Taliban. Condemning the Wisconsin tragedy, CAIR released a statement, noting, “American Muslims stand with their Sikh brothers and sisters in this time of crisis and loss. We condemn this senseless act of violence and pray for those who were killed or injured.” Muslim Americans around the country are devastated by the terror that has been inflicted on the peaceful Sikh community of Wisconsin and are praying for the victims and their families. As the regular target of hate themselves, Muslim Americans can empathize with their Sikh brothers and sisters. In this holy month of Ramadan, a mosque in Joplin, Mo., has been burned down. Ms. Geller is a constant reminder to Muslim Americans that the enablers of hate are only a click away. Shumaila Chishti, Franklin Park, NJ ❑ OCTOBER 2012

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KHALIL BENDIB

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Washington Report, Washington, DC

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Lexington Herald-Leader, Lexington, KY

Winnipeg Free Press, Winnipeg

OCTOBER 2012

Daily Nation, Nairobi

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book_review_70_Book Review 8/29/12 8:57 PM Page 70

Books Traditional Palestinian Costume: Origins and Evolution By Hanan Karaman Munayyer, Interlink Publishing, 2011, hardcover, 576 pp. List: $200; AET: $160. Reviewed by Clovis Maksoud Hanan Munay yer’s Traditional Palestinian Costume: Origins and Evolution constitutes a decisive rebuke to those who, in a pathetic and shameful distortion of the identity of the Pal estinian people, define them “invented.” When Newt Gingrich, who claims to be a “historian,” uttered this fallacy, a rush of other Republican candidates competed as to who could go further in amplifying this ferocious and scandalous attack on the Palestinian people and their identity. From this perspective, this collection constitutes, albeit unintentionally, the civilized response correcting the historical record. This claim of Palestinians being “invented”—and the looseness with which this fantasy was uttered but never seriAmbassador Clovis Maksoud is professor of international relations and director of the Center for the Global South at American University in Washington, DC.

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ously rebutted, let alone questioned, by most of the political and media establishment in the U.S.—explains much of the flawed relations the U.S. has with many of the Arab people, despite a deep undercurrent of appreciation for its values. It is this appreciation, as well as a prevailing Arab—and especially Palestinian—conviction that the U.S. is a persuadable entity, that cements the bonds among the Palestinian and Arab people with the people of the United States. Nearly a quarter of a century of research and documentation undertaken by Hanan and Farah Munayyer explains the strong commitment of the Palestinian Heritage Foundation which they founded. While the notion that Palestinians are “invented” has, in one way or another, characterized U.S. treatment of Palestinian national rights, this can be altered by a constituency of conscience that, when required, can be the much needed corrective force enhancing America’s national understanding of Palestinian rights. Like other central Palestinian and ArabAmerican contributions—notably by Walid Khalidi and the late Edward Said and Hisham Sharabi, among hundreds of others—comes this exceptional compilation, which adds a new dimension to the intellectual and cultural wealth of the United States. This epic landmark should embolden and reconfirm the obvious continuum, namely that Palestine exists, and rebut the invented fallacies so that the truth prevails. This monumental volume by Hanan Munayyer constitutes a significant contribution that eventually will liberate those who, for too long, were addicted to prejudice against Pa l e s t i n i a n human and national rights. The rich repertoire of embroidered patterns that have been revealed through these costumes is as relevant a source of historical data as any archaeological find. In a way, this inspiring contribution testifies to the Palestinian people’s un THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

wavering commitment to the belief that their right to national and human dignity is irreversible and its realization inevitable.

We Are All Moors: Ending Centuries of Crusades Against Muslims and Other Minorities By Anouar Majid, University of Minnesota Press, 2012, paperback, 228 pp. List: $20; AET: $18. Reviewed by Andrew Stimson One does not have to dig far into today’s headlines to find examples of Islamophobia that contradicts the vision of a pluralistic and tolerant United States. According to Anouar Majid, professor of English at the University of New England in Maine, however, the “othering” of Muslims has a very long history, stretching back several centuries to the foundation of European Christendom. In We Are All Moors, Majid reveals that European identity was fashioned in part as a way to unite competing Christian groups against the Moorish presence in Spain. From the expulsion of the Muslim kingdoms from the Iberian Peninsula came the concept of limpieza de sangre (cleanliness of blood) or racial purity, in which Christians denied centuries years of shared history and intermarriage with the Moors. Europeanness became a symbol of purity in contrast to the contamination of the “other,” at first embodied by Muslims and Jews, but later applied to what Majid describes as “New World Moors,” Native Americans, African slaves and, more recently, Mexican migrants. Majid compellingly argues that these medieval animosities still exist today, constituting a hierarchy of racial disassociation that stifles social harmony and economic stability, and continues to result in thousands of needless deaths. His book skillfully illustrates how the appeal to “pure” racial categories has distorted the fact that we are all members of some sort of minority group, in a time where no one is truly a native and majorities are fractured into many identity groups. ❑ Andrew Stimson is director of the AET Book Club. OCTOBER 2012

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AET Book Club Catalog Literature

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Fa l l 2 0 1 2 After Zionism: One State for Israel and Palestine edited by Antony Lowenstein & Ahmed Moor, Saqi Books, 2012, paperback, 287 pp. List: $15.95; AET: $12. This must-have compilation for activists and advocates brings together some of the world’s leading thinkers on the Middle East to dissect the century-long conflict between Zionism and the Palestinians, and to explore possible forms of a one-state solution. Contributors include Omar Barghouti, Jonathan Cook, Jeff Halper, Ghada Karmi, Saree Makdisi, John Mearsheimer, Ilan Pappe, Sara Roy and many more.

Domes, Arches and Minarets by Phil Pasquini, Flypaper Press, 2012, paperback, 253 pp. List: $45; AET: $32. Exceptionally well-written, with full-page color photographs, Domes, Arches and Minarets uncovers some of the most important Islamic-influenced architecture created by nonMuslims in the United States. Full of surprising discoveries and unique historical insights, this compelling survey of an underappreciated subject will have readers looking up to spot the elements of Islamic architecture that are part of our American cultural heritage.

Casting Out: The Eviction of Muslims From Western Law & Politics by Sherene H. Razack, University of Toronto Press, 2012, paperback, 249 pp. List: $30.95; AET: $21. Timely and controversial, Casting Out examines contemporary legal and social responses to Muslims in the West and explains how the phenomenon of “race thinking” has helped governments rationalize the suspension of rights for Muslims, ostensibly in the interests of national security. Through deft research and analysis Razack has written a major contribution to contemporary debates on race and the “war on terror.”

Wrestling in the Daylight: A Rabbi’s Path to Palestinian Solidarity by Brant Rosen, Just World Books, 2012, paperback, 294 pp. List: $21; AET: $16. In 2006, Rabbi Rosen of Evanston, Illinois launched Shalom Rav, a blog intended to focus on a broad range of social-justice issues. Then in December 2008, when Israel launched its deadly Operation Cast Lead on Gaza, Rosen began to deeply question his lifelong liberal Zionism. Wrestling in the Daylight chronicles Rosen’s public journey from liberal Zionist to Palestinian solidarity activist.

Heavenly Bites: The Best of Muslim Home Cooking by Karima bint Dawood, Kube Publishing Ltd., 2012, paperback, 104 pp. List: $18; AET: $13. The first of its kind, Heavenly Bites is a multinational Muslim cookbook featuring the best recipes from Morocco to Bangladesh. With 50 recipes for soups, salads, snacks and starters, smoothies, main courses and sweets, TV presenter and cook Karima bint Dawood has assembled dishes for all occasions from across the Muslim world.

Our Shared Witness: A Voice for Justice and Reconciliation by Munib A. Younan, Lutheran University Press, 2012, paperback, 235 pp. List: $20; AET: $15. Born in the Old City of Jerusalem, Bishop Younan’s Palestinian Christian family lost everything during the 1948 war. Ordained by the Lutheran Church in 1976, Younan has become an important figure in the religious movement for peace in the Holy Land. Our Shared Witness collects the sermons, essays and speeches of this acclaimed “ambassador of reconciliation,” delivering a universal message of hope, peace and faith.

We Are All Moors: Ending Centuries of Crusades Against Muslims and Other Minorities by Anouar Majid, University of Minnesota Press, 2012, paperback, 228 pp. List: $20; AET: $18. Ongoing bitter debates about immigration and Islam in the West are the cultural inheritance of the conflict between Christians and Moors, the author contends. Offering an innovative reframing of the West’s perception and treatment of minority cultures, Majid explains how “the Moor” has served as an unacknowledged but potent metaphor for all minority peoples in the West, endlessly reincarnated by the majority.

Traditional Palestinian Costume: Origins and Evolution by Hanan Karaman Munayyer, Interlink Publishing, 2011, hardcover, 576 pp. List: $200; AET: $160. Representing more than 25 years of extensive field research and the culling of museum resources and publications from around the world, Traditional Palestinian Costume expertly and exquisitely documents the evolution of textile arts in Palestine. Lavishly illustrated with over 500 full-color photographs from the acclaimed Munayyer Collection, this volume is a must-have for textile enthusiasts and lovers of Palestinian culture.

Knowing Too Much: Why the American Jewish Romance With Israel Is Coming to an End by Norman G. Finkelstein, O/R Books, 2012, paperback, 470 pp. List: $18; AET: $16. In his latest work, Finkelstein refutes the claims of Israel’s defenders, and uncovers the reasons why many American Jews are beginning to question their connection to the Zionist state. In Knowing Too Much, he discusses the new possibilities for political advancement in a region that for decades has been stuck in a gridlock of injustice and suffering.

Shipping Rates Most items are discounted and available on a first-come, first-served basis. Orders accepted by mail, phone (800-368-5788 ext. 2), or Web (www.middleeastbooks.com). All payments in U.S. funds. Visa, MasterCard, Discover and American Express accepted. Please make checks and money orders out to “AET.” Contact the AET Book Club for complete shipping guidelines and options. U . S . S h i p p i n g R a t e s : Please add $5 for the first item and $2.50 for each additional item. Canada & Mexico shipping charges: Please add $11 for the first item and $3 for each additional item. International shipping charges: Please add $13 for the first item and $3.50 for each additional item. We ship by USPS Priority unless otherwise requested. OCTOBER 2012

L i b r a r y p a c k a g e s (list value over $240) are available for $29 if donated to a library, or free if requested with a library’s paid subscription or renewal. Call the Book Club at 800-368-5788 ext. 2 to order. AET policy is to identify donors unless anonymity is specifically requested.

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Upcoming Events, Announcements & —Compiled by Alex Begley Obituaries Upcoming Events The Smithsonian Institution’s Freer and Sackler Galleries of Art, located on the National Mall in Washington, DC, have several exhibits running that focus on Iran and the Islamic world. “Arts of the Islamic World” at the Freer Gallery features works from Morocco to Spain to Southeast Asia representing the “three principal media for artistic expression in the Islamic world”: architecture, calligraphy, and textiles. At the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, “Ancient Iranian Ceramics” showcases 3,000year-old pottery whose quality of work has withstood the tests of time, and “Feast your Eyes: a Taste for Luxury in Ancient Iran” is a once-in-a-lifetime exhibit of the Sackler Gallery’s vast collection of luxury metalwork dating back to ancient Iran in the first millennium BCE. The exhibits are part of the Sackler’s 25th anniversary celebration. For more information visit <www.asia.si.edu/exhibitions/current>. The nonprofit groups Gaza’s Ark and Ship to Gaza Sweden have launched the ship Estelle in a renewed attempt to break the blockade of Gaza. The ship has sailed from Sweden and will be making stops in Baltic, Atlantic and Mediterranean ports along the way to raise awareness about the Israeli blockade. A YouTube video, at <www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJyCvfWL 4g0&feature=player_embedded>, features Israeli-Swedish artist and activist Dror Feiler, who will be making his third trip on a Freedom Flotilla. More information, along with a map charting the boat’s progress, can be found on the groups’ Web sites, <www. shiptogaza.se/en> and <http://gazaark.org>. Friends of Sabeel–North America will hold a conference on “Justice: The Path to Peace in Palestine/Israel,” Sept. 28 and 29 at the Immanuel Presbyterian Church in Albuquerque, NM. Speakers include the Rev. Naim Ateek, Ali Abunimah and Mark Braverman, and Creativity of Peace, Bekah Wolf and Pamela Olson, among others, will be presenting workshops. For more information contact Rita Erickson at <rerickson56@comcast.net>. To register, visit <www.fosna.org/content/albuquer que-nm-conference-september-28-292012>. 72

The Arab Cultural and Community Center will host the 18th annual Arab Cultural Festival, Oct. 6, 2012 in San Francisco’s Union Square. The largest celebration of Arab arts and culture in Northern California, the all-day festival will showcase the cuisine, traditions, artwork, music and “the spirit of Arab Americans and the Arab world.” For more information visit <www.arabculturalcenter.org/index.php/ annual-arab-cultural-festival>.

Announcements The Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) is seeking college and graduate students interested in the ArabAmerican community, civil rights, law, policy, journalism, culture, organizing and activism for its 2012 Fall Internship Program. The program will run from September to December 2012 and will take place in Washington, DC or Dearborn, MI. The ADC Legal Department internship deadline for Spring is Dec. 30; other departments will consider applications as they are received. Application forms must be filled out from the ADC Web site and mailed with a resume, academic transcript, two letters of recommendation, and a two-page “personal goals” statement to Intern Coordinator, ADC, 1990 M St. NW, Suite 610, Washington, DC 20036. For more information call (202) 244-2990, e-mail <mcostanza @adc.org>, or visit <www.adc.org>.

Obituaries: Ghassan Tueni, 86, died June 8 in Beirut, Lebanon. Longtime editor of the leading Lebanese paper An-Nahar, the respected journalist and diplomat was referred to as “the dean of Lebanese journalism.” Throughout his life his country was mired in conflict and, although he braved jail several times, his writings on censorship, a sovereign and secular state, and minority rights never faltered. Educated at the American University of Beirut and at Harvard, Tueni was elected to parliament when he was 25 years old. He rose to become deputy speaker, but it was while serving as Lebanon’s ambassador to the United Nations from 1977 to 1982—a period marked by civil war and foreign invasions—that Tueni delivered a plea heard THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

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around the world: “Let my people live.” Having buried both of his children in tragic circumstances, Tueni is survived by his second wife, Shadia al-Khazen, and their four granddaughters. Rev. Edwin Bell Hanna, 85, died July 26 in McCalla, AL. Born the son of a reverend in Staunton, VA, he graduated from Miami University of Ohio and went on to earn degrees from Louisville Presbyterian Seminary, the University of Kentucky, and the American University of Beirut, Lebanon. For 35 years he served as a Presbyterian missionary in Lebanon, during much of the country’s 15-year civil war, working with the National Evangelical Synod of Syria and Lebanon. In 1949 he married Arpiné Yenovkian Hanna of Acre, Palestine. After returning to the United States in 1985 he served as pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Middlesboro, KY until his retirement in 1992. He also served as supply pastor for the Salem Presbyterian Church in Clark Co., KY until 1998. A lifelong advocate for peace and social justice, Reverend Hanna is survived by his three sons, his brother and sister, four grandchildren, four great-grandchildren, and many loving friends and colleagues around the world. Educator Dr. Sami J. Alam, 75, died Aug. 10 in Novi, MI. Born in Bethlehem, Palestine, he graduated at the top of his high school class and was awarded a full scholarship to the University of Missouri-Kansas City, travelling to the United States alone at the age of 16. He later enrolled at Wayne State University in Detroit, MI, where he met and married Geraldine Wolfe in 1957 and began his career as a science teacher. After serving as a school administrator in Port Huron, MI, Dr. Alam retired as associate superintendent in Dearborn in 1994. He then served as superintendent at Saudia Airline Schools in Saudi Arabia until 1997, working and travelling extensively in the Middle East. Dr. Alam’s family has asked that donations be made in his name to United Palestinian Appeal. ❑ OCTOBER 2012

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AET’s 2012 Choir of Angels Following are individuals, organizations, companies and foundations whose help between Jan. 1 and Aug. 17, 2012 is making possible activities of the tax-exempt AET Library Endowment (federal ID #52-1460362) and the American Educational Trust, publisher of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. We are deeply honored by their confidence and profoundly grateful for their generosity.

HUMMERS ($100 or more) Richard Abdoo, Milwaukee, WI Sami Abed, South Lyon, MI James Abourezk, Sioux Falls, SD Robert L. Ackerman, New Alexandria, PA Hafiz Ahmad, Acworth, GA*** Dr. M.Y. Ahmed, Waterville, OH Dr. & Mrs. Salah Al-Askari, Leonia, NJ Mazen Alsatie, Fishers, IN Hamid & Kim Alwan, Milwaukee, WI Dr. Nabih Ammari, Cleveland, OH Nadir K. Amra, Rochester, MN Anace & Polly Aossey, Cedar Rapids, IA Dr. Robert Ashmore, Jr., Mequon, WI Fuad Baali, Bowling Green, KY Rev. Robert E. Barber, Parrish, FL Stanton Barrett, Ipswich, MA Heidi Beck, Cedarville, CA Robert Beckmann and Rachel Levy, Seattle, WA Dr. Carole Burnett, Silver Spring, MD John Carley, Pointe-Claire, Quebec Dr. James Cobey, Washington, DC Dr. Robert G. Collmer, Waco, TX Carole Courey, Cataumet, MA Mrs. Walter Cox, Monroe, GA Mr. & Mrs. Andrew Curtiss, Herndon, VA Taher & Sheila Dajani, Alexandria, VA Glenn Davenport, Corvallis, OR Sharlene de Hertel, San Jose, CA Lee & Amelia Dinsmore, Elcho,WI Dr. David Dunning, Lake Oswego, OR Bassam M.A. El-Borno, Lilitz, PA Barbara Erickson, Berkeley, CA M.R. Eucalyptus, Kansas City, MO Albert E. Fairchild, Bethesda, MD Dr. Ibrahim Fawal, Birmingham, AL Paul Findley, Jacksonville, IL Elisabeth Fitzhugh, Mitchellville, MD Robert Gabe, Valatie, NY William Gefell, Turnbridge, VT Sam Gousen, Arlington, VA Marilyn Grindley, Wheeling, WV Shirley Hannah, Argyle, NY Katharina Harlow, Pacific Grove, CA Robert & Helen Harold, West Salem, WI Angelica Harter, Cambridge, MA Mr. & Mrs. Sameer Hassan, Quaker Hill, CT Alan Heil, Alexandria, VA Mr. & Mrs. John Hendrickson, Tulsa, OK Dr. & Mrs. Sam Holland, North Eastham, MA Helen Holman, Litchfield, ME William C. Hunt, Somerset, WI Ismail Husseini, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia Hala Jabbour, Herndon, VA OCTOBER 2012

Rafeeq Jaber, Oak Lawn, IL Dennis James, Brooklyn, NY Fred Jimeian, Satellite Beach, FL Ghazy Kader, Shoreline, WA Omar & Nancy Kader, Vienna, VA Mohamad Kamal, North York, ON Fred Karlson, Ferndale, WA Michael Keating, Olney, MD Louise & Bob Keeley, Washington, DC Susan Kerin, Gaithersburg, MD Dr. Mazen Khalidi, Grosse Point Farms, MI Dr. & Mrs. Assad Khoury, Potomac, MD Tony & Anne Khoury, Danville, CA Paul Kirk, Baton Rouge, LA Dr. Iqbal Lalani, Colleyville, TX Fran Lilleness, Seattle, WA George & Karen Longstreth, San Diego, CA J. Robert Lunney, Bronxville, NY Anthony Mabarak, Grosse Pointe Park, MI Robert L. Mabarak, Grosse Pointe Park, MI Nidal Mahayni, Richmond, VA Ramy & Cynthia Mahmoud, Skillman, NJ Richard Makdisi & Lindsay Wheeler, Berkeley, CA John B. Malouf, Lubbock, TX Tahera Mamdani, Fridley, MN Martha Martin, Paia, HI Tom & Tess McAndrew, Oro Valley, AZ Bill McGrath, Northfield, MN George Mendenhall, Ann Arbor, MI Gerald & Judith Merrill, Oakland, CA Dr. Yehia Mishriki, Emmaus, PA John & Ruth Monson, La Crosse, WI Liz Mulford, Cupertino, CA A.F. Nahas, Danbury, CT Sara Najjar-Wilson, Reston, VA Mr. & Mrs. David Nalle, Washington, DC Jacob Nammar, San Antonio, TX Neal & Donna Newby, Mancos, CO Kamal Obeid, Fremont, CA Elaine & Phil Pasquini, Novato, CA Jim Plourd, Monterey, CA M.H. Quader, Harrisburg, PA Muhammad Quereshi, Brampton, ON Marjorie Ransom, Washington, DC Nayla Rathle, Belmont, MA Mr. & Mrs. Edward Reilly, Rocky Point, NY Paul Richards, Salem, OR Neil Richardson, Randolph, VT Nadia M. Saad, Chevy Chase, MD Dr. Ahmed M. Sakkal, Charleston, WV Mr. & Mrs. Samuel Salem, Laurel, MD Asha Samad, New York, NY Rifqa Shahin, Apple Valley, CA Richard J. Shaker, Annapolis, MD Aziz Shalaby, Vancouver, WA THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

Dr. Mostafa Hashem Sherif, Tinton Falls, NJ Yousuf Siddiqui, Bloomfield, MI David J. Snider, Airmont, NY John Soderberg, Foley, AL Gregory Stefanatos, Flushing, NY Ghulam Suhrawardi, Parlin, NJ Mubadda Suidan, Atlanta, GA Joan Toole, Albany, GA Letitia Ufford, Princeton, NJ John Van Wagoner, McLean, VA Mr. & Mrs. Peter Viering, Stonington, CT Paul Wagner, Bridgeville, PA Dale Walker, Hoboken, NJ Joseph Walsh, Adamsville, RI Rev. Hermann Weinlick, Minneapolis, MN John Zacharia, Vienna, VA Munir Zacharia, La Mirada, CA Vivian Zelaya, Berkeley, CA

ACCOMPANISTS ($250 or more) Patricia Ann Abraham, Charleston, SC Janet Acord, Wimberley, TX Richard Adamiak, Ph.D., Chicago, IL* Nabil & Judy Amarah, Danbury, CT Rev. Dr. Lois Aroian, Willow Lake, SD Donna Baer, Grand Junction, CO Dr. Sami Baraka, Wyandotte, MI Elizabeth Boosahda, Worcester, MA Rev. Ronald C. Chochol, St. Louis, MO Jean & Donald Clarke, Devon, PA Mr. & Mrs. John Crawford, Boulder, CO Richard Curtiss, Boynton Beach, FL Robert & Tanis Diedrichs, Cedar Falls, IA Douglas A. Field, Kihei, HI Eugene Fitzpatrick, Wheat Ridge, CO Bill Gartland, Rio, WI Marvin & Shirley Gluck, Topanga, CA Ray Gordon, Bel Air, MD H. Clark Griswold, Woodbury, CT Michael Habermann, Hackettstown, NJ Salman & Kate Hilmy, Silver Spring, MD Les Janka, Arlington, VA Gloria Keller, Santa Rosa, CA Omar Khwaja, Irvine, CA Sandra La Framboise, Oakland, CA Joe & Lilli Lill, Arlington, VA Eric Margolis, Toronto, ON Jean Mayer, Bethesda, MD Paul Meyer, Iowa City, IA Sam Rahman, Lincoln, CA Frank & Mary Regier, Strongsville, OH Denis Sabourin, Dubai, UAE Henry Schubert, Damascus, OR Yusef & Jennifer Sifri, Wilmington, NC

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Grant Smith, Washington, DC Norman Smith, Exton, PA Mae Stephen, Palo Alto, CA Michel & Cathy Sultan, Eau Claire, WI Dina Tamimi, Dubai, UAE Dr. Robert Younes, Potomac, MD Ziyad & Cindi Zaitoun, Seattle, WA* Fred Zuercher, Spring Grove, PA

TENORS & CONTRALTOS ($500 or more) Michael Ameri, Calabasas, CA Drs. A.J. and M.T. Amirana, Las Vegas, NV Kamel Ayoub, Hillsborough, CA Graf Herman Bender, North Palm Beach, FL Shuja El-Asad, Amman, Jordan Dr. Rafeek Farah, New Boston, MI Glenn Glover, Birmingham, AL Brigitte Jaensch, Carmichael, CA Jack Love, Escondido, CA Dr. Charles McCutchen, Bethesda, MD Estate of Rita A. McGaughey, La Crosse, WI Alice Nashashibi, San Francisco, CA Audrey Olson, Saint Paul, MN

Rachel Corrie Verdict… Continued from page 11

knew...The people who were in the wrong place were the soldiers,” Cindy emphasized. “Rachel was in the right place.” A Human Rights Watch report states that from 2000 to 2004 Israeli military forces demolished 2,500 homes, displacing 16,000 Palestinians. “How can people look away when they see wrongdoing?” Cindy Corrie asked reporters. ”Why was Rachel there? Why weren’t we all there?” she lamented. Judge Gershon found no fault, however, in the internal Israeli military investigation that cleared any soldier of wrongdoing and was completed within one month of Corrie’s death. The Corries argue that the military investigation is deeply flawed for many reasons. For one thing, there is a military videotape recording of the event, but not all the tape’s contents were put into evidence—just the minutes preceeding Rachel’s death. Then, inexplicably, the camera pauses, turns away and looks toward Egypt as she is killed. The missing minutes, the manipulation of the video tape, were never addressed in court. “The deceased was in a blind spot—the operator didn’t see her,” Judge Gershon concluded. However, the IDF soldiers’ testimonies the Corries heard in court were conflicting and sometimes incoherent. In addition to a driver, a second soldier was also in the cab. “I do believe that one of the 74

Dr. Amani Ramahi, Lakewood, OH Gabrielle & Jalal Saad, Oakland, CA Dr. Mohammed Sabbagh, Grand Blanc, MI Linda Thain-Ali, Kesap, Turkey David R. Willcox, Harrison, AR

BARITONES & MEZZO SOPRANOS ($1,000 or more) Asha A. Anand, Bethesda, MD Dr. Joseph Bailey, Valley Center, CA G. Edward & Ruth Brooking, Wilmington, DE Rev. Rosemarie Carnarius & Aston Bloom, Tucson, AZ Dr. & Mrs. Rod & Carole Driver, West Kingston, RI Linda Emmet, Paris, France Dr. & Mrs. Clyde Farris, West Linn, OR Gary Richard Feulner, Dubai, UAE Evan & Leman Fotos, Istanbul, Turkey Dr. & Mrs. Hassan Fouda, Berkeley, CA Oliver Hall, Washington, DC Hind Hamdan, Hagerstown, MD

people in the bulldozer knew Rachel was in its path,” Cindy insisted. As a Vietnam veteran, Craig asserted that he and his fellow soldiers knew they’d be held accountable for their actions. He occasionally drove a bulldozer in Vietnam, Craig said, and took care to watch what was in front of his blade. If the operator couldn’t see what was in front of him he was negligent even starting up the bulldozer, Rachel’s father charged. The problem is that Israeli courts and soldiers have a blind spot, Cindy interjected. They cannot see the humanity of someone else. They’re blind to the idea that a family has a right to live in their home. Decent people value those lives. “If someone is in the path of a bus—you get them out of the way,” she pointed out. Craig told IMEU listeners that a former IDF soldier had approached him earlier that morning in an Internet cafe. The young man said it was very important that the Corries had brought their suit in Israel. Israeli generals are afraid to travel in case they’re arrested for war crimes, he explained, but Israeli soldiers are not held accountable for their actions. He said he was impressed by the Corries’ important efforts, because no one has ever pursued a lawsuit within Israel. After nearly a decade of downplaying or ignoring Rachel Corrie’s killing, every major newspaper, radio and television station carried news of Judge Gershon‘s outrageous verdict, despite the fact that it came on THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

Amb. Holsey G. Handyside, Bedford, OH*** Judith Howard, Norwood, MA Zagloul Kadah, Seattle, WA Wendy Kaufmyn, Berkeley, CA Vincent & Louise Larsen, Billings, MT Rachelle Marshall, Mill Valley, CA Joan McConnell, Saltspring Island, BC John McLaughlin, Gordonsville, VA Ralph Nader, Washington, DC Bob Norberg, Lake City, MN Ruth Ramsey, Blairsville, GA

CHOIRMASTERS ($5,000 or more) Henry Clifford, Essex, CT Richard & Donna Curtiss, Kensington, MD** John & Henrietta Goelet, Meru, France Andrew I. Killgore, Washington, DC** Mark R. Sheridan, Alexandria, VA *In memory of Rachel Corrie **In memory of Anthony Shadid ***Happy 30th Birthday, Washington Report!

opening day of the Republican Convention, as Hurricane Isaac hurtled toward the Gulf Coast. Most of the reports in the U.K.’s Guardian, Israel’s Jerusalem Post and Haaretz, and mainstream American publications like the Christian Science Monitor, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post and Time Magazine were by and large sympathetic with the Corrie family. For the first time young people using Facebook, Twitter and other social media discussed Corrie’s death and the verdict. Mark Regev, a spokesman for the Israeli prime minister, dismissed as “simply without foundation” accusations that the Israeli courts are not independent, impartial and do not adhere to the highest professional standards. Hanan Ashrawi, speaking on behalf of the Palestinian Authority, noted that despite the “testimonies of eyewitnesses, the audio-visual evidence and the overwhelming proof that Rachel was deliberately murdered, the Israeli court insists on victimizing her again in her tragic death.” Ashrawi charged: “This proves that once again the occupation has distorted the legal and judicial systems in Israel and that the lack of accountability for its violence and violations has generated a culture of hate and impunity. What’s next for the Corries, who still don’t have the answers they’ve sought all these years? The family said it was strongly considering an appeal to the Israeli Supreme Court, but wanted to read the full verdict before making a final decision on where to go from here. ❑ OCTOBER 2012

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

October 2012 Vol. XXXI, No. 7

U.N. Secretary-General Ban K-moon (l) and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (r) meet in Tehran prior to the opening of the Non-Aligned Movement summit, Aug. 29, 2002. Both the U.S. and Israel had called on Ban not to travel to the Iranian capital for the summit. BEHROUZ MEHRI/AFP/Getty Images

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