Washington Report on Middle East Affairs | May 2012 by American Educational Trust

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MARWAN BARGHOUTI: THE NEW MANDELA

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On Middle East Affairs Volume XXXI, No. 3

May 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 A Short-Term Victory With Long-Term Consequences —Rachelle Marshall

34 Trayvon Martin and “The Talk” No American Child Should Have to Hear—Delinda C. Hanley

11 Bibi Walking a Thin Line—George S. Hishmeh

36 Equating Religion With Terrorism—Mohammed Omer

12 Who Wants War With Iran?—Two Views —Jim Lobe, Philip Giraldi 14 Leave Us Out of Another Middle East War —James G. Abourezk 16 Despite Temporary Reprieve, Lifta’s Fate Most Likely Sealed by Schemes, Scheming

—William Parry 18 Marwan Barghouti: The New Mandela—Uri Avnery 24 Israel Responds to Investigations of Its Illegal Behavior With Chutzpah and Hasbara

—Ian Williams 26 International Conference on Jerusalem Calls for Urgent Action—Delinda C. Hanley

38 The Beginning of the End in Afghanistan —Rachelle Marshall 42 An Unneighborly Wall—William Parry

CONGRESS AND THE 2012 ELECTIONS 27 AIPAC’s Annual Meeting Beats the Drums of War With Iran—Shirl McArthur 30 In Redistricting Race, Howard Berman (D-CA) Pulling Out All the Stops for Israel—Janet McMahon 31 Pro-Israel PAC Contributions to 2012 Congressional Candidates—Compiled by Hugh Galford

20 Gilad Atzmon and The Wandering Who? —Norton Mezvinsky 40 The Dangerous Mess in Syria Grows Murkier —Eric S. Margolis

PHOTO WILLIAM PARRY

SPECIAL REPORTS

44 Despite Verdict in “Virginity Test” Trial, Egypt’s Samira Ibrahim Keeps on Fighting

—Joseph Mayton 45 Malaysian Revelations Highlight Price of Israeli Rejectionisn—John Gee

Young residents of the Arab town of Jisr al-Zarqa in Israel, whose neighbors in the Jewish town of Qasariya have built a wall to block their view of their fellow Israeli citizens. See story p. 42.

ON THE COVER: Palestinian prisoner Hana Shalabi (r), who spent more than 40 days on a hunger strike after being arrested Feb. 26 and held without charges in an Israeli prison, hugs a visitor to her room in Al-Shifa Hospital in the Gaza Strip, where she was deported by Israel. MOHAMMED ABED/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

Pro-Israel Lawmakers Promote One State, Josh Nathan-Kazis, The Forward

OV-10

OV-3

Israel’s Six Strategic Errors, Patrick Seale, Agence Global

OV-11

OV-4

The Syrian Opposition’s Great Mistake, Gwynne Dyer, http://gwynnedyer.com

OV-13

Anthony Shadid: “Most Gifted Foreign Correspondent in a Generation,” Ralph Nader, www.inthepublicinterest.org

OV-13

For Jews, Gross Case Is Complicated, Paul Berger, The Forward

OV-14

Ten Years and Continuing: Faith Work in Contra Costa County And Beyond, Amer Araim, www.contracostatimes.com

OV-15

Robert Bales—Lone Nut or Scapegoat?, Justin Raimondo, www.antiwar.com

OV-1

Holder Promises to Kill Citizens With Care, Jonathan Turley, www.jonathanturley.org NYPD Should Leave Muslims Alone, Ivan Eland, www.antiwar.com Who Was Behind the Delhi Bombing?, Gareth Porter, www.aljazeera.com

OV-5

The Three Amigos and the Misuse of History, Paul R. Pillar, www.nationalinterest.org

OV-6

Six Things South Africans Learned at AIPAC, Dan Brotman, The Forward

OV-7

Why Israel Attacked Gaza: Bibi Stirring Trouble, Ramzy Baroud, www.dissidentvoice.org OV-8 Preparing Israel for War, Neve Gordon, www.aljazeera.com

OV-9

DEPARTMENTS 5 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 7 PUBLISHERS’ PAGE

56 ISRAEL AND JUDAISM:

65 WAGING PEACE:

American Jewish Community

Post-Occupation Iraq’s Crippled

Not Represented by Those

Political Institutions

Pushing for War With Iran 47 THE WORLD LOOKS AT THE

—Allan C. Brownfeld

MIDDLE EAST — CARTOONS

Afghan Women Must Be Present 58 CHRISTIANITY AND THE

48 OTHER PEOPLE’S MAIL

Elaine Pasquini 52 NEW YORK CITY AND TRISTATE NEWS: Oren Yiftachel Discusses Dispossession of Some Israeli Citizens: Bedouin of The Negev—Jane Adas 54 SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA CHRONICLE: Attempt to Silence Ilan Pappe Lectures Backfires at Three CSU Campuses

—Pat and Samir Twair

In Peace Talks

MIDDLE EAST: Rassem El Massih: A Voice of

50 NORTHERN CALIFORNIA CHRONICLE: SALAM Celebrates 25 Years of Building An American Islamic Center—

75 HUMAN RIGHTS:

The Faithful—Linda M. Thomas

77 DIPLOMATIC DOINGS: PLO Mission Honors Helen Thomas

60 ARAB-AMERICAN ACTIVISM: Anthony Shadid Honored at

79 BULLETIN BOARD

Busboys and Poets 80 BOOK REVIEW: 61 MUSIC AND ARTS: Jerusalem Fund Gallery Hosts

Divert!

—Reviewed by Andrew I. Killgore

Zughaib’s “Thoughts on the Spring”

81 NEW ARRIVALS FROM THE AET BOOK CLUB

63 MUSLIM-AMERICAN ACTIVISM: AMP Annual Dinner

82 2012 AET CHOIR OF ANGELS

Honors World’s Youngest Medical Student

25 INDEX TO ADVERTISERS

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ANDREW I. KILLGORE Executive Editor: 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:

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 53062, Washington, DC 20009-9062. 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 seven 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.com http://www.middleeastbooks.com Subscriptions, sample copies and donations: P.O. Box 53062, Washington, DC 20009-9062 Printed in the USA

MAY 2012

30 Years and Counting… I am perhaps one of a small group of subscribers who remember when the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs was but a four-page newsletter run off on a mimeograph. I used to rush to open it when I’d find it in my mailbox. At that time, it was not only the best alternative news source on the Middle East but also the one with the most uniquely qualified editorial staff. I think I was in my mid-20s back then. Today at the age of 56, I can still say that the Washington Report is the first thing I open when I find it in my mailbox, still my most trusted source of information. Over the years, I have seen the publication develop to the highest quality; I clearly recall the debates in the “Letters” column when you tried out a new font or reduced the number of pages or made other adjustments to meet your budget. With the esteemed Andy Killgore and Dick Curtiss at the helm, the writing was always top-flight and the truth was always, always told. Today those standards continue to be upheld regardless of what financial constraints exist. Year after year, I enjoy excellent articles such as Delinda Hanley’s recent piece on Guantanamo. Rachelle Marshall’s in-depth analyses are absolutely essential reading for anyone seriously interested in the region. Janet McMahon, Allan Brownfeld, Shirl McArthur…all heroes. And even to this day I still miss dear Humphrey Walz. Wherever I’ve moved in the U.S., I’ve always tried to provide a subscription to any local library that did not already receive the magazine. It’s a small way I could provide a source of truth to my neighbors. I was so sorry to learn that you have had to reduce the number of issues per year to only eight. Please accept this small gift, and I hope that other readers who have enjoyed this rare gem of a magazine over the decades will offer their own financial support. After all, it wouldn’t be necessary to find a donor to give a million dollars if a million people each gave just one! With greatest respect and admiration, Vicki Tamoush, Tustin, CA The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs is now officially 30 years old, and we would not have reached this milestone without the support and encouragement of such wonderful people as yourself. Together we have made a difference, as attested to by the fact that such formerly taboo concepts as the Israel lobby are now openly being written about and discussed. THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

With your help, we are determined to keep that discussion alive.

“Invented People” When I heard Newt Gingrich refer to Palestinians as “invented people,” the words struck a familiar note; however, I could not make the connection. Later, when sorting books to donate to our local library for a book sale, there it was: The Invention of the Jewish People, by Shlomo Sand, a professor at the University of Tel Aviv. The book cover states: “Explod[es] the myth that there was a forced Jewish exile in the first century at the hands of the Ro-

mans, Israeli historian Shlomo Sand argues that most modern Jews descend from converts, whose native lands were scattered across the Middle East and Eastern Europe.” Ruth Elizabeth Ramsey, Blairsville, GA Sand’s book is available from the AET Book Club, <www.middleeastbooks.com>. As you note, Gingrich and others may want to think twice before initiating a discussion about “invented people.” Your letter, as well as your membership in the AET Choir of Angels, for which we are most grateful, help take that discussion to its logical conclusion.

The Wandering Atzmon Thank you for inviting Gilad Atzmon to speak about Israel, despite the pressure to “shun” him. Atzmon likes to play with fire and uses fearless (“inflammatory”) language. Obviously, he annoys a lot of people, something I love. His observations on the misuse of history for war propaganda are an important reminder that we cannot leave the interpretation of history to our governments or lobby groups. The debate about Israel is too constricted by “red lines,” by the censorship legitimized by the history of the Holocaust and by the use of the ultimate weapon, the terms anti-Semite and Holocaust denier. Instead of dishing out eternal judgment whether one belongs to the good or the bad group, we need to focus on the 5

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essential goal, the end of the Israeli occupation and the inhumane blockade of Gaza. Martina Lauer, Chesterville, Ontario As news editor Delinda Hanley notes on p. 22, the Washington Report got a first-hand taste of the shunning of musician and writer Gilad Atzmon even before the call to “disavow” him was issued by 22 Palestinian activists. Fear of reprisal and verbal attacks caused virtually every organization we contacted to back away from providing him space to speak and perform. Prof. Norton Mezvinsky was undeterred, however. His thought-provoking interview with Atzmon can be viewed at <www.wrmea.com>. On p. 20 of this issue, Mezvinsky critiques Atzmon’s ideas. We thank them both for their willingness to engage in an intellectually honest and very civilized debate.

Remember All Children I appreciate your calling attention to all children who are suffering, none less than Palestinian children. It is outrageous for Netanyahu to criticize EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and, anyway, how dare he interfere in the business of the European Union? And it is ludicrous if it were not so tragic that he still pretends against all evidence that Israel does not deliberately murder children. I would also like to mention that in all the reporting about Toulouse, no one anywhere, not The New York Times, none of the TV stations, has given the names of the three French soldiers of North African and Caribbean origin who were also murdered. How come? If you know their names, please name them. Thank you Laila Poje, via e-mail It was indeed a challenge to find the names of the three French soldiers killed. We found

one name in Britain’s Guardian of March 23. It was the Jerusalem World News of March 30, however, which provided all three names: “The soldiers [Mohamed] Merah murdered were Imad Ibn Ziaten, killed March 11, and Abel Chennouf and Mohammed Legouade, both killed March 15.” Our March 23 action alert, “Remember All Chidren,” concerned Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin’s Netanyahu’s outrage at Lady Ashton’s call to remember “young people who have been killed in all sorts of terrible circumstances,” not just the three children killed in Toulouse, France. Remember These Children, which lists the 1,476 Palestinian and 126 Israeli children who have been killed since Sept. 29, 2000, can be viewed at <www.rememberthesechildren.org>.

A Change of Heart Please remove Parents Circle–Families Forum name and Web site link from Remember These Children’s Web site. If you ever publish another paper version of the pamphlet please do not use our name unless you’ll get a written agreement by letter, fax or e-mail from the Parents Circle–Families Forum management. I appreciate your quick answer and willingness to help. Sharon Kalimi Misheiker, webmaster, theparentscircle.org Of course we communicated with Parents Circle–Bereaved Families Forum (as it was then known) in 2003 before listing it, along with the American Educational Trust (publisher of the Washington Report), Americans for Middle East Understanding, and the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, as a co-sponsor of Remember These Children. Since our goals and concerns seem similar we find your decision regrettable—but will, of course, honor it.

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 Wash ington 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 available. To subscribe telephone 1 (800) 368-5788 (press 1), fax (202) 265-4574, e-mail <circulation@wrmea.com>, or write to P.O. Box 53062, Washington, DC 20009. 6

A Shocking Photo I am (and was) just shocked to see the photo of the protesting worker Mohammed Abu Obeita screaming in pain after having been literally run over by an Israelidriven tractor-trailer. To see this horror pictured so graphically simply underscores the added element of brutality that Israel adds to its illegal occupation of Palestine. I think you were wise to include this photo along with Rachelle Marshall’s article in the March/ April issue that de-

THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

scribes Israel’s blatant desire to just annex the West Bank outright. I normally do not always approve of graphic depictions of violence…but if that is what it takes to awaken people from the torpor of U.S. support of Israel’s brutal occupation of Palestine, then continue to publish such. I was equally shocked by your disclosure on the “Publishers’ Page” that in the recently released U.S. budget for the next fiscal year, the largest “assistance request” of funds for Israel in history was made! Do keep reminding your readers of this fact! We must wake up Americans to this misuse of tax monies! Please accept my small donation. I am adding $50 for you to send a few subscriptions to likely members of Congress you can choose (who you think would actually read them). Norman K. Smith, Exton, PA Since American taxpayers are enabling Israel’s occupation and repression of Palestinians it’s crucial that they know how their tax dollars are being put to use. (Hint: our first installment of pro-Israel PAC contributions to candidates in this year’s election can be found on p. 30.) Thank you for helping us get the word out.

Guantánamo Prisoners Thank you for reporting on my Feb. 14 talk at Georgetown. Unfortunately, a few of the facts were jumbled in Delinda Hanley’s article and I would like to set them straight. Mohammedou Ould Slahi was indeed subjected to sleep depravation, he did get beaten and suffered broken ribs, and he was told that his mother had been arrested and would be taken to Guantánamo, but he is not considered an HVD. The other prisoner about whom I spoke was Abd Rahim Al-Nashiri. He is considered an HVD and the government has admitted that he was water boarded and he was threatened with a drill and a gun while he was blindfolded. Hanley is correct that Lt. Col. Stuart Couch initially planned to prosecute Slahi and that he later refused after learning that Slahi's statements resulted from torture. But the prisoner Colonel Couch saw shackled while loud music and strobe lights blasted his cell was not Slahi. Hanley wrote correctly that we must demand that Guantanamo be closed and that our criminal justice system return to a system that protects the rights of everyone. Once we lose it we will not get it back. Nancy Hollander, via e-mail Thank you for the clarification of your remarks. We only wish they did not confirm the brutality of the treatment being meted out there, and completely agree that this threatens the the rights of us all. ❑ MAY 2012

pubs_7_Jan-Feb 2012 Publishers page 4/5/12 3:37 PM Page 7

American Educational Trust Israel Releases Hunger Striker. This issue’s cover features Hana Shalabi, 30, who was freed by Israel on April 1 after spending more than 40 days on a hunger strike to protest her second detention without charge or trial. Instead of permitting her to return to her home in Jenin, however, Israeli authorities exiled Shalabi to Gaza. On April 17 Khader Adnan, 33, who ended a 66-day fast in February in exchange for a reduced term, is scheduled to be released from an Israeli prison. It’s clear that Israel has struck these deals because…

It Fears Worldwide Condemnation… And Palestinian unrest if the hunger strikers die. Other Palestinian prisoners have embarked on hunger strikes to protest “administrative detention,” the controversial Israeli military court practice used against thousands of Palestinians that allows imprisonment based on secret information, and under which sentences can be renewed indefinitely.

Remember All Children. Speaking at a conference in Brussels on Palestinian refugees, hours after the shocking March 19 killing of three children at a Jewish school in Toulouse, France, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, spoke of remembering “young people who have been killed in all sorts of terrible circumstances.” The world mourns the deaths of children in Norway a year ago, as well as the nine Afghan children massacred by a U.S. soldier on March 11. We’re saddened by the senseless deaths of all the children in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Gaza, the West Bank and Israel—and the shooting death of African-American teenager Trayvon Martin.

Lives Cut Much Too Short. We grieve for the Bashir family of Deir alBalah, Gaza whose three children, Nadine, Sabri and Farah, burned to death in an April 1 fire caused by a candle, which was being used during an electrical outage caused by power stations running out of fuel due to Israel’s continuing deadly siege. We mourn the death of Misbah Saad, 17, who was shot by Israel Defense Forces (IDF) behind the cemetery east of Gaza City on April 3. We are horrified by the news that on April 2 the IDF tried to arrest 2-year-oldMo’men Shtayeh, whom they accused of MAY 2012

Publishers’ Page

shooting a slingshot. Israeli soldiers entered his family’s home, warning they would not leave unless Mo’men was handed over to them.

But to Prime Minister Netanyahu… Only Israeli children matter. He was “infuriated,” he said, by what he called Ashton’s “comparison between a deliberate massacre of children and the defensive, surgical actions” of the Israeli military that he claimed were “intended to hit terrorists who use children as a human shield.” Eli Yishai, Israel’s interior minister, told Israel Radio that Ashton should not stay in her post and that her comments hurt the EU’s ability to act as an honest broker between Israel and the Palestinians. But Netanyahu’s real strategy is to…

Divert World Attention to Iran. As Israel accelerates its relentless theft of Palestinian lands, construction of new illegal settlements, Judaization of Arab East Jerusalem, and imprisonment, wounding and killing of Palestinians living under Israeli occupation, the Israeli prime minister and his right-wing government hurl accusations at Iran for its perfectly legal activity.

In Fact, It Is Israel, not Iran… That has refused to allow inspection of its nuclear facilities, refused to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and possesses not one, but hundreds of nuclear weapons. If Israel were not playing such a deadly game—one that could cause the deaths of millions of innocent children, women and men—one might simply be amused by such an extreme example of…

The Pot Calling the Kettle Black. But the stakes are much too high for that— and most Americans know it. Polls show a majority oppose a U.S. attack on Iran, or support for an Israeli attack. Senior U.S. military leaders have urged Israel not to launch an attack, and President Barack Obama also advises caution. But in this election year, many politicians act like they’re running not for Congress but…

Running for the Knesset. So what’s a voter to do? The first step is to arm yourself with information—especially information that the mainstream media likes to withhold. On p. 30 of this issue THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

you’ll find our first installment of our compilation of pro-Israel PAC contributions to 2012 congressional candidates. Later this year we’ll reveal the latest members in our Congressional Halls of Fame and Shame. We think the best place to ask your elected representatives about their stance on U.S. Mideast policy—and who’s paying them to adopt that stance—is at public campaign meetings. In other words…

Let Your Neighbors in on the Secret! This is not the time to be shy. Volunteer for election campaigns, write letters to the editor and op-eds for your local newspapers. Call into radio stations and bring up Afghanistan, the Israeli occupation and illegal settlements, AIPAC, Iran, Islamophobia, profiling…everything that is damaging the moral fiber of this country and harming others around the world. Because…

Each Life Is Equally Important. We urge you to add your voice to a call for an end to the killing of our children. Children—including Iranian kids— should be off-limits in the arguments waged by adults. We adults must do everything in our power to make sure children—including soldiers, who are somebody’s children— are safe and to end this global cycle of violence. Neither America nor the world can afford…

Another Senseless War. As Always, Thanks to Our Angels… For sending us your contributions, gift subscriptions and subscription renewals. As we celebrate our 30th birthday, the Washington Report counts on your support this and every month of every year. Our Web site will soon have a sleek new look with valuable extra features. Let us know what you think and what you’d like to see. You’ll receive our biannual donation appeal next month— but please don’t wait until then to contribute. We need your extra help this summer as we train the interns whom we hope will be the journalists, lawmakers, diplomats, business leaders and Web site, public relations and advertising gurus of the future. As you may have noticed, the world needs them now more than ever. Please put your money where (we hope) your hearts and minds are and…

Make a Difference Today! 7

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A Short-Term Victory With Long-Term Consequences SpecialReport

HAZEM BADER/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

By Rachelle Marshall

An Israeli soldier grabs a Palestinian boy by the neck during a March 31 demonstration against the theft of village land and the building of the illegal Israeli settlement of Karmei Tzour near the West Bank village of Beit Omar, north of Hebron. rime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu re-

Pceived almost all of what he wanted when he visited Washington in early March—cheers from the 14,000 attendees at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s convention, the warm embrace of congressional leaders, and a get together with President Barack Obama that was free of ac-

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

rimony. He did not get a green light to attack Iran, but he achieved something more important: a meeting with an American president at which Israel’s occupation of Palestine was not on the agenda. Netanyahu, as expected, made a strong argument for attacking Iran, if not sooner then later, and reiterated his demand that Iran end its uranium enrichment program (despite the fact that the program is legal under international law). In his address to AIPAC he waved copies of a 1944 letter from the War Department refusing the appeal of the World JewTHE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

ish Congress to bomb Auschwitz, suggesting that Israelis would endure the same fate as the Jews of Auschwitz if the U.S. refused to endorse an attack on Iran. Obama has come under strong pressure from congressional hawks, Republican presidential candidates and right-wing groups such as the Emergency Committee for Israel, the super PAC headed by evangelical Christian leader Gary Bauer and Jewish commentator William Kristol. Obama assured Netanyahu that the U.S. “had Israel’s back,” but urged him to postpone military action until sanctions and negotiations had a chance to work. In contrast to those who would relinquish control of U.S. foreign policy to Israel, the Pentagon warned that a war simulation exercise held in early March indicated that a strike on Iran would lead to a wider regional war that would inevitably involve the U.S. Hundreds of Americans would be killed. The report emphasized the “uncontrollable and unpredictable” consequences of an Israeli strike and Iran’s response. Absent from the debate was any mention of the costs to Iranians and the people of neighboring countries of an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. The New York Times pointed out in a March 6 editorial that Iran has multiple nuclear sites, some buried deep underground, so there could not be a “surgical strike” similar to Israel’s attacks on Iraq’s Osirak reactor in 1981 or Syria’s unfinished reactor in 2007. A heavy and sustained air attack would be necessary to set back Iran’s nuclear program by even a few years. The use of 5,000-pound bombs to penetrate Iran’s underground nuclear sites would release large quantities of radioactive uranium over Iran and Central Asia and cause widespread death, illness and genetic damage. In Iraq, even relatively modest amounts of depleted uranium released by U.S. weaponry have sickened thousands of children and caused thousands of infants to be born with severe birth defects. The blanket sanctions imposed by the West are already causing severe suffering in Iran. In a March 3 op-ed column for The New York Times, Iranian-American journalist Hooman Majd wrote that the sanctions have become a form of collective punishment designed to pressure the Iranian people into ousting their rulers. They are also useless. MAY 2012

Voices demanding change, Majd wrote, “simply cannot be heard at a time when the population is threatened with an economic chokehold or, worse, with being bombed.” Such concerns are not likely to bother Israeli leaders. In fact, it is doubtful they believe their own warnings that Iran poses “an existential threat.” Not only is Israel’s security guaranteed by the world’s greatest superpower, but it possesses the Middle East’s only nuclear arsenal, and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) are more powerful than the armies of all of Israel’s neighbors combined. According to U.S. intelligence estimates, there is no evidence that Iran is developing a bomb or even plans to build one. And if it did, the Iranians would be unlikely to risk annihilation by using it. What Israel does fear is the influence a strong Iran would have on Iraq and other countries in the region. The solution is to crush Iran’s economy, and this the fear-mongering of Netanyahu and his U.S. supporters is close to achieving. On March 15, the global communications network known as SWIFT complied with sanctions imposed by the West and expelled Iran’s financial institutions, making it virtually impossible for Iran to conduct international business. SWIFT’s action came the day after Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron warned Iran to “negotiate in good faith” in upcoming talks on Iran’s nuclear program—as if negotiations can be held in good faith while one side is wielding a whip over the other. Netanyahu’s chief accomplishment in raising the alarm over Iran has been to divert attention away from Israel’s relentless takeover of the West Bank for Jewish-only settlements, including hundreds of homes that are going up deep inside the occupied territory. The prime minister returned home with the assurance that, during an election year, the U.S. will overlook whatever cruelties Israel inflicts on the Palestinians. On March 8, International Women’s Day, only a few days after Congress and the White House had pledged unshakable support for Israel, a few dozen Palestinian women were holding a peaceful march near Qalandia when soldiers attacked them with tear gas, rubber bullets, “skunk water” and sound bombs. Photographs reminiscent of those taken in Selma, Alabama in 1963 showed unarmed women being slammed to the ground by powerful streams of water aimed at them by Israeli soldiers. The next day, March 9, Israel followed a familiar formula and ended several months of calm in Gaza by sending an air armada that included Apache helicopters, drones and F-16s to gun down Zuhair al-Qaisi, MAY 2012

MUSA AL-SHAER/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

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In the Makhrureh neighborhood of Beit Jala, a Palestinian man digs through the rubble of his house which Israel demolished on April 3. Israeli troops razed four homes and dozens of electricity pylons near the adjacent West Bank town of Bethlehem, leaving residents in the area without electricy. head of the popular Resistance Committee, and two associates. Israel claimed al-Qaisi had been responsible for the killing of eight Israelis near the Egyptian border last year, an accusation that was later shown to be false. The initial assassinations were followed by continuous air strikes against targets across Gaza, including a school playground. By the end of the first day six more Palestinians were dead. Israel’s initiation of renewed violence had its intended effect when Islamic Jihad responded by firing scores of rockets into Israel, eventually wounding three Israelis. By March 12, when at Hamas’ urging Egypt brokered a truce, the Palestinian death toll was 27, including two children, and some 80 wounded. Israeli missiles also destroyed 32 homes, a school, and an office of the Red Crescent Society. Two days after the truce was declared, Israeli missiles again struck Gaza, this time what the army claimed was “a rocket launching site.” Israel may be forced to keep its attacks on Gaza within bounds, however. Thanks to the upheaval in Egypt that resulted in the ousting of Hosni Mubarak and the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Israelis are unlikely to launch a repeat of Operation Cast Lead, the three-week assault on Gaza in 2008-09 that left 1,400 Gazans dead, thousands of homes in ruins, and Gaza's infrastructure destroyed. The Brotherhood is actively working to promote reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah, and supports a peace agreement based THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

on the 1967 borders, so although it has pledged to honor Egypt’s 1979 peace agreement with Israel, it is certain to oppose a major Israeli attack on Gaza. For Palestinians on the West Bank the price of occupation is also rising steadily. Israeli troops have stepped up their night raids and arrests, with most of the detainees suspected of taking part in peaceful demonstrations or even reporting on them. During the month of February, 11 journalists were injured by tear gas or rubber bullets. On Feb. 28 Israeli soldiers shut down two Palestinian television stations in Ramallah, confiscating their equipment and what they said were “suspicious” documents. The Palestinian Authority said the stations were fully licensed and had received no complaints from Israel’s Ministry of Communications. One of them was an educational station that broadcast “Sesame Street” and other children’s programs. Nearly 400 Palestinians were arrested in February, including 54 children. Last October Israel released 477 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for an Israeli soldier held by Hamas, but by December, 470 more Palestinians had been arrested. To someone who follows events in Palestine at a distance, the daily count of Palestinians arrested, made homeless, beaten by settlers, or killed by Israeli forces can too easily become a statistic. When news came of Fadi Quran’s beating and arrest by Israeli soldiers, that statistic became shockingly real. 9

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I first encountered Fadi some seven years ago when, as a student at Stanford, he spoke at the launching of a campus divestment campaign. Fadi was a gangly freshman, but his talk was as polished and eloquent as anyone’s on the panel. He identified himself as a Palestinian and a fervent believer in nonviolence. Over the next four years he was an active member of the campus movement for a just Middle East peace, steadfastly committed to nonviolent resistance as the way to achieve Palestinian independence. On Feb. 24 Fadi was taking part in a peaceful protest march in Hebron when the army attacked the group with tear gas, foul smelling liquid, sound bombs and pepper spray. Soldiers knocked him to the ground, sprayed him directly in the eyes, and smashed his head against the side of a truck so that he briefly passed out. They then took him handcuffed, half-conscious, and bleeding to Ofer military prison. Five days later, after more than 2,300 Stanford students, staff and faculty members signed a petition on his behalf, Fadi was released on bail. As an American citizen Fadi was luckier than most. Since Israel captured the West Bank in 1967 tens of thousands of Palestinians have languished in prison indefinitely without trial, not knowing if or when they will ever be released. That situation was given a human face by Khader Adnan, who fasted for 66 days last winter in protest against his long detention without charges. He ended his fast only after Israel agreed to release him in mid-April, but not before he had drawn the world’s attention to the plight of Palestinians existing in limbo in Israeli prisons. Adnan’s message was that Israel’s system of indefinitely detaining Palestinians without trial was so intolerable that he was willing to give his life to end it. In conducting his fast he shone light on the 310 Palestinian prisoners who are being similarly denied a right to

defend themselves, as well as on the thousands who have endured the same ordeal in the past. “It is like reburying a corpse again and again,” said Shawan Jabarin, head of the human rights organization Al Haq, who spent seven years in administrative detention. According to Mustafa Barghouti, a physician and prominent member of the Palestinian parliament, Adnan’s triumph lay in “unifying Palestinians and highlighting the power of nonviolent protest.” Adnan’s example was followed by Hana Shalabi, who by March 23 had fasted for 36 days, and by some 20 other prisoners. Shalabi was released from prison last October, only to be rearrested again when soldiers stormed into her house at night, seized her family’s cell phones and computer, and ripped up a photo of her dead brother. She has since been held in a six-meter-square cell with no windows.

Holding Children Hostage A revealing article in the Feb. 19 issue of The New York Times described how Israel uses children to justify detaining Palestinians whose sole crime is to take part in peaceful protests against the occupation. Late at night last January, 20 Israeli soldiers burst into the home of Saleh Dar Ayyoub in Nabi Saleh, seized his 14-year-old son Islam, and took the child to a military base blindfolded and handcuffed. There he was left outside in the cold for several hours and only the next day brought in for questioning. The soldiers accused him of throwing stones, then grilled him about the actions of his neighbors, most of whom were part of his extended family. According to the Times account, a tape recording showed the frightened and exhausted boy willing to say whatever his interrogators wanted, including incriminating his neighbors. He proved willing to agree that Bassem Tamimi, the leader of Nabi Saleh’s nonviolent protest against the separation wall, had encouraged the village youths

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to throw stones and unexploded tear gas canisters at soldiers, charges Tamimi and other witnesses have strongly denied. “I thought that if I spoke they would release me,” Islam said later. They did not. He was held for two and a half months and then released to house arrest. Islam, a 9th grader, had been a good student. Now, his father said, he hates school and stays awake nights watching television, afraid the soldiers will return. Palestinian children are less deserving of pity than Jewish children, Israeli officials say. When Catherine Ashton, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, responded to the March 19 murder of three Jewish children in Toulouse, France by expressing sympathy for them and for the world’s other child victims, including those in Gaza, Israel’s interior minister demanded she resign, and Netanyahu said he was “infuriated.” Ashton, he said, had dared to compare the Toulouse killings with “the defensive, surgical actions of the Israeli military [that are] intended to kill terrorists who use children as human shields.” Gazans who have seen the bodies of children shot by Israeli soldiers as they played on a roof, or torn apart by Israeli artillery shells, or killed when a missile slams into their home, know better. (For a compilation of all Palestinian and Israeli children killed since Sept. 30, 2000, visit <www.rememberthesechildren.org>.) A baffling question is why the Israelis seem bent on embittering four million Palestinians and alienating millions more people elsewhere in the world. Equally baffling is the slavishness with which America’s elected officials, with few exceptions, express their dedication to the Jewish state. History shows that oppressor nations tend to have limited life spans, often imploding from within. Israel’s continued subjugation of the Palestinians has led to what David Remnick in the March 12 New Yorker called “political corrosion...a profoundly anti-democratic, even racist political culture [that] has become endemic among much of the Jewish population in the West Bank, and jeopardizes Israel proper.” The principles of a democratic state have a low priority among the right-wing settlers, the ultra-Orthodox, and ultra-religious nationalists who are the Netanyahu government’s indispensable allies. Equally indispensable to the Israeli government, however, is U.S. support. So far it has been unstinting. Israelis and their allies should ask themselves, however, how long American taxpayers will be willing to subsidize an apartheid state whose government brutalizes children as well as adults, and acts in open defiance of international law. ❑ MAY 2012

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Bibi Walking a Thin Line SpecialReport

By George S. Hishmeh hen Binyamin Netanyahu was in

tled his huge audience of more than 10,000 American Jews, congressmen and U.S. officials led by President Barack Obama at the three-day American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) annual conference with his unbalanced and sometimes exaggerated pronouncements. “Iran’s nuclear program continues to march forward,” the Israeli prime minister complained. “My friends, Israel has waited and waited for the international community to resolve this issue. We’ve waited for diplomacy to work. We’ve waited for sanctions to work. None of us can afford to wait much longer. As prime minister of Israel, I will never let my people live in the shadow of annihilation.” His diatribe was startling. It even triggered a thought which may shock Netanyahu. Isn’t this what the Palestinians have been saying all along, urging Israelis to pull back from the occupied Palestinian territories, the remaining portion of the Holy Land that has been usurped since 1967. No one, including the Western powers and especially the United States, has been calling on Netanyahu to implement the U.N. Partition scheme which has divided Palestine unequally, unfairly giving the Israelis a larger and richer portion of the strategic country on the eastern Mediterranean. Hardly a few weeks had passed since this infamous Netanyahu declaration when the U.N. Human Rights Council condemned on March 22 Israel’s planned construction of new housing units for Jewish settlers in a large occupied portion of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The council emphasized that the Israeli plans had undermined the decades-long peace process and posed a threat to the two-state solution and the creation of a contiguous and independent Palestinian state. About 500,000 Israeli settlers, including Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, and 2.5 million Palestinians live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. What Netanyahu conveniently forgets is that these settlements were also considered George S. Hishmeh is a Washington-based columnist. He was the former editor-in-chief of The Daily Star of Lebanon. MAY 2012

CHIP SOMODEVILLA/GETTY IMAGES

WWashington in early March, he star-

After meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama earlier in the day, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu addreses AIPAC’s annual policy conference, March 5, 2012. illegal by the International Court of Justice, the highest U.N. legal body for disputes, and are believed to pose a serious problem for establishing a viable Palestinian state. And when the U.N. Human Rights Council declared on March 23 that it is planning to send a fact-finding mission to investigate these settlements, the Israeli government severed all ties with the U.N. body and promised to bar any U.N. team from entering Israel or the West Bank. The U.N. resolution was adopted by the 47-member council by 36 votes in favor and 10 abstentions. Disappointingly, the United States was the only member to vote against the resolution. The Palestinians and Israelis are not members of the council. President Obama may have been concerned that joining the international outcry may harm his presidential aspirations but he, like Netanyahu, should consider what Haaretz columnist Akiva Eldar wrote in late March: “Were Israel to have a more rational government, it would see the Palestinian actions as what they are, a Palestinian recognition of Israel within the 1967 borders.” As this right-wing Israeli government continues to procrastinate, regrettably with THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

backing from some short-sighted U.S. officials, the future is not promising for either side, but especially doubtful for the Israeli side in the long run. Already another U.N. body, the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, has labeled the recent Israeli draft law that would move 30,000 Bedouins living in the Negev to permanent, existing Bedouin communities as discriminatory, as it “would legalize the ongoing policy of demolitions and forced displacement of the indigenous Bedouin communities.” Rallies against Israel’s aggressive policies are expanding in both Israel and the United States. Hundreds of Israelis marched in Tel Aviv recently in protest against a possible Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. A recent opinion poll released by the Brookings Institution reported that “only one in four Americans favor Israel conducting a military strike against Iran’s nuclear program, while seven in 10 favor instead the United States and other major powers continuing to pursue negotiations with Iran.” On the occasion of Land Day, on March 30, thousands of activists held commemorative protests against Israeli confiscation Continued on page 19 11

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Two Views Who Wants War With Iran? Little U.S. Popular Support for Israeli Attack on Iran By Jim Lobe

mid persistent speculation over a pos-

Asible Israeli military attack against

COURTESY S. KUTAYLI

Iranian nuclear facilities in the wake of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s visit to Washington, a detailed new public opinion survey released March 13 suggests

diplomacy over military action, nearly three out of four respondents, including 69 percent of Republicans, said the U.S. should act primarily through the U.N. Security Council, rather than unilaterally, in dealing with Iran’s nuclear program. Meanwhile, a second public opinion poll released the same day by The New York Times and CBS News found a slight majority (51 percent) of 1,009 respondents who

Each of the 45 black dots is a U.S. military base. that such a move would enjoy little support in the United States. According to the survey by the University of Maryland’s Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA), only one in four U.S. respondents favors an Israeli strike, while nearly seven in 10 (69 percent), including a strong majority of Republicans (59 percent), said they prefer continuing negotiations with Tehran. Only one in seven (14 percent) of the survey’s 727 respondents said they thought Washington should encourage an Israeli attack, while 80 percent said the U.S. should either discourage Israel from taking such a step (34 percent) or maintain a neutral position (46 percent). And, consistent with their preference for Jim Lobe is Washington, DC bureau chief for Inter Press Service. Copyright © 2012 IPSInter Press Service. All rights reserved. 12

said they would support the U.S. taking military action in order to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. That poll, which did not offer an option for continued diplomacy or negotiations, found that 36 percent of respondents would oppose such a strike. The remaining 13 percent said they were unsure. Asked what the U.S. should do if Israel conducted its own unilateral strike, a 47 percent plurality said Washington should support the Jewish state, 42 percent said it should “not get involved,” and only 1 percent said the U.S. should oppose it. The two surveys were released just days after the annual policy conference of the powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), whose 13,000 activistattendees were addressed by Netanyahu and President Barack Obama, among other luminaries, before fanning out across Capitol Hill to lobby their elected representaTHE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

tives for a more confrontational U.S. stance toward Iran and its nuclear program. Top Israeli leaders, including Netanyahu during his visit to Washington, have been suggesting for several months they were prepared to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities some time this year unless Tehran agreed to abandon its nuclear program. The Obama administration, on the other hand, has made clear, especially over the past three months, that unprecedented economic sanctions, combined with renewed negotiations with Iran by the socalled P5+1 (U.S., Britain, France, Russia, and China, plus Germany) should be given more time to reach a diplomatic settlement. Britain and France also came out publicly in March against an Israeli strike. It is not yet clear what was the impact, if any, of the AIPAC conference on popular attitudes. On the one hand, the results in the Times/CBS poll—which was conducted over four days (March 7-11) immediately after the conference—about U.S. military action against Iran were essentially no different from those of polls conducted over the past three years that also asked respondents whether they would support or oppose a U.S. strike against Iran to prevent it from obtaining a nuclear weapon. On the question of how the U.S. should react to an Israeli attack on Iran, on the other hand, the latest poll suggested an increase in support for Israel when compared to a Pew Research Center poll just one month earlier in which 51 percent of respondents said Washington should “stay neutral” under such circumstances. At the same time, 42 percent of respondents supported Obama’s “handling of the situation in Iran,” while 39 percent opposed. But the PIPA poll, which was conducted during the conference (March 3-7), probed far more deeply into attitudes about an Israeli strike against Iran and related issues, noted Peter Ferenbach, an expert on foreign policy attitudes and cofounder of ReThink Media, an organization that works with nonprofit groups. “It’s a welcome exploration of what Americans really think about Iran’s nuclear program, and, not surprisingly, people’s responses are more nuanced when the issue is explored in depth,” he told Inter Press Service, adding that the “policy debate has been ill-served by a long string of poorly MAY 2012

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designed polls on this critical issue.” “The phrasing of the Times/CBS poll— ‘Do you favor using military action against Iran to prevent the country from acquiring nuclear weapons?’—has a built-in efficacy bias that presumes a military strike would end Iran’s nuclear program, a view held by virtually no one at the Pentagon.” Indeed, the PIPA poll found that most respondents were pessimistic about the effects of a military strike on Iran’s nuclear program. Only one in five (18 percent) said they believed that an Israeli military strike will delay Iran’s alleged ambition to acquire nuclear weapons by more than five years. A 51 percent majority said they thought a strike would either delay Iran’s ability to produce a weapon by only one to two years (20 percent), or would have no effect (9 percent), or would actually result in Iran accelerating its nuclear program (22 percent). Interestingly, those percentages were similar to the findings of a survey of Israeli public opinion on the same question conducted in late February by Shibley Telhami, a fellow at the Brookings Institution and the Sadat chair at the University of Maryland, which co-sponsored the PIPA poll. In a widely noted interview on CBS’s popular “60 Minutes” public-affairs program March 11, former Israeli Mossad chief Meir Dagan also noted that an Israeli strike could at best delay Iran’s program. A 51 percent majority in the PIPA poll also said an Israeli attack would either strengthen the regime (30 percent) or would have no effect on its hold on power (21 percent), while 42 percent said the regime would be weakened. Moreover, only one in five respondents said they believed armed conflict between Iran and Israel would last either days or weeks. Three of four respondents said they believed such a conflict would last months (26 percent) or years (48 percent). “One of the reasons Americans are so cool toward the idea of Israel attacking Iran’s nuclear program is that most believe that it is not likely to produce much benefit,” said Steven Kull, PIPA’s director. Nearly six in 10 respondents (58 percent) said they thought Iran has decided to build nuclear weapons and is actively working toward that aim, an assertion that is at odds with the consensus view of the U.S. intelligence community, which most recently concluded that, while Tehran “is developing some of the technical ability necessary to produce nuclear weapons, [it] has not decided whether to produce them.” Thirty percent of respondents agreed with the latter position, while only 6 percent accepted Iran’s repeated assertions MAY 2012

that it is producing enriched uranium for civilian purposes only. Asked to assume that Iran actually developed nuclear weapons, 62 percent of respondents said they believed the regime would likely use them to attack Israel, as opposed to only 32 percent who thought it would be deterred from doing so for fear of being destroyed in a nuclear retaliatory strike.

Lobbying for War By Philip Giraldi

here has been considerable discussion T of the meaning, or lack thereof, of the apparent difference of opinion between the United States and Israel over both the desirability and the possible timing of going to war with Iran. Those Americans who still revere the Constitution and the advice of the Founding Fathers should rightly be appalled that a war is even being considered on behalf of a small client state with which the United States has no treaty obliging such intervention. War with Iran would undoubtedly follow the usual pattern, being authorized by the White House without the constitutionally mandated declaration of war by Congress and likely developing out of an evolving situation in which Israel is being given a free pass to initiate the conflict. That the United States is in such a parlous condition is directly due to the effective work of Israel’s principal lobby in Washington, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which has just completed its annual convention. Consider what AIPAC and its friends in Congress and the media have accomplished: Understanding that the truth about Iran would not support their case, they have completely skewed the narrative about the threat posed by that country. Iran has no nuclear weapon, has not made a decision to acquire one, and may not even have the technical ability or financial resources to do so even if its government decides to move in that direction. Yet, AIPAC has succeeded in convincing the American public that Iran is already a nuclear power and is somehow a threat to the United States, all despite the fact that Iran, far from being an aggressor, has been on the receiving end of covert operations run by Washington and Tel Aviv that have killed scores Philip Giraldi, a former CIA officer, is executive director of the Council for the National Interest and a contributing editor to The American Conservative. This article was first posted on <www.antiwar.com>, March 15, 2012. Copyright © Antiwar.com 2012. Reprinted with permission. THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

of Iranians. President Barack Obama has unhesitatingly endorsed the AIPAC line, emphasizing in his speech to that organization on March 4 that Iran is a security problem for the United States and the entire world, an elaboration straight out of Israel’s playbook that was noted approvingly by no less than Tom Friedman of The New York Times. Friedman asks “whether he [Obama] is the most pro-Israel president in history or just one of the most.” AIPAC has also been effective in lining up Capitol Hill in its support. One-third of Congress attended the AIPAC conference, and a number of individual legislators have been actively promoting the lobby’s line. Sen. Carl Levin [who has received more pro-Israel PAC contributions than any other member of Congress—ed.] is now calling for a military blockade of Iran, a clear act of war. Thirty-two senators, including Lindsey Graham, John McCain and Joe Lieberman, are supporting legislation that will essentially authorize taking military action against Iran because it has the “capability” to create a nuclear weapon, a line that has already been crossed by Tehran as well as by other states in the region, including Turkey, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Why pick on Iran? Because that is what Israel wants (Israel, one might add, has, unlike Iran, attacked a number of its neighbors in recent years). Israel also possesses its own secret nuclear arsenal, giving it a combination of political recklessness and potentially cataclysmic military power that apparently causes no heartburn in Congress. It is being argued in some circles that Obama has been resisting the Israeli drive to go to war because his defense and intelligence chiefs insist that the “red line” with Tehran is the actual possession of a nuclear weapon, but is that really true? He has muddied that apparent position by insisting that he will “prevent” the Iranians from obtaining the bomb. Prevention means preemption, possibly based on the same type of fabricated intelligence Americans saw in the lead-up to Iraq. To be sure, the Pentagon and the intelligence community are undeniably cool on the prospect of a new war in the Middle East, understanding clearly that the unintended consequences after the last bomb is dropped could be devastating to the economy and to the sustainability of the remaining American presence in places like Afghanistan. Joint Chiefs Chairman Martin Dempsey has been active in trying to persuade the Israelis to defer action, stating both that Iran is a “rational actor” and that a war right now would serve no one’s interest. For his pains, Dempsey has been Continued on page 15 13

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Leave Us Out of Another Middle East War

Outside the Beltway

ATTA KENARE/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

By James G. Abourezk

Supporters of Iran’s Esteghlal soccer club cheer on their team during an AFC Champions League Group A match against the UAE’s Al-Jazira club at Tehran’s Azadi Stadium, April 3, 2012. ne of the most vivid memories I have

Oof my service in the U.S. Senate was of

an early Democratic caucus. It was in January of 1973, not long after President Richard Nixon and his secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, had ordered the carpet bombing of Hanoi in an effort to strong arm the Vietnamese into surrendering. It was a horrendous and savage attack on a nation of peasants who chose to try to expel an army of foreigners from their land. There was a debate in the Democratic Senate caucus about how or whether the war should be ended. What was impressed on my mind was what was said by two of my colleagues—Danny Inouye of Hawaii, and Missouri Sen. Stuart Symington. Senator Inouye, who was visibly shaking as he spoke, made one of the most telling points when he denounced the bombing as motivated by anti-Asian racism. “Had they bombed Germany, or Norway, or some European country,” Inouye said, his deep baritone voice quivering with anger, “there would be a great outcry in this room and throughout the James G. Abourezk is a former U.S. senator (D-SD) and founder of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. He currently practices law in Sioux Falls, SD. 14

country, but the weak response tells me that to Nixon and to the press it’s O.K. to bomb Vietnamese because they are nothing more than a bunch of ‘gooks.’” Inouye had struck a nerve. As he spoke, I noticed a number of senators looking down at the floor. Danny knew of what he spoke. He gave his right arm, literally, in World War II, when he was sent to Italy to fight the Nazis. After the war, he wound up in the Percy Jones Army Hospital in Battle Creek, Michigan, the same hospital as a fighter pilot from Rapid City, South Dakota. In fact, their hospital beds were next to each other. The pilot, Tom Lehnert, was flying a P-47 fighter over Germany when he was shot down. His plane actually was hit just below the pilot’s seat, where it started burning, ultimately burning both of Tom’s legs. He didn’t lose his wits, however, as he flipped the plane on its back and unhooked his safety belt, allowing him to parachute out that way. He spent the war in a German hospital before continuing his post-war rehabilitation alongside Danny Inouye. During the 1973 caucus debate, Wisconsin Sen. Gaylord Nelson inveighed against both the bombing and the war by chiding one of the pro-war senators who had advocated all-out war against the Vietnamese, THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

slapping him on the shoulder as he said, “Had we listened to my friend here, I’m afraid we’d be in much worse condition today than we are.” But along with Danny’s words, another speech that strongly clings to my memory was delivered by Senator Symington. Tall and distinguished, with a shock of gray hair, Symington was one of the few senators who actually looked like a senator. His wife had died during the previous year, an event that had deeply affected him. He rose to speak. “I’ve had occasion,” he began, his voice heavy with emotion, “to spend a great deal of time with my grandchildren over the recent holidays. As we watched the news of the bombing, one of the little ones asked me, ‘Grandpa, why are we killing so many people with our airplanes?’ I had to try to explain to him why some people thought killing was necessary. It was an effort that forced me into deep thought about the entire concept of the war in Vietnam. I’ve decided that I am no longer able to explain to my grandchildren the fact that my country has now become the bully of the world.” At that, Symington abruptly ended his speech and sat down, his emotions eluding his self-control. He put his head in his hands and, in front of the entire gathering of U.S. senators, sobbed unashamedly. The United States was in Vietnam in force because our government believed that the North Vietnamese should follow orders from us, rather than from the Communist government of Ho Chi Minh that ruled North Vietnam. According to Wikipedia, at the end the butcher’s bill for the Vietnam War came to some two million South Vietnamese civilians killed, although there are various estimates of a lesser number. And this death count includes the bill when North Vietnam consolidated its power as the war came to an end. The number of North Vietnamese killed during the entire war was some 1.1 million dead. One million, one hundred thousand killed. And the number of young American men killed came to well over 60,000. The wounded, both those with visible wounds and those with wounds we could not see, far exceeded this number. The new American technology used during the Vietnam War brought back to life—but not in one MAY 2012

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piece—those who would have died in earlier wars. In the Iraq disaster, in excess of 4,500 Americans died, and tens of thousands came home in pieces, with arms, legs, part of their faces and skulls missing, and with horrendous mental problems. We have not yet been given the butcher’s bill for our misadventure in Afghanistan, but it will be finally delivered within a couple of years. There are estimates of several hundred thousand Iraqis who met their deaths during our invasion and afterward. Some 1.5 million Iraqi refugees have fled to Syria and Jordan to escape the sectarian fighting, and countless Iraqi civilians have been maimed and wounded. When I visited Iraq in 2002 in what was a somewhat successful effort to get the Iraqis to allow the weapons inspectors back in the country, I visited a children’s hospital in Baghdad and saw little Iraqi children who were suffering from cancer caused by depleted uranium ammunition that our country used on the Iraqis during the first Gulf war. I saw a small Iraqi girl—about the same age as my own daughter then—whose cancer caused blood to run from her mouth. Her mother sat on her bed, trying to comfort her. I never knew whether or not she survived. The Saddam Hussain government did allow the weapons inspectors back into Iraq, after George W. Bush had said that failure to do so would bring an American attack. After Iraq complied with the U.S. demand, Bush ordered the attack anyway, which to me was solid evidence that he had planned to destroy Iraq no matter what. Today our government is arguing with Israel as to whether or not we will support Israel’s threatened attack on Iran. What is as certain as the sun will come up tomorrow morning is that, no matter what our position is, if Israel attacks, America will be blamed for it. I guess that, because we furnish money and weapons and protection in the U.N. for Israel, such collaboration would be difficult for us to deny. For those who make such decisions, we can only hope that our government will do what it can to protect American interests with respect to Iran. I know it’s difficult in an election year to say no to Israel, but we are talking here about saving American lives, and saving our economy, which will surely go deep into the tank when crude oil prices spike to unheard-of levels as a result of such an attack. Even more, gasoline prices currently are shooting up to the heavens because, as the press blandly reports, of “the tensions MAY 2012

around Iran.” No one yet, either in the media or in the government, has asked exactly who is creating the tensions which drive up gasoline prices and, consequently, the prices of everything else we buy. It’s as though we are witnessing a Grimm Fairy Tale where, although the king has no clothes on, virtually everyone swoons because of the beautiful (invisible) robe worn by the king. The media and the politicians are so inured to laying off criticism of Israel that no one can bring themselves to identify what is hurting us and our economy. And I will venture to say that nothing I write here will change matters in this respect. And there is almost no protest here against Israel’s saber rattling about Iran. But our government could, if it could somehow grow a pair of gonads, tell Israel outright that both American money and American political and military support will end should it decide to drag America into another Middle East war as it did in Iraq. It is my view that Bibi Netanyahu would drop the question of an Iranian threat once he has to consider the greater threat posed by the U.S. cutting off the gift of billions of dollars each year. It’s a question of whether our elected leaders will protect Americans or Israel. Surely it’s not too much to ask that they put their own country first. ❑

Two Views… Continued from page 13

called everything short of an idiot and his judgment has been denounced by strategic geniuses such as Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich. In truth, Iran has been demonized to a point where it is difficult to imagine any nonviolent way out of the current contretemps. Would that Obama had stood firm behind Dempsey, but he did not. Instead, in his interview with The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg that preceded his speech at AIPAC, he does little more than pander to the Jewish community by offering bromides and assurances. He told both Goldberg and AIPAC that the United States has “Israel’s back” and that the U.S. commitment to Tel Aviv’s security is unquestioned while assiduously avoiding the fact that Israel pays little regard to Washington’s regional and global interests. There is no nuance in statements like those made by the American president. Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who repeatedly and hyperbolically calls Iran a threat to the THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

whole world, has the whip hand in the relationship and he knows it, even if Obama thinks that he might have contrived some wiggle room. Steve Clemons correctly describes it as “the emotional and political leverage that Netanyahu has engineered over Obama.” Ironically, it creates one of those exceedingly rare moments in which one might wish for the return of George W. Bush. Bush, for all his manifest failings, told Israel not to attack Iran, and the Israelis respected or feared him enough to desist. Or, to make the same point in another way, if Israel attacks Iran next week and Iran retaliates, a virtual certainty, then the United States will inevitably become involved in the conflict, with Congress and the media leading the charge, just as they did against Iraq. On March 9, 86 Republican members of Congress demonstrated how it will work, sending a letter to Obama pledging “unwavering support” for Israel and concluding that the White House must “make our offer of support and assistance to Israel crystal clear if Israel finds it necessary to take action against Iran.” So Israel is empowered to make the decision whether America goes to war or not, at least for those 86 Republicans, who would almost certainly be joined by numerous Democrats. Given that reality, if someone can come up with an alternative scenario in which automatic American involvement does not take place, it has yet to be explained plausibly. Will Obama simply refuse to play? In an election year? Not likely. Many are convinced the war is coming, including White House senior staff. So what can the rest of us do when the war comes? Very little. The only man who can conceivably stop it, President Obama, is clearly thinking of timing. If the fighting starts too soon and goes sour, which it will, he will lose the presidency. If it happens just before elections, he can pitch in to help brave little Israel and ride to victory as the latest in America’s unforgettable series of wartime presidents. If there is no war at all, Obama wins because he kept the peace. So the timing must be right if there is a war, and this is another thing that the Israelis understand. They and AIPAC can make or break Obama, and the president can do little to derail the process. Will Bibi want to continue with the man he dislikes and distrusts in the White House or will he feel more comfortable with Mitt Romney, a man who has already stuffed his foreign policy team with the same neoconservative Israel-firsters who brought about Iraq and who genuinely do have Netanyahu’s back come hell or high water? Stay tuned. ❑ 15

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Despite Temporary Reprieve, Lifta’s Fate Most Likely Sealed by Schemes, Scheming

The Nakba Continues

By William Parry

AHMAD GHARABLI/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

to return under international law and U.N. General Assembly Resolution 194. As British journalist Ben White writes: “The passing of the Absentee Property Law in 1950 was foundational to the development of an exclusionary land regime, the beginning of ‘a complex mechanism of expropriation’ to realize the ‘permanent alienation of [Palestinian absentee] land in favor of the Jewish state.’” Since the Nakba, the village’s descendants—many of whom live just a third of a mile away from the land today—have clung to the thin hope that they would re-inherit their ancestral land, which was divided in half by the 1949 Armistice line. But in 2004, the Jerusalem Municipality Planning Committee—with the assistance of two architectural firms, G. Kartas/S. Grueg and S. Ahronson, and a private firm, Ze’ev Temkin of TIK Projects—saw in Lifta the potential for a luxury residential and commercial neighborhood, and submitted a redevelopment project to Yaaqub Odeh, originally from the Palestinian village of Lifta (background), speaks to the press the state, which later approved it. near Jerusalem on Feb. 10, 2012, after an Israeli court suspended bidding on construction of a The news shocked and alarmed the luxury neighborhood for Jews only on village land. Liftanis, who saw it as the final threat to their rights and their heritage. The rights of Lifta’s descendants are he historic remains and memory of handsome, elegant buildings still stand, Lifta, a Palestinian village depopulated partially destroyed but clearly visible to being fought for by the Civic Coalition for by Jewish militias in 1948, are now under commuters. It’s one of the few physical tes- Palestinian Rights in Jerusalem (CCDPRJ), threat by Jewish property developers look- taments of armed Zionists’ first campaign which comprises original descendants, the ing to turn it into an exclusively Jewish of ethnic cleansing that hasn’t been re- Sons of Lifta Association, Rabbis for luxury development. Following a petition duced to rubble and covered with forests Human Rights, and the Jafra Association. by activists representing Lifta’s Palestinian or vegetation in an attempt to camouflage In February 2011, according to a CCDPRJ statement, the Israeli Land Authority (ILA) descendants, an Israeli court issued a tem- the state’s past crimes. The village faced violent attacks in Jan- called for private sector bids “in order to porary injunction halting redevelopment plans. The decision is being hailed as a cru- uary 1948. The massacre at nearby Deir sell the land of Lifta in a plan which called Yassin that April convinced the inhabitants for the building of some 245 luxury houscial victory. But is it? While driving toward the outskirts of that their lives were in serious danger, and ing units, a shopping mall, a tourist resort, Jerusalem along Road 1, the remains of they fled to nearby villages—often just a a museum and a luxury 120-room hotel.” Lifta, a once-thriving Palestinian village of few miles away—for safety. In December of The organization says that most of the 3,000 inhabitants, appear on the hillside, that year, the new Israeli state imple- homes would be destroyed and the village’s ensnared by vegetation and a tragic his- mented the commonly called “Absentee past erased in the redevelopment project, tory. Unlike most of the 531 Palestinian vil- Property Act,” which became law in 1950, and that the development would be for lages destroyed by Jewish militias and the with the government becoming the Custo- “exclusive Jewish use.” In response, a petition was submitted to nascent Israeli state during the Nakba dian of Absentee Property—ostensibly the (“catastrophe”), several dozen of Lifta’s “guardian” of the refugees’ property until the Jerusalem District Court for Adminisa political solution to the issue of Pales- trative Issues last year by CCDPRJ through its attorney, Samir Irshad, on behalf of the William Parry is a free-lance writer and tine’s 800,000 refugees was reached. Sixty-four years later, Israel continues to people of Lifta. That petition was first photographer based in London. His book, Against the Wall, is available from the AET deny the estimated 7.5 million Palestinian heard on May 11, 2011. Irshad is quoted in refugees and their descendants their right the CCDPRJ statement as saying: “Our peBook Club.

THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

MAY 2012

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tition requested that Lifta’s lands not be sold until the court issued its final ruling on the case; that there be a temporary freezing of the bid. A court date was set but the ILA initially refused the petition. On 11 May 2011, the court heard the testimony and arguments of our side.” Three points were made in the petition stating why the land could not be sold, Irshad said: “the first is that Lifta’s refugees hope and plan to reach a solution for the refugee issue. Therefore the village and the remaining homes should remain as it was before they were displaced; the second is that Lifta is a model of the nation’s history that should be preserved; and the third is that if the land is sold, it will be destroyed, preventing any possibility of preserving its heritage and history.” On Feb. 6, 2012 the Jerusalem District Court ordered that the bidding process be stopped until the case reaches its end. The CCDPRJ was jubilant, stating that the court “ruled in favor of the people of Lifta village. The court upheld the people’s petition to cancel the impending sale of their land and property to private bodies. This is a crucial and historic decision, [and] will hopefully prove to be precedent-setting.”

Well, not exactly. It’s a victory, but a limited one, according to Usama Halabi, a leading Palestinian human rights lawyer working in Israel. He points out that the court’s decision was largely based on the ILA changing essential agreed bidding conditions, and as such is more of a technical issue than an historic shift in Israel’s approach to Palestinian rights and their historical narrative. This technical issue largely centers on who would undertake the archaeological surveys required for each plot up for redevelopment—the ILA was prepared to allow property developers to hire private companies to conduct the archaeological surveys rather than, as initially agreed, the state Archaeological Authority. In other words, a public survey was not conducted before the ILA’s tender was published publicly. The judge did acknowledge the petitioners’ input, saying that preservation is a relevant component that needs to be taken into account, and a component that the Archaeological Authority would need to include in its assessments of each plot being sold. However, Halabi notes: “The land is owned now by the state and administered

by the ILA; there is a valid redeveloping scheme, No. 6036, to turn Lifta into a Jewish luxury residential and commercial neighborhood. This scheme is not, and will not be, subject to any appeal or objection (and the petitioners in the Lifta case did not question its validity). The ILA is authorized to publish a public bid calling private companies to submit bids for constructing 220 units. The main thing that the ILA should and will do before doing so is to conduct an archaeological survey [via the Archaeological Authority] which indicates exactly what parts of the village [are to be redeveloped] and how they should be preserved, and defines limits and conditions that should be respected and fulfilled.” So-called “Plot 9,” which contains the nucleus of the village, no longer is one of the plots open to redevelopment, which is positive for Liftanis. And the hope is that the Archaeological Authority will safeguard more of Lifta’s past than private surveyors would have. When the redevelopment plans proceed, however, what survives of the small amount that currently remains is likely to fall desperately short of Liftanis’ hopes— and rights. ❑

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THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

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Marwan Barghouti: The New Mandela SpecialReport

AWAD AWAD/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

By Uri Avnery

A Palestinian man touches a giant poster in Ramallah of jailed Fatah leader and then-presidential candidate Marwan Barghouti, Dec. 2, 2004. arwan Barghouti has spoken up.

MAfter a long silence, he has sent a

message from prison. To Israeli ears, this message does not sound pleasant. But for Palestinians, and for Arabs in general, it makes sense. His message may well become the new program of the Palestinian liberation movement. I first met Marwan in the heyday of post-Oslo optimism. He was emerging as a leader of the new Palestinian generation, the home-grown young activists, men and women, who had matured in the first Intifada. He is a man of small physical stature and large personality. When I met him, he was already the leader of Tanzim (“organization”), the youth group of the Fatah movement. The topic of our conversations then was the organization of demonstrations and other nonviolent actions, based on close Uri Avnery, a former member of the Israeli Knesset, is a founder of the peace organization Gush Shalom, <www.gush-shalom.org>. 18

cooperation between the Palestinians and Israeli peace groups. The aim was peace between Israel and a new State of Palestine. When the Oslo process died with the assassinations of Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat, Marwan and his organization became targets. Successive Israeli leaders— Binyamin Netanyahu, Ehud Barak and Ariel Sharon—decided to put an end to the two-state agenda. In the brutal “Defensive Shield” operation (launched by Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, the new leader of the Kadima Party), the Palestinian Authority was attacked, its services destroyed and many of its activists arrested. Marwan Barghouti was put on trial. It was alleged that, as the leader of Tanzim, he was responsible for several “terrorist” attacks in Israel. His trial was a mockery, resembling a Roman gladiatorial arena more than a judicial process. The hall was packed with howling rightists, presenting themselves as “victims of terrorism.” Members of Gush Shalom protested against the trial inside the court building, but we were not allowed anywhere near the accused. Marwan was sentenced to five life senTHE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

tences. The picture of him raising his shackled hands above his head has become a Palestinian national icon. When I visited his family in Ramallah, it was hanging in the living room. In prison, Marwan Barghouti was immediately recognized as the leader of all Fatah prisoners. He is respected by Hamas activists as well. Together, the imprisoned leaders of Fatah and Hamas published several statements calling for Palestinian unity and reconciliation. These were widely distributed outside and received with admiration and respect. (Members of the extended Barghouti family, by the way, play a major role in Palestinian affairs across the entire spectrum from moderate to extremist. One of them is Mustafa Barghouti, a doctor who heads a moderate Palestinian party with many connections abroad, whom I regularly meet at demonstrations in Bil’in and elsewhere. I once joked that we always cry when we see each other—from tear gas. The family has its roots in a group of villages north of Jerusalem.) Nowadays, Marwan Barghouti is considered the outstanding candidate for leader of Fatah and president of the Palestinian Authority after Mahmoud Abbas. He is one of the very few personalities around whom all Palestinians, Fatah as well as Hamas, can unite. After the capture of the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, when the prisoner exchange was discussed, Hamas put Marwan Barghouti on top of the list of Palestinian prisoners whose release it demanded. This was a very unusual gesture, since Marwan belonged to the rival—and reviled—faction. The Israeli government struck Marwan from the list right away, and remained adamant. When Shalit was finally released, Marwan stayed in prison. Obviously he was considered more dangerous than hundreds of Hamas “terrorists” with “blood on their hands.” Why? Cynics would say: because he wants peace. Because he sticks to the two-state solution. Because he can unify the Palestinian people for that purpose. All good reasons for Netanyahu to keep him behind bars. So what did Marwan tell his people? Clearly, his attitude has hardened. So, MAY 2012

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one must assume, has the attitude of the Palestinian people at large. He calls for a third intifada, a nonviolent mass uprising in the spirit of the Arab Spring. His manifesto is a clear rejection of the policy of Mahmoud Abbas, who maintains limited but all-important cooperation with the Israeli occupation authorities. Marwan calls for a total rupture of all forms of cooperation, whether economic, military or other. A focal point of this cooperation is the day-to-day collaboration of the Americantrained Palestinian security services with the Israeli occupation forces. This arrangement has effectively stopped violent Palestinian attacks in the occupied territories and in Israel proper. It guarantees, in practice, the security of the growing Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Marwan also calls for a total boycott of Israel, Israeli institutions and products in the Palestinian territories and throughout the world. Israeli products should disappear from West Bank shops, Palestinian products should be promoted. At the same time, Marwan advocates an official end to the charade called “peace negotiations.” This term, by the way, is never heard anymore in Israel. First it was replaced with “peace process,” then “political process,” and lately “the political matter.” The simple word “peace” has become taboo among rightists and most “leftists” alike. It’s political poison. Marwan proposes to make the absence of peace negotiations official. No more international talk about “reviving the peace process,” no more rushing around of ridiculous people like Tony Blair, no more hollow announcements by Hillary Clinton and Catherine Ashton, no more empty declarations of the “Quartet.” Since the Israeli government clearly has abandoned the two-state solution—which it never really accepted in the first place—keeping up the pretense just harms the Palestinian struggle. Instead of this hypocrisy, Marwan proposes to renew the battle in the U.N. First, apply again to the Security Council for the acceptance of Palestine as a member state, challenging the U.S. to use its solitary veto openly against practically the whole world. After the expected rejection of the Palestinian request by the Council as a result of the veto, request a decision by the General Assembly, where the vast majority would vote in favor. Though this would not be binding, it would demonstrate that the freedom of Palestine enjoys the overMAY 2012

whelming support of the family of nations, and isolate Israel (and the U.S.) even more. Parallel to this course of action, Marwan insists on Palestinian unity, using his considerable moral force to put pressure on both Fatah and Hamas.

Militant Nonviolence To summarize, Marwan Barghouti has given up all hope of achieving Palestinian freedom through cooperation with Israel, or even Israeli opposition forces. The Israeli peace movement is not mentioned anymore. “Normalization” has become a dirty word. These ideas are not new, but coming from the No. 1 Palestinian prisoner, the foremost candidate for the succession of Mahmoud Abbas, the hero of the Palestinian masses, it means a turn to a more militant course, both in substance and in tone. Marwan remains peace oriented—as he made clear when, in a rare recent appearance in court, he called out to the Israeli journalists that he continues to support the two-state solution. He also remains committed to nonviolent action, having come to the conclusion that the violent attacks of yesteryear harmed the Palestinian cause instead of furthering it. He wants to call a halt to the gradual and unwilling slide of the Palestinian Authority into a Vichy-like collaboration, while the expansion of the Israeli “settlement enterprise” goes on undisturbed. Not by accident did Marwan publish his manifesto on the eve of “Land Day,” the world-wide day of protest against the occupation. “Land Day” is the anniversary of an event that took place in 1976 to protest against the decision of the Israeli government to expropriate huge tracts of Arabowned land in Galilee and other parts of Israel. The Israeli army and police fired on the protesters, killing six of them. (The next day, two of my friends and I laid

wreaths on the graves of the victims, an act that earned me an outbreak of hatred and vilification I have seldom experienced.) Land Day was a turning point for Israel’s Arab citizens, and later became a symbol for Arabs everywhere. This year, the Netanyahu government threatened to shoot anybody who even approaches our borders. It may well be a harbinger for the third intifada heralded by Marwan. For some time now, the world has lost much of its interest in Palestine. Everything looks quiet. Netanyahu has succeeded in deflecting world attention from Palestine to Iran. But in this country, nothing is ever static. While it seems that nothing is happening, settlements are growing incessantly, and so is the deep resentment of the Palestinians who see this happening before their eyes. Marwan Barghouti’s manifesto expresses the near-unanimous feelings of the Palestinians in the West Bank and elsewhere. Like Nelson Mandela in apartheid South Africa, the man in prison may well be more important than the leaders outside. ❑

Bibi Walking a Thin Line… Continued from page 11

in 1976 of Arab land in northern Israel in order to create Jewish majorities in these Arab-dominated areas. This year the international focus was on Jerusalem, where “ethnic cleansing” is reportedly ongoing. Considering all these earth-shaking developments, it is not far-fetched to expect Netanyahu’s days to be numbered. As a prominent Israeli columnist, Bradley Burston, concludes, “There is no denying, however, that settlement construction, Palestinian disunity, and other factors are fast rendering the two-state concept impracticable”—a position that many Palestinians favor; hence their chant for a onestate solution. ❑

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Gilad Atzmon and The Wandering Who? SpecialReport

By Norton Mezvinsky

briefly upon him as a person. I shall also address the most serious allegations made against him by his antagonists. born Gilad Atzmon has emerged as an exGilad Atzmon is a critical and committed tremely controversial critic of Israeli opsecular humanist with firm views, who depression of Palestinians, the Jewish state, lights in being provocative. Born into a Zionism, many forms of anti-Zionism, and Jewish family in the state of Israel in 1963, what he calls Jewish identity politics. It he served in the Israeli army from 1981 to did not surprise me to learn that Alan Der1984. His transformation showitz and some other Zionbegan after a 1984 visit to ist colleagues had severely atAnsar prison in Lebanon. It tacked Atzmon and his ideas. was not until the time of the It did surprise me, however, Oslo accords in 1993 that his when some Jewish and Palestransformation was comtinian friends of mine, who pleted, when he became conare outspoken critics of Israel’s vinced that Israel did not treatment of the Palestinians, want a truly fair, peaceful setcounseled me not to meet Atztlement. Gilad left for England mon, and thereafter scolded in 1994 and has not returned me for agreeing to interview to Israel since 1996. He has him publicly. These friends, vowed not to return unless together with others of like and until that state ceases to opinion, advocated disavowal be an exclusive Jewish state, and boycotting of Atzmon becomes a true democracy, and his ideas. guarantees equal rights to all In contrast, another friend, its non-Jewish as well as Jewan Orthodox Hassidic rabbi, a ish citizens, allows Palestinimajor authority on the Haans in the West Bank and lacha (Judaic religious law) Gaza to become citizens with and an advocate of Israel’s reequal rights, and accepts the maining a Jewish state and not right of return for Palestinians, relinquishing any presently displaced since 1948. held land, urged me to interSince 1996, Gilad Atzmon view Atzmon. My friend and Prof. Norton Mezvinsky (l) and Gilad Atzmon shake hands following has developed his ideas and I obviously disagree about Is- their March 14 interview in Washington, DC. has been increasingly outsporael and the Palestinians, but we have mutual respect for one another. Re- on Middle East Affairs. That interview is ken. His most recent book The Wandering gardless of our disagreements, the rabbi available on the magazine’s Web site, Who?, published in 2011 and available spent many hours reading Atzmon’s book, <www.wrmea.com>. Before the interview, from the AET Book Club, is to date the The Wandering Who? Although he disliked I read The Wandering Who? and many of most complete expression of his views. The study of philosophy has greatly inthe book and disagreed with Atzmon’s Atzmon’s other writings, and listened to major assertions, he sent me bullet point numerous interviews of him, especially fluenced Atzmon, most especially the phicriticisms and suggested I use them in my those conducted during his recently com- losophy of Martin Heidegger, which has pleted speaking tour in the United States. I had a profound effect upon him. Although interview. My friends who scolded me and called additionally read and considered written Heidegger, one of the 20th century’s most for disavowal and boycotting of Atzmon criticisms of him and his ideas, as well as creative and original philosophers, never and his views often cite the principle of statements of support and agreement from claimed that his philosophy was concerned freedom of expression for advocates of his admirers. For parts of two days after with politics, he and his philosophy betheir views. To my dismay, however, they our interview, Gilad Atzmon and I further came embodied in political considerations. This was due to some extent to the debate refuse to apply the same principle to Atz- discussed his ideas. I have attempted to put all of this into the over Heidegger’s involvement with the Norton Mezvinsky is a Distinguished Con- context of my nearly six decades of study Nazi movement. That notwithstanding, it necticut State University Professor of His- and active concern with the wide-ranging was Heidegger’s emphasis upon ontology, tory (emeritus). In addition to his other pub- issues involved here. Hopefully, then, I have the study of being, as best expressed in his lished writings, he co-authored with Israel a basis for my following comments. Before great work, Being and Time, that seems Shahak the book Jewish Fundamentalism in focusing specifically upon a few of Atzmon’s most to have affected Atzmon. In some inIsrael (available from the AET Book Club). major arguments, however, I want to reflect triguing ways, Heidegger’s philosophy had ot content to be merely a successful,

mon; rather, they call for the opposite treatment. My Orthodox rabbinic friend reacted in a far more enlightened and democratic manner, regardless of his rejection of Atzmon’s ideas. On March 14, 2012 I interviewed Atzmon in Washington at an event arranged and sponsored by the Washington Report

PHOTO MICHAEL KEATING

Nworld-class jazz musician, Israeli-

THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

MAY 2012

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a similar effect upon four different, gifted individuals who came from assimilated Jewish backgrounds and became intellectual giants: Hannah Arendt, Herbert Marcuse, Hans Jonas and Karl Lowith. Atzmon may not yet be the sophisticated philosopher he strives to be, but he nevertheless expresses some thoughtful and creative ideas that should be seriously considered, regardless of agreement or disagreement. In addition to his being influenced by Heidegger, Atzmon credits Otto Weininger (1880-1903) for helping him grasp who he is, what he is trying to achieve and why his detractors invest so much effort in trying to thwart him. This was so, even though Atzmon acknowledges and explains that Weininger was an outrageous misogynist and anti-Semite, who converted from Judaism to Christianity. Weininger wrote only one book, Sex and Character, in which he regarded homosexuality and Jewishness as symptoms of society. Unable to cope with his own homosexuality and a myriad of other psychological problems, Weininger committed suicide at age 23. The Weininger influence upon Atzmon is not unique. Regarded as a genius, Weininger and some of his ideas impressed and influenced a variety of intellectually creative people, including the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein and the prolific writer August Strindberg. Atzmon not only rejects the Jewish state and condemns Israeli oppression of the Palestinians; he also attacks what he calls Jewish identity politics. In doing so, he generalizes, adds some specific criticisms, suggests far-reaching analogies and inserts some psychological analysis. He focuses primarily on individuals and groups in one of his three designated categories of Jews. The Jews in that category, he maintains, put their Jewishness over and above all their other traits. These Jews include both Zionists and self-declared, secular anti-Zionists. From Atzmon’s perspective these Jews are tribal. Within this context Atzmon criticizes many aspects of Jewish cultural history and Jewish exclusive political activism. Atzmon’s critique of Jewish identity politics may itself have been sufficient to disturb some Jews, Palestinians and others in or associated with the Palestine solidarity movement. Atzmon has seemingly provoked increased hostility by disagreeing with and rejecting the basic, leftist antiZionist argument: namely, that Zionism is a settler-colonial project and movement, similar to movements in many other parts of the world that attempt to displace indigenous people and build new European sociMAY 2012

eties on their lands. Atzmon additionally argues to the dismay of many that Israel is not an apartheid state but is instead a state with a unique, racially driven, expansionist philosophy that seeks to cleanse itself of Palestinians.

False Allegations There can be no reasonable doubt that Atzmon’s views are provocative. They can be legitimately questioned and reasonably opposed. It is, however, unfortunate that some antagonists have called Atzmon’s views antiSemitic and have alleged that he is an antiSemite. That allegation is untrue! As already stated, such an allegation, coming from the likes of Alan Dershowitz and/or his extreme Zionist colleagues, is not surprising. More unfortunate is that a significant number of people who are actively involved in the struggle against the Zionist character and oppressive actions of the state of Israel have made this same false allegation. To reiterate, questioning and/or disagreeing fully or in part with Atzmon’s views is legitimate. Labeling his views anti-Semitic, however, is incorrect. Criticizing certain members and certain cultural aspects of the group is allowable and often warranted. A Jewish tradition of internal criticism has existed for at least two centuries, and probably for longer. I take the liberty to interject a personal reference here. In our book, Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, Israel Shahak and I are severely critical of individual Orthodox Jews, rabbis and groups, as well as of certain aspects of traditional Judaism. At the congregation I attend regularly in New York City, moreover, I often refer to what I consider to be negative theological positions in some of the religious emphasis of my congregation’s Lubavitch Hassidic tradition. (This is in contrast to the positive theological positions in Lubavitch theology.) While the rabbi, numerous members of the congregation, as well as others firmly disagree with me in regard to what I criticize, they nevertheless do not consider me or my views to be anti-Semitic. We discuss our disagreements in a friendly manner and respect one another. We do not disavow or boycott each other. Again, this is in keeping with certain Jewish traditions. In The Wandering Who? Atzmon, as previously mentioned, divides Jews into three categories: “1) Those who follow Judaism. 2) Those who regard themselves as human beings that happen to be of Jewish origin. 3) Those who put their Jewishness over and above all their other traits.” Atzmon’s negative criticism is directed against those THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

in the third category. There is no general condemnation of Jews here. This is not anti-Semitism. Some of Atzmon’s detractors allege that his views must be anti-Semitic, because hardcore anti-Semites utilize his criticism of Jews and Jewish culture in their depictions of Jews generally. Hardcore antiSemites often use anti-Zionist criticisms of the state of Israel to forge unwarranted anti-Semitic depictions of Jews. For proPalestinian activists to use this same technique against Atzmon is shameful. Another serious allegation is that Gilad Atzmon is a Holocaust denier. That is nonsense, and as such deserves little discussion. Atzmon not only acknowledges the Holocaust; he emphasizes its effect upon him personally and upon Jews in general. He discusses varied reactions to it. He emphasizes the development—unfortunate from his perspective—of a Holocaust religion. He opposes, as do many others, the use of the Holocaust in attempts to garner political and economic support for the state of Israel. This is not Holocaust denial. Atzmon addresses in The Wandering Who?, as previously mentioned, important issues that deserve careful consideration by everyone—Jews, Palestinians and others—who are concerned with the interrelated topics of Zionism, the Jewish state, Palestinian oppression and Jews. Jewish identity politics, as coined by Atzmon, may or may not be the best term to use as the contextual framework for discussion of these issues. But Atzmon is not the first person to draw attention to them. Many of his interpretations and explanations can be challenged—thus the need for and value of further discussion. With this in mind, and realizing that many more questions can be raised about what Atzmon has presented, I offer the following five comments: 1) The three main categories of Jews mentioned in The Wandering Who?, and cited above, are somewhat ambiguous and overly limiting. The first category, allegedly comprising Jews who follow Judaism, is unclear. Atzmon neither mentions nor discusses the various branches and/or different theological interpretations of Judaism. Some members in some of the groups, who presumably fall into this category, do not believe that people in other groups, also presumably in this category, are true believers in Judaism. A number of American Jews maintain memberships in various synagogues within different branches of Judaism and in reality are not religious believers. Other Jews, who attend synagogue, are not sure they believe in Judaism. 21

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Gilad Atzmon, A Voice That Can’t Be Silenced When Harvie Branscomb, organizer of the recent North American book tour by jazz saxophonist/anti-Zionist writer Gilad Atzmon, called to ask for help setting up Washington, DC events we were unenthusiastic. “We have a tiny staff; we’re broke,” this reporter told him—but more importantly, “This magazine tries to report on events held by other organizations in order to help readers see what others are doing and provide solidarity. We’re not equipped to organize grassroots events ourselves.” But when we heard no one else was lining up to host Atzmon, we realized we had to help, because audiences in Washington, DC need to hear views from everyone, not just the usual policy pundits. The first challenge we faced was finding a venue. A few of the many universities or locations we approached initially agreed but then, due to pressure from students, donors or others, reneged. One school quadrupled the room rate when they learned more about the proposed event. It was the churches that came through. They withstood the pressure—and there was pressure—because as Rev. Graylan Hagler of Plymouth Congregational Church explained when he welcomed visitors on March 11, “We have an open pulpit policy.” This church is open to ideas, he said. Its members “agree, disagree and wrestle with life’s biggest questions in a spirit of love.” The second category, allegedly consisting of Jews who regard themselves as human beings who happen to be of Jewish origin, is even more confusing. Do not Jews in Atzmon’s other two categories consider themselves human beings of Jewish origin? Atzmon’s third category, consisting of those who put their Jewishness over and above all other traits, also is unclear. Jews differ in their understanding and definition of Jewishness. What about Jews who sincerely believe that they put what they understand to be their Jewish traits on the same level as their other human traits? Atzmon directs his criticism at Jews in this category. His generalizations about them may not be valid. We are most likely unable to determine who most of these Jews are. Atzmon may think he knows who all these Jews are, but the rest of us may not. The bottom line here is that it is difficult, indeed impossible, to fit an indeterminate number of Jews into Atzmon’s designated categories of Jewish identity. 2) As a follow-up to the above comment, it appears that at times Atzmon, with insufficient empirical evidence, over-generalizes about Jews from many perspectives and about how the Zionist apparatus works in the United States. What Paul Wolfowitz, Milton Friedman and a few others did or observed, for example, does not necessar22

Atzmon played his sax with Plymouth’s music director Maceo Kemp and a marvelous band he’d assembled, and the audience was treated to a first-class performance. Atzmon then related the story of his journey from Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldier, whose grandfather was a “right-wing terrorist,” to his life-changing discovery of American jazz, to his present position as an outspoken anti-Zionist philosopher/writer. (Intrigued? Read The Wandering Who?: A Study of Jewish Identity Politics, available from the AET Book Club.) Atzmon described his shock in learning that it was nonJews—African Americans, in fact—who had created the most beautiful music he’d ever heard. Growing up in a country which treats Jews from African nations badly (they can die for Israel in the army but they can’t donate blood), Atzmon said he couldn’t wait to go to New York or London to play jazz. But first he had to finish his stint in the IDF. When he visited Ansar prison camp in southern Lebanon in 1984, he recalled seeing Palestinian prisoners held without charges, in 90 degree heat surrounded by barbed wire. He also noticed small concrete cubes, which he assumed were dog kennels, but was informed that they were used to put Palestinians in solitary confinement. “They [Palestinian prisoners] were the Jews and I was the Nazi,” Atzmon said, and it was then he knew he could not stay in Israel, where “Jews, who had endured so much suffering, were inflict-

ily prove the totality of what Atzmon infers. Additionally, Atzmon, in a creative but not necessarily compelling way, attempts to use analogy to illustrate a Jewish continuum for a more than two-millennia time period that has allegedly helped Zionists do their work in the 20th and 21st centuries. His most striking attempted use of analogy is related to the suggestion about what Queen Esther did in the story of the Jewish festival of Purim. Her lobbying of King Ahasuerus in order to save the Jews and kill their enemies allegedly taught Zionist lobbyists in Washington how to influence the Franklin Roosevelt administration in the 1940s and how to influence later administrations as well. It may be an understatement to say that such an analogy is a stretch. 3) In The Wandering Who?, Atzmon describes Zionism as largely a Jewish diaspora discourse that is of little concern to Israeli Jews. Yet, he also criticizes and condemns the Zionism of Israel’s character and its manifestations, which not only affect but also oppress the indigenous Palestinian population. Atzmon also writes that Israel should be de-Zionized. There appears to be a contradiction here. 4) In his book Atzmon maintains that he is not criticizing Judaism, the religion, but is rather confronting the Judaic code. He thereafter refers to the “Judaic God, as porTHE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

trayed by Moses” to be an evil deity who leads his people to plunder, rob and commit theft. Atzmon also cites other biblical passages calling for theft, murder and plunder. He calls this Judaic law and makes an analogy to how the current state of Israel is oppressing Palestinians. Despite his statement to the contrary, however, Atzmon does indeed seem to be criticizing Judaism. By emphasizing Judaic law, Atzmon is referring to a cornerstone of traditional Judaism. In that regard, however, he is off-base, because he neglects to use rabbinical interpretation of the biblical text in this instance. Rabbinic interpretation, which is essential in determining what traditional Judaism is, actually tempers what Atzmon here cites from the biblical text. If Atzmon is actually commenting upon Judaism in his book, he needs to refer to the prophets, who envisioned peace, harmony and universal humanitarianism. In addition, he needs to discuss Reform Judaism, which presents an interpretation, and perhaps a theology, distinct from and different than traditional Judaism. 5) Atzmon praises and relies heavily upon Shlomo Sand’s recent book, The Invention of The Jewish People (available from the AET Book Club). There Sand, a history professor at the Tel-Aviv University, negates the idea that Jews ever existed as MAY 2012

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STAFF PHOTO D. HANLEY

ing such pain on others.â&#x20AC;? Atzmon was the featured â&#x20AC;&#x153;Monthly Masterâ&#x20AC;? at DC Jazz Jam later that evening in Dahlak Restaurant and watching him connect with his audience and other musicians was a treat. The night before Prof. Norton Mezvinskyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s March 14 interview with Atzmon at Mount Vernon Place United Methodist Church (watch a video of the excellent event, including former White House reporter Helen Thomas asking Atzmon the first question from the audience, at Saxophonist Gilad Atzmon plays with Maceo Kemp (at piano) and his band at the Ply<www.wrmea.com>) a controversy mouth Congregational Church in Washington, DC on March 11. shook up our plans for a thought-proviews and speaking with Occupy DC protesters and others at voking event. Ali Abunimah and 21 other respected Palestinian Peace House. writers and activists issued a statement calling for â&#x20AC;&#x153;The DisWhile he was in the U.S., Atzmon shook up friends and foes avowal of the Racism and Antisemitism of Gilad Atzmon.â&#x20AC;? Puzalike, and started a conversation which must continue. We zled, and probably deeply hurt, Atzmon penned a thoughtful relearned that in addition to Zionists who are quick to label anysponse. (The Washington Report sent both statements to thouone who disagrees with them anti-Semitic or racist, there are sands of readers on our â&#x20AC;&#x153;Action Alertâ&#x20AC;? list.) Hours after Profesalso well-meaning, self-appointed, pro-peace gatekeepers who sor Mezvinskyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s interview concluded, there was a sea change in donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want to allow others to speak. But to achieve true lastthe blogosphereâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;Atzmon received a barrage of encourageing peace, and uphold the values of a free society, we need to ment from his supporters and won scores of new visitors to his hear every voice. This, after all, has been the Washington ReWeb site, <www.gilad.co.uk>. portâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s goal for the past 30 years. â&#x20AC;&#x201D;Delinda C. Hanley Atzmon spent his final day in Washington, DC, holding intera nation or race or had a common origin. The idea of a people came late, he argues, probably in the 19th century, and was a made-up notion. Sand denies the Jewish exile and accepts the argument about the Khazars put by Arthur Koestler is his book The Thirteenth Tribe. Although Sand mostly repeats some points made by others in the late 19th and 20th centuries, he does present some additional insights and contributes a well put-together case. Although understandably impressed by what Sand wrote, Atzmon probably should have included in The Wandering Who? some references to the learned, scholarly refutations of Sandâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s book by numerous scholars and scientists in many fields of study. These refutations contain impressive historical and scientific evidence. Referring to much of that evidence, Israel Bartal, dean of the humanities faculty at the Hebrew University and the author of the book, Cossak and Bedouin: Sand and People in Jewish Nationalism, wrote a devastating response to Sandâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s book in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz in July of 2008. Numerous additional comments could be made about Gilad Atzmonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ideas and the total substance of The Wandering Who?. Perhaps it is enough and best to suggest again that Atzmon is creative and provocative. His book deserves a careful reading. He and his ideas should be engaged. â?&#x2018; MAY 2012

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williams_24-25_United Nations Report 4/5/12 2:23 PM Page 24

Israel Responds to Investigations of Its Illegal Behavior With Chutzpah and Hasbara

United Nations Report

ABBAS MOMANI/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

By Ian Williams

Israeli soldiers march during clashes with Palestinian and international activists in the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh, near Ramallah, on March 16, 2012, following a protest against the confiscation of Palestinian land to build the nearby Jewish settlement of Hallamish. n any rational world, Hillary Clinton’s

Iharsh words about Russia and China over

their protection of Bashar al-Assad, and previously of Muammar Qaddafi, would have come back to haunt her when, once again, the U.S. was the sole vote against the U.N. Human Rights Council (UNHRC) setting up an inquiry into Israeli settlements in the occupied territories. The resolution passed 36 to 1, with 10 cowardly abstentions. Israel is calling in the ambassadors of the European countries that voted for the resolution to “dress them down.” Belgium, Austria, Norway and Sweden will doubtless be duly chastened by the experience of being hectored for their misdeeds by a recidivist criminal state. It is the 10 member states who abstained whom the world community should be chastising, even if they justifiably take it for granted that Washington is beyond redemption. Despite the U.S. vote, it is worth recalling that there is not a single nation outside Israel that considers its settlement activities in the West Bank legal. Even the Ian Williams is a free-lance journalist based at the United Nations who blogs at <www. deadlinepundit.blogspot.com>. 24

U.S. has condemned them. Israel itself, at Oslo and to the Quartet, has promised that it would stop settlement expansion. But the building proceeds as fast as ever, with the Netanyahu government ignoring its own Supreme Court’s orders to remove some of the settlements that violated the generally very elastic laws of Israel itself. Palestinian houses built without a permit get bulldozed. Israeli authorities even deliver to the settlements deemed illegal by their government water siphoned from the locals, and electricity, telephones, roads and security siphoned from Israeli (and, one presumes, American) taxpayers. An even better example of chutzpah is the threat to cut off relations with the Palestinian Authority for its temerity in raising the issue at the Human Rights Council at all. The sensitivity to the resolution is interesting. In part, of course, it reflects a guilty conscience, since the Israelis are well aware of what they are doing. Pre-emptively (its favorite tactic), the Israeli government has withdrawn cooperation from the inquiry into settlement activity called for by the council. When the report does come out, the Israeli government will proceed to emulate the mythical patriTHE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

cide who pleaded for mercy on the grounds of orphanhood, by claiming the report is, firstly, biased, because it never heard the Israeli point of view, and, secondly, factually wrong, because the inspectors could not go to see the cancerous settlement growth in person. The next stage will, of course, be pre-vilification of the team charged with the investigation, and then, if Goldstone is any judge, an ad-hominem or ad-feminam personal campaign against them. If poor Richard Goldstone is any example, the Israelis will apply personal pressure on team members to “retract” some minor detail and then cry complete vindication. There are some grounds for voting against the UNHRC inquiry, however, and they were laid out in a Haaretz editorial: “No U.N. investigative committee is needed to understand that the West Bank belongs to another people and its lands are not available to a Jewish and democratic state.” It would have been good if the U.S. had said that instead of warbling along about the unfairness of a resolution. Indeed, Haaretz proved itself bolder than the White House when its distinguished reporter Akiva Eldar reported last week that Israel’s Civil Administration had identified an additional 10 percent of the West Bank as “State Land” and earmarked it for settlements. Much of the coveted land is to the east of the illegal wall, giving some serious hints about the degree of sincerity of successive Israeli governments concerning peace talks. It is worth recalling that even Washington does not justify the settlements, since it supported such Security Council resolutions as 242 that invoked the U.N. Charter and general international law on the “Inadmissibility of the Acquisition of Territory by Force.” But it predictably echoes the AIPAC line of “the unfairness” and “bias” of having so many resolutions against Israel. This puts the U.S. in the position of the mugger who complains that since so many of his fellow robbers get away, it is unfair that he should actually be caught. The proper response, of course, is to chase more actively after other perpetrators, not to let this one go. One must give Israeli hasbara (propaganda) flacks some dubious credit. They don’t deny what they are doing, but like all MAY 2012

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card sharpers, they just keep talking and counter-accusing everybody else. “Never mind what I do, listen to what I say!” Sadly, this camouflage of verbiage seems to work, not least with a media attuned to the soundbite, of which Israeli ministers provide so many, rather than examining what is actually happening. And this is the case not only with settlements.

The Campaign Against Iran The campaign against Iran is a prime example of chutzpah, where the compounded hypocrisy is so intense that it makes the otherwise utterly unlovable ayatollahs seem wronged. The evidence suggests that they stole the last election—even though they might have won! We hear so much talk of “bias” and “unfairness” that it is worth remembering just to whom this applies. While Israel is being arraigned for generally admitted breaches of international law, Iran is in the dock for behavior that many other countries have entirely legally committed. The Iranian issue is before the U.N. Security Council only because the U.S. twisted enough arms at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to get Iran referred for potential breaches of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Israel, a nuclear state which has not signed the treaty, pushed for the referral. A key swing vote at the IAEA came from India, another nuclear non-signatory, in return for which the U.S. promised a free pass from the nuclear sanctions that, under the treaty, Washington should have imposed. The Iranians were perhaps a tad too conscientious. They could have followed North Korea and “unsigned” the NPT, quickly. But they seem to support it. The Security Council—“legally,” but unjustly—has insisted on conditions for Iran beyond the requirements of the NPT, according to which Iran is perfectly entitled to refine nuclear fuel for civilian purposes. Many of us, even before Fukushima, considered nuclear power generation to be uneconomical and un-environmental. Most Western governments have been saying differently, however, so Tehran could be forgiven for following the uranium road since most Western politicians have pointed out how green and cheap it is. It is the original flaw of President Dwight Eisenhower’s Atoms for Peace program that, while it is not possible to drop megatons of coal on people’s heads, the peaceful use of nuclear power involves refining uranium in a process which, without too much further technology, can be turned into bombs. The MAY 2012

Security Council, and the U.S. above all with a separate program, are now sanctioning Iran for doing precisely what many other countries have done. But no one even claims that Iran possesses nuclear weapons. As a rather significant aside, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has issued a fatwa saying nuclear weapons are un-Islamic, and people who speak Farsi and who have parsed President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad’s much quoted speech assure us that, even though we can have little doubt that, like so many others, he wishes it weren’t there, he never threatened to wipe Israel of the face of the map. Iran is not the sort of society in which I or any of my friends would be comfortable—but it has not attacked any of its neighbors. In contrast, the U.S. and the West armed Saddam Hussain for a war of aggression against Iran involving illegal chemical weapons and long-range missiles, providing diplomatic cover and targeting information. The U.S. Navy shot down an Iranian civilian airliner full of passengers. The U.S. has fleets and bases surrounding Iran on all sides, and has a fairly consistent track record of doing what Israel wants, and that plucky little state, with its 200-plus nuclear weapons, is jumping up and down shouting how much it wants to bomb Iran. Frankly, if Iran is not developing nuclear weapons, we should be amazed at its forbearance! Certainly most of the Iranian opposition actually supports Iran becoming a nuclear power as they look at their neighbors Israel, India and Pakistan. Rational Israelis know that an attack on Iran could have very, very serious consequences, and even the most bellicose seem to work on the principle that the U.S will come in to defend Israel from the consequences of its own reckless aggression. Indeed, one wonders just how much Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is playing to the electoral gallery at home by pumping deep into the reservoirs of paranoia. On the other hand, while shrewd, he also clearly has an unsettled psyche. (But I repeat myself: he is a Likudnik prime minister, ideological heir to generations of terrorists!) So far, President Barack Obama seems to have made it plain that big brother might not come to help. Instead of saying so loudly and swatting the Likud mosquito, however, he has pandered to AIPAC by stepping up sanctions and getting other countries to do so. And there the question of Netanyahu’s shrewdness does arise. With one notable exception, Likud and the Republican candidates are all calling for war and sanctions. As Iranian oil goes off marTHE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

ket, the prices rise. American voters then blame the president when they have to take out another home equity loan to fill their gas tanks. We might not be impressed with Obama’s delivery on the Middle East, but Netanyahu and his supporters have made little secret of their deep fears that in a second term he would make them eat the dirt of the demolitions and settlements for all the insults they have heaped upon him during his first term. Almost as worrying as the potential for a 1914-style Sarajevo moment in the Gulf is the possibility of the election of any of the deluded Christian Zionists currently parading their xenophobic ignorance across the hustings. It is a déjà vu moment for those who lived through the miasma of lies and belligerence, the axiomatic acceptance of utter untruths, that led us into the Iraq disaster. Someone, somewhere, wants the U.S. mired in yet another Middle East war, even though voters are weary with the current ones. The Iran-Iraq war ended with a quasitheological compromise. The U.N. secretarygeneral set up an inquiry into who had started the war. The much-unheralded report blamed Iraq—which by then was at war with the U.S. and Kuwait, so no one paid much attention. Maybe it is time for Ban Ki-moon, safe in his second term, to work out some similar compromise. But do Israel and the U.S. want a deal, or do they prefer the demonization? ❑

IndextoAdvertisers Alalusi Foundation . . . . . . . . . . 39 American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) . . . . . . . . . . . Inside Back Cover American Friends of UNRWA . 23 Arab American Almanac . . . . . 35 Dish Network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 FolkArtMavens. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Kinder USA. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Muslim Link . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 Near East Foundation . . . . . . . . 37 Paddy McHugh . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 Radio Baladi. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Sabeel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 United Palestinian Appeal (UPA) . . . . . . Inside Front Cover Zakat. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 25

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International Conference on Jerusalem Calls for Urgent Action SpecialReport

STAFF PHOTO D. HANLEY

By Delinda C. Hanley

At the opening day of the conference on Jeruslem (l-r) Secretary-General of the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Robert Serry; Secretary-General of the League of Arab States Nabil Abdullah Al Arabi; Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas; and Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani. he Arab League and the Qatari Min-

Tistry of Foreign Affairs co-hosted an

international conference on Jerusalem Feb. 26 and 27 at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Doha, Qatar—but, surprise, there was no mention of this significant event in the U.S. mainstream media. More than 350 participants, including Arab heads of state, foreign ministers, academics, politicians, diplomats and religious scholars from more than 60 countries, joined lively discussions on international law as it pertains to Jerusalem, Israeli violations of those laws, and the role of civil society in Jerusalem. Some speakers focused on the legal status of Jerusalem before and after Israel’s 1967 occupation. Others emphasized the spiritual importance of Jerusalem to the world’s three monotheistic faiths. Presenters as well as audience members expressed disappointment that Jerusalem, rather than becoming the capital of the independent state of Palestine, is now isolated from the rest of Palestinian culture. In fact, as Delinda C. Hanley is news editor of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. 26

detailed in wrenching testimonies by Jerusalemites in attendance, Israel is destroying Arab properties, confiscating land, forcibly evicting Arabs, and obliterating Arab and Islamic identity in the city holy to three faiths. Attendees also expressed their deep concern regarding the excavations under and around the al-Aqsa Mosque, in contravention of the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Properties. Participants at the Doha conference agreed to ask the U.N. Security Council to pass a resolution to establish an international commission of inquiry to examine and confront Israel’s actions to “Judaize” the holy city. The “Doha Declaration” also calls for support of religious tolerance, coexistance, and the blending of cultures in Jerusalem. While many Arab publications, including The Peninsula, Gulf Times and Qatar Tribune, carried reports of the conference, there was no mention in the U.S. press, except for an article by Lara Friedman in the Jewish Daily Forward. Friedman (who emphasized that she attended as an individual, not as director of policy and governTHE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

ment relations for Peace Now) wrote that there should have been more Jewish voices (notwithstanding the presence of five members of Neturei Karta International) at the conference. In a subsequent Huffington Post dispatch, she argued that there should have been more mention of the “important contributions of Israeli NGOs that work to address many of the issues that had been raised in the committee, including concerns about settlements, tunneling, and access to education.” She added that “gracious” Arab and non-Arab attendees commended her for speaking up and engaged her by asking thoughtful questions. An unexpected highlight of the conference for this reporter was the opportunity to listen to voices seldom heard in the United States. It was good to share ideas with peace activists from the Middle East, U.K., Ireland, Australia, Belgium, Finland, Denmark, Norway, The Netherlands and other countries; swap publications and tips with Hilary Wise and Betty Hunter with the Palestine Solidarity Campaign in U.K., which publishes Palestine News. Just one great idea they passed on is posted on their Web site <www.palestinecampaign.org>. It’s a sample letter activists can modify and give to local grocery stores asking them to stop stocking dates (or other items) from illegal Israeli settlements. The conference provided an invaluable chance to discuss the problems we are all facing in our work to bring peace and justice to Jerusalem—and potential solutions. There is no limit to what can be done once people connect and engage in substantial discussions. And that is what Israelis and their Western supporters fear most—the growing international support and solidarity Palestinians are gaining around the world. The million-dollar question now is what happens after the conference and the “Doha Declaration”? For more information on the conference, papers presented, and the Doha Declaration issued at the end of the conference visit <http://www.qatar conferences.org/jerusalem/news.php>. ❑ MAY 2012

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AIPAC’s Annual Meeting Beats the Drums Of War With Iran CongressWatch

By Shirl McArthur IPAC’s March 4-6 annual meeting in Washington, DC again proA vided congressional leaders and other Israel acolytes the opportunity to genuflect to the altar of Israel. As opposed to previous years, when the conference focus was on the Israel-Palestine issue, this year’s emphasis was on Iran. In effect, the major theme seemed to be a call for war with Iran. AIPAC’s chosen congressional vehicles for this call were the identical S.Res. 380, introduced Feb. 16 by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and H.Res. 568, introduced March 1 by Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (RFL). Both measures barely mention the possibility of a peaceful resolution to the issue of Iran’s nuclear program. Instead, they would give the “sense of Congress” that “containing” a nuclear Iran is not an option, and that it is in the vital national interest of the U.S. to prevent the Iranian government from acquiring a nuclear weapons capability. They would “urge the president to reaffirm the unacceptability of an Iran with nuclear-weapons capability and oppose any policy that would rely on containment as an option in response to the Iranian nuclear threat.” Many observers have pointed out that this could be a call for war, because Iran already has a “nuclear-weapons capability.” As Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson said in a March 9 column, “the truth is that every nation with sufficient wealth and scientific infrastructure has the capacity to build a bomb if it really wants to.” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) was slightly more nuanced. He said he would support a resolution saying that “if Iran at any time begins to enrich uranium at weapons-grade levels, or decides to go ahead with a nuclear weapons program, then the U.S. will use military force to end that program.” Under relentless AIPAC pressure, members of Congress flocked to sign on to the measures. Within a week, S.Res. 380 had 59 co-sponsors, and H.Res. 568 had 95. Shirl McArthur, a retired U.S. foreign service officer, is a consultant based in the Washington, DC area. MAY 2012

Several other anti-Iran measures were introduced in Congress. The most significant was S. 2101, the “Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Human Rights” bill introduced Feb. 13 by Sen. Tim Johnson (D-SD), with no co-sponsors. This is a slightly pared down version of S. 1048, introduced last May by Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ), the Senate companion to H.R. 1905, also introduced last May and passed by the House in December. (Neither S. 1048, which has 82 co-sponsors, nor H.R. 1905 has been brought to the floor of the Senate.) Among S. 2101’s many provisions is one that would direct the president to freeze the assets of a person who has transferred to Iran goods or services likely to be used to commit human rights abuses, and impose specified sanctions against persons and firms that have committed human rights abuses. The bill would also expand sanctions to cover companies involved in joint ventures that aid Iran’s energy sector, target any Iranian joint ventures involving uranium mining, authorize the administration to target corporate executives of sanctioned firms, and require U.S. companies to report to the Securities and Exchange Commission business they have with any Iranian firms that could fall under sanctions. THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

Another provision, introduced as an amendment by Menendez, would go after Iran’s participation in the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications (SWIFT), the international clearing house for financial transactions used by all major financial institutions, including most Iranian banks and institutions. Menendez’s amendment would impose sanctions on banks having officers on SWIFT’s board if SWIFT fails to stop processing transactions for Iranian banks. The previously described H.R. 3880, introduced in February by RosLehtinen, which also would sanction SWIFT member banks, has only four cosponsors, including Ros-Lehtinen. (SWIFT, based in Belgium, is subject to European Union laws, and on March 15 said that, effective March 17, it would discontinue its communications services to Iranian financial institutions to comply with EU sanctions on Iranian banks.) On March 20, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced that the U.S. would exempt Japan and 10 EU members countries from the sanctions enacted as part of the Defense Authorization Act passed in December 2011 that impose penalties for doing business with the Central Bank of Iran. As described in this magazine’s previous issue, the law al27

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lows the president to exempt countries from the sanctions if the country “has significantly reduced the volume of its crude oil purchases from Iran,” and Clinton said that these 11 countries had, indeed, significantly done so. S. Res. 386 “calling for free and fair elections in Iran” was introduced by Sen. John Hoeven (R-ND) on March 1 and passed by the full Senate on March 5, with 67 cosponsors. H.R. 4179 was introduced March 8 by Reps. Brad Sherman (D-CA) and RosLehtinen. It would “strengthen the multilateral sanctions regime with respect to Iran, expand sanctions relating to the energy sector of Iran, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction by Iran, and human rights abuses in Iran.” H.R. 4070, introduced Feb. 16 by Rep. Bob Turner (R-NY) with 14 cosponsors, would “clarify” certain provisions relating to blocked Iranian assets in the U.S. Of the previously described bills, H.R. 3783, introduced in January by Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-SC), was ordered reported to the full House by Ros-Lehtinen’s House Foreign Affairs Committee on March 7, with 75 cosponsors. It would proclaim that ”it shall be U.S. policy to use all elements of national power to counter Iran’s growing presence and hostile activity in the Western Hemisphere.” This bill apparently is meant to replace the similar H.Res. 429, introduced by Duncan last October.

Also, H.R. 3843, introduced in January by Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA), to amend the Iran sanctions act of 2010 “to provide for the imposition of sanctions with respect to the National Iranian Oil Company and the National Iranian Tanker Company,” still has no co-sponsors. Similarly, S. 2058, introduced in February by Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), “to close loopholes, increase transparency, and improve the effectiveness of sanctions on Iranian trade in petroleum products,” has gained just one co-sponsor, and now has 18, including Murkowski.

A Few Representatives Call for a More Sane Approach to Iran Some members of Congress did not join in the sabre rattling. On March 8 Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA), with nine co-sponsors, introduced H.R. 4173, which would “direct the president of the U.S. to appoint a highlevel U.S. representative or special envoy for Iran for the purpose of ensuring that the U.S. pursues all diplomatic avenues to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, [and] to avoid a war with Iran.” Previously, Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) on Feb. 16 spoke passionately on the House floor decrying “the rhetoric around Washington and the nation,” saying “it is literally impossible not to hear the drumbeat of war with Iran,” and concluding that

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THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

“America cannot afford another war. We’ve just gotten out of Iraq. We’re getting out of Afghanistan. And diplomacy, diplomacy, diplomacy is what is called for to avoid a new war with Iran.” Also, Ellison and Rep. Walter Jones (R-NC) are circulating for signatures a letter to President Barack Obama urging him to use “all available tools of diplomacy to resolve the crisis over Iran’s nuclear program and prevent another costly war in the Middle East.”

Senator McCain Calls for U.S.-Led Airstrikes on Syrian Forces In a long speech on the Senate floor March 5, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) called for the U.S. to “lead an international effort to protect key population centers in Syria, especially in the north, through airstrikes on [President Bashar al-] Assad’s forces.” McCain’s speech went further than any previous calls from Capitol Hill for action against Assad, and few other congressional voices were raised in support of his call. Even RosLehtinen, not known for moderation regarding Middle East countries not named Israel, said that airstrikes against Syria are tempting but ultimately not a good idea. Senate sentiment is divided between those calling for a more active response to the bloodshed in Syria, and those urging caution, and the several new bills regarding Syria reflect those differences. S.Res. 370 was introduced by Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA) on Feb. 9, with nine co-sponsors. It would, among other things, urge Obama to “(1) support a transition to democracy in Syria; (2) develop a plan to identify weapons stockpiles and prevent their proliferation in Syria; and (3) engage with Turkey, [Arab] League members, and the European Union to protect the Syrian people.” This was too strong for some members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, especially Sen. Dick Lugar (R-IN) and Chairman John Kerry (D-MA). Then Kerry, on Feb. 16, introduced the alternative S.Res. 379, which would condemn the government of Syria for use of force against civilians and encourage the U.N. Security Council “to pursue a resolution supporting a political solution to the Syrian crisis.” The full Senate passed S.Res. 379 on Feb. 17. Reflecting a more aggressive stance, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) on March 2 introduced the far-reaching S. 2152, “to promote U.S. policy objectives in Syria, including the departure from power of President Bashar al-Assad and his family, the effective transition to a democratic, free, and secure country, and the promotion of a prosperous future in Syria.” This includes MAY 2012

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provisions similar to those in the comprehensive Iran sanctions bills described above, including sanctions on Syriaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s petroleum sector and sanctions on foreign financial institutions that do business with the Central Bank of Syria. Similarly, the above-described S. 2101, although it deals primarily with Iran, also includes a provision imposing sanctions on Syrian officials and others who commit or facilitate human rights abuses against the Syrian people. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), with two co-sponsors, on Jan. 24 introduced S. 2034 â&#x20AC;&#x153;to impose sanctions with respect to human rights abuses committed against the people of Syria.â&#x20AC;? And on March 8 Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), with nine co-sponsors, introduced S.Res. 391 â&#x20AC;&#x153;condemning violence by the government of Syria against journalists.â&#x20AC;? In the House, Ellison on Feb. 15 introduced H.Res. 549, which is identical to S.Res. 370, described above. And Ros-Lehtinenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s HFAC on March 7 reported out to the full House her H.R. 2106, which she introduced back in June. It would impose a wide range of export, financial, procurement, banking and property sanctions aimed at Syriaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s energy sector, and would impose sanctions on certain Syrian officials guilty of human rights abuses against Syrian citizens. It would also strengthen the sanctions contained in the â&#x20AC;&#x153;Syria Accountability Actâ&#x20AC;? and remove presidential waiver authority for those sanctions. H.R. 2106, with 57 cosponsors, has not been taken up by the full House, and, given the differences in the Senate described above, it is unlikely that it would be approved by the Senate.

Egyptâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Military Aid Threatened Over Its Assault on NGOs After Egypt raided several Egyptian and foreign non-governmental organizations (NGOs), including three U.S.-based democracy-promoting groups, charging that they were operating illegally, many members of Congress reacted angrily and called for suspension of Egyptâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s aid. Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (DMI), who has received more pro-Israel PAC money than any other member of Congress, and ranking Republican McCain said that withholding aid was â&#x20AC;&#x153;now on the table.â&#x20AC;? As reported in the March/April 2012 Washington Report, Egyptâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s military and economic aid are conditioned, with presidential waiver authority, on its â&#x20AC;&#x153;supporting the transition to civilian government including holding free and fair elections; implementing policies to protect freedom of expression, association, and religion, and the due process of law.â&#x20AC;? MAY 2012

In early February the State Department signaled that it would not move any aid money to Cairo as long as the standoff over treatment of the NGOs continued, but The New York Times reported on March 16 that Obama was considering exercising his waiver authority in order to preserve whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s left of Washingtonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s leverage with Egyptian officials and to maintain ongoing U.S. contracts resulting from the aid. Reportedly, however, the money will not be sent all at once, as is the usual procedure, but rather in portions. Legislatively, the only measure concerning the issue has been the Feb. 14 introduction by Kerry and three co-sponsors of S.Res. 372, â&#x20AC;&#x153;recognizing the importance of the U.S.Egypt relationship, and urging the government of Egypt to protect civil liberties and cease intimidation and prosecution of civil society workers and democracy activists.â&#x20AC;?

Other Pro-Israel Actions Other measures strongly pushed at AIPACâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s conference were H.R. 4133, introduced March 5 by Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA), and its Senate companion, S. 2165, introduced March 6 by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), â&#x20AC;&#x153;to enhance strategic cooperation between the U.S. and Israel.â&#x20AC;? The two â&#x20AC;&#x153;sense of Congressâ&#x20AC;? provisions amount to a wish-list of goodies for Israel. Ignoring the Constitutionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s granting of foreign policy authority to the president, the bills also include a list of â&#x20AC;&#x153;policyâ&#x20AC;? statements in support of Israel, including one â&#x20AC;&#x153;to reaffirm the enduring commitment of the U.S. to the security of Israelâ&#x20AC;? and one â&#x20AC;&#x153;to help Israel preserve its qualitative military edge amid rapid and uncertain regional political transformation.â&#x20AC;? The only one even alluding to the quest for peace with the Palestinians is completely one-sided. It would declare it to be U.S. policy â&#x20AC;&#x153;to assist Israel with its ongoing efforts to forge a peaceful, negotiated settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that results in two states living side

by side in peace and security, and to encourage Israelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s neighbors to recognize Israelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s right to exist as a Jewish state.â&#x20AC;? After AIPACâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s pressure, H.R. 4133 has 93 co-sponsors, including Cantor, and S. 2165 has four, including Boxer. Even the AIPAC-promoted Jerusalem Embassy bill, H.R. 1006, introduced in March 2011 by Rep. Dan Burton (R-IN), has gained co-sponsors and now has 54, including Burton. It would recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, cut off some State Department funding unless the U.S. Embassy in Israel is established in Jerusalem no later than Jan. 1, 2013, and remove the presidential waiver authority included in the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995. Obamaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Feb. 13 submission to Congress of his FY â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;13 budget included a footnote saying that the State Department â&#x20AC;&#x153;intends to work with Congress to seek legislation that would provide authority to waive restrictions on paying the U.S. assessed contributions to UNESCO.â&#x20AC;? This refers to obsolete provisions in laws passed in 1990 and 1994, described in this magazineâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s January/February 2012 issue, prohibiting U.S. contributions to â&#x20AC;&#x153;the U.N. or any specialized agency thereof which accords the PLO the same standing as member states.â&#x20AC;? The budget footnote did not sit well with RosLehtinen, who issued a statement saying she was â&#x20AC;&#x153;deeply disappointed,â&#x20AC;? implying she would work to prevent any effort to lift the restriction. (Ros-Lehtinen, by the way, continues to block about $150 million of FY â&#x20AC;&#x2122;12 aid for the Palestinians.) Obamaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s budget submission also reduced the amount of support for Israelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s missile defense programs to $99.8 million, as opposed to the $216 million appropriated for FY â&#x20AC;&#x2122;12. Ros-Lehtinen and House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon (R-CA) immediately wrote to Obama urging â&#x20AC;&#x153;in the strongest termsâ&#x20AC;? that he reconsider this request. â?&#x2018;

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THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

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ELECTION WATCH

By Janet McMahon

In Redistricting Race, Howard Berman (D-CA) Pulling Out All the Stops for Israel he effects of the 2010 census are

Tbeing felt in many congressional

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

races this year, as states which gained or lost population had to reconfigure Compiled by Hugh Galford their congressional districts accordingly. This has resulted more than once HOUSE: CURRENT SENATE: CURRENT in newly created districts where two incumbents battle for a single available Ros-Lehtinen, Ileana (R-FL) $34,500 Cardin, Benjamin (D-MD) $50,180 seat. Cantor, Eric (R-VA) 31,500 Berkley, Shelley (D-NV) 46,100 Such was the case in Ohio, where Engel, Eliot (D-NY) 22,500 Nelson, Bill (D-FL) 34,150 Democratic incumbents and frequent Wasserman Schultz, Debbie (D-FL) 19,500 Menendez, Robert (D-NJ) 34,000 congressional allies Dennis Kucinich Hoyer, Steny H. (D-MD) 18,750 Casey, Robert P., Jr. (D-PA) 30,600 and Marcy Kaptur—both members Schwartz, Allyson Y. (D-PA) 12,000 Whitehouse, Sheldon, II (D-RI) 28,500 of the Washington Report’s 2010 ConRogers, Michael D. (R-AL) 11,500 McCaskill, Claire (D-MO) 25,500 gressional Hall of Fame—vied to repCapps, Lois G. (D-CA) 10,500 Lugar, Richard G. (R-IN) 25,000 resent the state’s new 9th congressional district, redrawn to include Rohrabacher, Dana (R-CA) 10,000 Tester, Jon (D-MT) 24,000 more of Kaptur’s former district than DeLauro, Rosa L. (D-CT) 10,000 Klobuchar, Amy J. (D-MN) 23,000 Kucinich’s. Thus, while Kucinich Poe, Ted (R-TX) 10,000 raised $965,670 to Kaptur’s $370,360, Deutch, Theodore E. (D-FL) 9,000 it is Kaptur, the number two DemocHouse: Career Senate: Career rat on the powerful House Appropriations Committee, who won the Engel, Eliot (D-NY) $291,918 Levin, Carl (D-MI) $728,937 March 6 primary. That Kucinich’s Hoyer, Steny H. (D-MD) 254,025 Harkin, Thomas R. (D-IA) 552,950 voice and conscience will not be Cantor, Eric (R-VA) 249,230 Lautenberg, Frank R. (D-NJ) 503,578 heard in the 113th Congress is a loss Ros-Lehtinen, Ileana (R-FL) 243,240 McConnell, Mitch (R-KY) 490,141 for all Americans. We fervently hope Lowey, Nita M. (D-NY) 177,238 Reid, Harry (D-NV) 393,001 and trust that he will not depart the national stage, but instead heed popObey, David R. (D-WI) 164,600 Durbin, Richard J. (D-IL) 375,421 ular demand and return to perform Burton, Dan L. (R-IN) 144,336 Berkley, Shelley (D-NV) 372,155 in a new role. Skelton, Ike (D-MO) 139,450 Lieberman, Joseph (Ind.-CT) 370,851 Meanwhile, in California’s new Levin, Sander M. (D-MI) 132,727 Baucus, Max (D-MT) 351,648 30th congressional district, Rep. Berman, Howard L. (D-CA) 130,050 Wyden, Ron (D-OR) 345,962 Howard “Even-before-I-was-a-Democrat-I-was-a-Zionist” Berman is running against fellow Democratic Rep. Dome missile systems to Israel should it re- salem—to automatically become American Brad Sherman. (Or, as the Jewish Journal quest more than the three it already has, residents, and eventually citizens.” While Berman, being Jewish, is eligible banner reads, “Two Jews, One District.”) and extend again the $3.8 billion balance Sherman was a member of our 2010 Con- from Israel’s 2003 loan guarantee program, to automatically become an Israeli citizen, gressional Hall of Shame; Berman barely despite the State Department’s recommen- Israel will not extend that courtesy to the missed the cut by casting only four instead dation that the program be terminated. Both more than 98 percent of Americans—and bills were co-sponsored by current commit- millions of indigenous Palestinians—who of five negative votes. Formerly chair of the House Foreign Af- tee chair Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), are not Jewish. So much for reciprocity befairs Committee, Berman is now its ranking the rabidly anti-U.N., pro-Israel legislator of tween allies. At a Feb. 21 debate sponsored by the Democrat. While Kaptur emphasized her Cuban Jewish descent. Who says there’s no Jewish Journal, Berman and Sherman both ability to bring home the bacon to her Ohio bipartisanship in Congress? Not content with these generous gifts to claimed to be the stronger backer of sancconstituents, Berman continues to bring home the bacon to a foreign country—cour- Israel, Berman also introduced a bill to tions against Iran, while Republican canditesy of the American taxpayer. In March make Israelis eligible for E-2 U.S. work date Mark Reed “dismissed the sanctions so alone he introduced legislation allowing the visas. As Israeli activist Uri Avnery com- far as ineffective and seemed more inclined Obama administration to give more Iron mented: “All we have to do now is to buy a toward the option of military action by the small business in America—say a little del- United States,” according to the paper. Dennis Kuchinich, the people of CaliforJanet McMahon is managing editor of the icatessen shop in a corner of Brooklyn, for half the price of an apartment in Jeru- nia’s 30th congressional district need you! ❑ Washington Report. 30

THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

MAY 2012

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PRO-ISRAEL PAC CONTRIBUTIONS TO 2012 CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATES State Alabama

Arizona

California

Colorado

Connecticut

Delaware

Florida

Georgia

Hawaii

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

1 2 3 6 3 6 6 11 12 14 18 20 23 24 24 27 28 30 30 33 44 44 46 48 53 1 2 5

At-L

1 11 12 15 18 20 21 23 24 25 27 1 4 6

Candidate Bonner, Josiah R. Roby, Martha Rogers, Michael D. Bachus, Spencer T., III Flake, Jeff*# Grijalva, Raúl M. Schweikert, David Feinstein, Dianne* Woolsey, Lynn C. Miller, George Pelosi, Nancy Speier, Jackie Eshoo, Anna Farr, Sam McCarthy, Kevin Capps, Lois G. Gallegly, Elton Chu, Judy Schiff, Adam Berman, Howard L. Sherman, Brad Sanchez, Linda Hahn, Janice† Harman, Jane Sanchez, Loretta Rohrabacher, Dana Davis, Susan A. DeGette, Diana L. Polis, Jared Lamborn, Douglas 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. Nugent, Richard B. Bilirakis, Gus Ross, Dennis A. West, Allen B. Hastings, Alcee L. Deutch, Theodore E. Wasserman Schultz, Debbie Wilson, Frederica S. Diaz-Balart, Mario Ros-Lehtinen, Ileana Kingston, Jack Johnson, Henry C. (Hank) Price, Thomas E. Lingle, Linda*

Party

Status

2011 Contributions

Career

Committees

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

I I I I O I I I N I I I I I I I N I I I I I I N I I I I I I N O I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I O

2,500 2,500 11,500 2,500 5,000 3,000 1,000 5,000 2,500 2,500 7,500 3,000 2,500 2,500 7,500 10,500 1,000 1,000 3,500 5,500 7,500 4,000 5,500 2,500 1,000 10,000 1,000 1,000 0 1,000 2,000 500 10,000 22,800 1,000 500 34,150 10,500 1,500 4,600 3,000 7,000 3,500 2,000 9,000 19,500 1,000 4,750 34,500 1,000 5,000 3,500 8,000

13,650 2,500 29,825 22,000 5,750 9,000 1,000 152,342 6,000 11,693 129,800 7,000 6,750 11,650 9,000 28,417 51,250 1,000 70,917 130,050 79,930 22,950 5,500 126,271 64,450 11,250 11,163 1,000 0 3,500 370,851 50,550 57,400 60,400 19,000 4,500 171,371 15,600 4,000 12,600 44,316 16,500 6,000 96,850 52,600 72,800 6,000 51,250 243,240 1,500 37,200 9,000 8,000

A(D) AS AS, HS, I A

A(D), I

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

KEY: The “Career Total” column represents the total amount of pro-Israel PAC money received from Jan. 1, 2009 through Dec. 31, 2011. S=Senate, H=House of Representatives. Party affiliation: D=Democrat, R=Republican, Ref=Reform, DFL=Democratic Farmers Labor, Ind=Independent, Lib=Libertarian. 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, “[]” = independent expenditures on behalf of candidate (not included in candidate totals). MAY 2012

THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

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PRO-ISRAEL PAC CONTRIBUTIONS TO 2012 CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATES State

Office District

S S H H H H H H H H H H H Indiana S S S H H H Iowa H H Kentucky S H H Louisiana H H H H H Maine S S Maryland S H H H Massachusetts S H H Michigan S H H H Minnesota S H H H H Mississippi S Missouri S H Montana S S H Nebraska S Nevada S H New Jersey S H H H H H Illinois

3 6 7 9 10 10 10 12 14 16 18

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

4 5 8 2 7 8 13 14 2 4 5 8 3 At-L 2 1 2 6 7 9

Candidate Durbin, Richard J. Kirk, Mark S. Lipinski, Daniel Roskam, Peter Davis, Danny K. Schakowsky, Janice D. Dold, Robert J., Jr. Schneider, Bradley S. Sheyman, Ilya Costello, Jerry F. Hultgren, Randy Manzullo, Donald A. Schock, Aaron J. Donnelly, Joseph S.# Lugar, Richard G.* Bayh, Evan Rokita, Theodore E. Burton, Danny L. Pence, Mike Braley, Bruce L. Loebsack, David W. McConnell, Mitch Yarmuth, John A. Rogers, Harold D. Scalise, Steve Landry, Jeffrey M. Fleming, John C. Alexander, Rodney M. Cassidy, William Collins, Susan M. Snowe, Olympia J.* Cardin, Benjamin L.* Edwards, Donna Hoyer, Steny H. Van Hollen, Chris Brown, Scott P.* McGovern, Jim Capuano, Michael E. Stabenow, Debbie* Rogers, Michael J. Conyers, John, Jr. Peters, Gary Klobuchar, Amy J.* Kline, John P., Jr. McCollum, Betty Ellison, Keith M. Nolan, Richard M. Wicker, Roger F.* McCaskill, Claire* Carnahan, Russ Baucus, Max Tester, Jon* Wilmer, Franke Nelson, E. Benjamin* Berkley, Shelley*# Marshall, Kateâ&#x20AC; Menendez, Robert* Andrews, Robert E. LoBiondo, Frank A. Pallone, Frank, Jr. Lance, Leonard Rothman, Steven R.

Party D R D R D D R D D D R R R D R D R R R D D R D R R R R R R R R D D D D R D D D R D D D R D DFL DFL R D D D D D D D D D D R D R D

Status

2011 Contributions

Career

Committees

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

2,000 1,000 1,500 5,000 2,500 2,000 2,000 100 100 -500 1,000 1,000 5,500 2,000 25,000 10,000 1,500 1,000 1,000 2,500 2,500 5,000 2,500 7,500 8,000 2,500 2,500 2,500 5,000 1,000 20,000 50,180 1,000 18,750 -500 1,000 2,500 2,500 19,700 2,500 2,500 3,500 23,000 3,000 3,000 2,500 1,000 10,500 25,500 2,500 2,000 24,000 100 11,000 46,100 2,500 34,000 5,000 4,000 5,000 4,000 6,000

375,421 337,386 6,900 20,750 8,750 34,145 9,000 100 100 8,500 1,500 8,000 20,000 12,000 95,450 102,500 3,000 144,336 83,250 8,500 9,500 490,141 13,000 15,000 27,000 5,000 10,000 18,500 9,000 112,000 104,500 143,195 5,500 254,025 4,000 5,000 9,575 4,500 146,306 6,000 5,000 31,500 55,835 20,500 8,750 5,500 1,000 60,400 44,835 31,600 351,648 34,224 100 105,260 372,155 2,500 162,318 90,525 29,750 81,550 11,000 89,503

A(D, FO), FR A(FO)

THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

W HS C, I

FR(NE) W FR(NE) B FR FR(NE) AS A(D, FO), I B A C AS A C A(D), AS, HS C, I B, FR(NE) Min. Whip B AS, HS B C C AS A, B AS, C AS, C, HS FR A(HS), HS A, AS W FR(NE) AS AS, I C C A(D, FO) MAY 2012

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PRO-ISRAEL PAC CONTRIBUTIONS TO 2012 CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATES State

Office District

H H New Mexico S New York S S H H H H H H H H H H North Carolina H H North Dakota S Ohio S S S H Oregon S H H Pennsylvania S S H H H H Rhode Island S S H South Dakota S H Tennessee S H H Texas H H H Utah S H Vermont H Virginia S S S H H Washington H West Virginia S Wisconsin S H H Wyoming S New Jersey

10 11

2 3 4 5 7 8 9 17 22 29 4 8

14 1 3

8 13 15 17

1 At-L 5 9 2 12 20 3 At-L

6 7 7

3 4

Candidate Payne, Donald M. Frelinghuysen, Rodney P. Heinrich, Martin T.*# Gillibrand, Kirsten E.* Schumer, Charles E. Israel, Steve J. King, Peter T. McCarthy, Carolyn Ackerman, Gary L. Crowley, Joseph Nadler, Jerrold L. Weprin, David I.† Engel, Eliot L. Hinchey, Maurice D. Reed, Thomas W., II Price, David Kissell, Larry W. Berg, Richard A.*# Brown, Sherrod* Brown, Warren P. Mandel, Josh* LaTourette, Steven C. Wyden, Ronald L. Bonamici, Suzanne† Blumenauer, Earl Casey, Robert P., Jr.* Toomey, Patrick J. Fitzpatrick, Michael G. Schwartz, Allyson Y. Dent, Charles W. Holden, Timothy T. Langevin, James R. Whitehouse, Sheldon, II* Cicilline, David N. Thune, John R. Noem, Kristi L. Corker, Robert P., Jr.* Cooper, James H.S. Cohen, Stephen I. Poe, Ted Granger, Kay Gonzalez, Charles A. Hatch, Orrin G.* Chaffetz, Jason Welch, Peter Allen, George* Kaine, Timothy M.* Warner, Mark R. Goodlatte, Bob Cantor, Eric McDermott, James Manchin, Joe, III* Baldwin, Tammy*# Kind, Ron Moore, Gwendolynne Barrasso, John*

Party

Status

2011 Contributions

Career

Committees

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

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

2,500 1,000 2,000 14,000 -500 4,500 1,000 1,000 1,500 3,500 1,000 1,000 22,500 2,500 1,000 2,500 500 7,500 18,250 5,000 7,500 1,000 1,000 1,000 2,500 30,600 1,000 1,000 12,000 500 500 9,500 28,500 1,000 -500 500 11,000 4,000 2,500 10,000 2,500 4,500 12,500 6,000 2,500 5,000 2,500 2,500 1,500 31,500 4,000 12,500 2,000 2,500 2,500 10,241

31,250 12,350 13,000 76,450 83,885 55,559 27,500 7,825 56,850 109,157 29,000 1,000 291,918 9,780 1,000 58,327 8,500 7,500 82,000 5,000 7,500 28,000 345,962 1,000 6,500 47,600 31,250 19,500 60,650 13,750 12,000 32,000 100,500 7,000 54,230 3,000 25,000 30,250 24,000 15,000 18,000 5,500 70,200 11,000 6,500 57,400 2,500 41,500 1,500 249,230 6,000 21,500 7,000 3,500 2,500 21,241

FR A(D, HS) AS AS

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

THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

HS, I FR(NE) W

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

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

B, C, I

W AS C W B FR $1,070,921 $52,231,254 2,315 (2316) 33

hanleyv2_34-35_Special Report 4/6/12 11:00 AM Page 34

Trayvon Martin and “The Talk” No American Child Should Have to Hear SpecialReport

PHOTO ANONYMOUS/AP

By Delinda C. Hanley

On the House floor, Congressman Bobby Rush (D-IL) removed his suit jacket to reveal a hoodie, saying, “Racial profiling has to stop, Mr. Speaker. Just because someone wears a hoodie doesn’t make him a hoodlum.” The lawmaker, whose son was shot to death in 1999 by men posing as police, was escorted off the floor for violating the House dress code. he shocking killing of 17-year-old

TTrayvon Martin on Feb. 26 in Sanford,

FL has reopened a discussion about race and racial profiling in America. Martin was killed by George Zimmerman, 28, a neighborhood watch/wanna-be cop who thought Martin looked suspicious—the young African American was wearing a hoodie and carrying a bag of Skittles along with a can of iced tea. Race undoubtedly played a role in local police accepting Zimmerman’s version of events and not arresting him on the spot. “This case has reignited a furor about vigilante justice, racial-profiling and equitable treatment under the law, and it has stirred the pot of racial strife,” New York Times columnist Charles M. Blow wrote in his thought-provoking March 16 article,“The Curious Case of Trayvon Martin.” Americans couldn’t help but recall the brutal 1955 murder of Emmett Till, 14, in Mississippi—also killed after buying candy—for reportedly whistling at a white woman shopkeeper. Till’s slaying and the Delinda C. Hanley is news editor of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. 34

release of his killers mobilized the civil rights movement. People realized that even children were not safe from racist violence. Martin’s death reminded others of the killing in 2009 of Husien Shehada, 29, a Palestinian American from Woodbridge, VA. (See Sept./Oct. 2009 Washington Report, p. 30.) On the last day of their Miami vacation, Shehada and his brother were surrounded by eight police officers responding to a 911 call about suspicious men. As Shehada put his hands in the air, police officer Adam Tavss shot him three times. Tavss was cleared of any wrongdoing amid outrage from the Arab-American community, especially when they learned officers asked witnesses if the men were speaking Arabic. Concerned citizens have also drawn parallels to the rise in hate crimes against Muslims and Arabs. In August 2010, after Ahmed H. Sharif, a 43-year-old Bangladeshi immigrant cab driver in Manhattan, confirmed he was Muslim, his passenger— a student who had worked on a film documenting the life of a soldier in Afghanistan—stabbed his face and neck. Uttering an Arabic greeting, the assailant told the THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

driver, “Consider this a checkpoint.” During a March 20 press conference at the National Press Club called by the National Coalition to Protect Civil Freedoms (NCPCF) to discuss “pre-emptive prosecution” of Arab- and Muslim-American targets, the subject of discrimination and profiling on the basis of race, religion and national origin came up. Attorney Stephen F. Downs described the case of Ziyad Yaghi, a 21-year-old Palestinian American living in Raleigh, NC, who went overseas to visit family members and get married in Jordan. Somehow Yaghi—who spent no money on illegal activities and never planned or committed a crime—was accused and convicted of providing material support of terrorism and conspiracy and was sentenced to 32 years in prison. “So now an innocent young man lies in jail for a simple trip he took overseas,” says his mother, Laila Yaghi, adding that her family has been “ripped apart, destroyed and shattered.” Her son is innocent, a victim of guilt by association, and Laila Yaghi urges Americans not to forget his plight. “I can’t imagine how painful it must be for a family and community to live with this terror,” Downs said. “This mirrors the fear in the black community. What will happen to their sons? Will they be treated fairly?” “Our son is your son,” Trayvon Martin’s mom, Sybrina Fulton, told a New York crowd protesting her child’s senseless death. “This is not a black and white thing. This is a right and wrong thing.” That “wrong thing” is happening to African, Hispanic, Arab, Muslim and other minorities in America. In his New York Times article Blow writes: “As the father of two black teenage boys, this case hits close to home. This is the fear that seizes me whenever my boys are out in the world: that a man with a gun and an itchy finger will find them ‘suspicious.’ That passions may run hot and blood run cold. That it might all end with a hole in their chest and hole in my heart. That the law might prove insufficient to salve my loss.” He continues: “That is the burden of black boys in America and the people that MAY 2012

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love them: running the risk of being descended upon in the dark and caught in the cross-hairs of someone who crosses the line.” During a March 22 interview on National Public Radio, Washington Post columnist Donna Britt described “The Talk” that black parents have with their sons and daughters: “My oldest son had just turned 12 and I knew that he was shifting from being adorable and sweet and cute into something that could be perceived as threatening and frightening to people who had no idea who he really was,” Britt explained. “I just knew that we had to sit down and discuss what was proper for him to stay safe and what was not, what kind of behavior might get him hurt and what kind might keep him safe.” Darryl Owens, a columnist for the Orlando, FL Sentinel, said he’d hoped the day never would come when he’d need to have “The Talk.” “Not about birds and bees. About surviving a world that often sees darkness if black is the skin you’re in. “Fearful Jim Crow-era black parents knew that a wrong word, a glance held too long, could prove deadly. ‘The Talk’ was a primer for kids in kowtowing, a survival guide for apartheid America...” Martin’s killing will start conversations around the kitchen table, in church, synagogue and mosque basements, and classrooms around the country. Young people will hear “The Talk,” which might include telling them to stand up straight; dress the part; be over-polite to policemen or people in authority; never make fast moves around police; keep your hands in sight at all times; be careful about being perceived as running away; and never let your anger get the best of you. How does a parent do all this without instilling a sense of fear, or dashing hope for the future in America? Is this the kind of country we want, one in which we blame the victim for possibly looking suspicious to others? One Arab-American mother, Samira, who has courageously promoted interfaith dialogue in Maryland, said she is terrified for her sons. She has found herself telling them not to speak Arabic in public and not to be in crowds with people from their same culture. “It was painful,” she said, when she heard herself telling them not to go hiking or exercise with their Muslim friends. “My son likes to wear a loose-fitting jalabiya but I’ve told him not to wear it in public any more. I tell them the stories, but they don’t get it,” she said. “They MAY 2012

say, ‘This is my country and home. Why can’t I be myself?’” Another mother, Samar, who lives in Virginia, has had “The Talk” with her 16and 19-year-old sons. “I tell them ‘don’t rock the boat; Keep quiet and don’t talk about politics in class.’ I won’t let them join the solidarity groups in school. I worry because we gave them Arabic names. I’m embarrassed to say I even discourage them from going to the mosque and exploring their religion.” Are Arab- and Muslim-American mothers over-reacting?” Muslims attend local Islamic community centers for social events, education and fun, as well as prayer, but lately attendance has dropped. Thanks to CIA and NYPD surveillance programs there is now a climate of fear in mosques. People used to welcome visitors and new arrivals, but now they suspect that strangers might be informers. Ideology also matters—people are afraid to criticize the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Pervasive fear is fracturing the Muslim community. The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) hosted a March 30 event at its Washington, DC headquarters titled “NYPD: The Community under a Microscope.” Speakers discussed NYPD spying on Muslims, the legality of these actions, and the impact of this program on the Arab-American community. Sameera Hafiz, policy director at the Rights Working Group (RWG), described the negative effects, primarily the breaking down of trust between law enforcement and the communities they are supposed to serve. Arab Americans are now less willing to report domestic abuse or other crimes. Ginger McCall, director of Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC)’s Open Government Program, described NYPD informants recording license plates of people attending mosques. Undercover agents have been monitoring college students in New York City, at Yale and the University of Pennsylvania, and even joined a Muslim Student Association’s whitewater rafting trip to upstate New York. The NCPCF sent a letter to congressional leaders on March 20, 2012 decrying the “fake terrorism investigations” that create “crimes” where none exist and divert resources from actual threats. These actions improperly target innocent communities, the letter said, and raise the specter of “terrorism” where no plots exist. Racial, religious and ethnic profiling does not improve security, and does much Continued on page 37 THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

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omer_36-37_Special Report 4/5/12 3:18 PM Page 36

Equating Religion With Terrorism SpecialReport

MARIO TAMA/GETTY IMAGES

By Mohammed Omer

A student at New York University attends a Feb. 29 town hall meeting to discuss the New York Police Department’s surveillance of Muslim communities. s protests against New York Police

ADepartment (NYPD) surveillance of

Muslim communities continue, the debate about religious profiling heats up in New York City. Some see it as neccesary for the nation’s security, but others consider it a violation of civil rights. Emad Fadel, in his early thirties, is an imam and visiting scholar from Egypt. He moved to the U.S. with his wife and son about a year ago, and lives near the Al Rahman mosque in the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn, where many of the borough’s Muslims live. Because he is employed by a Mohammed Omer is currently a fellow at the Columbia University School of Journalism in New York City. You can follow him on Twitter: mogaza. 36

Muslim school and mosque, Fadel suspects that even his personal conversations are monitored. “Not just [phone] calls,” he told the Washinghton Report after Friday prayers. “Skype or Yahoo—I feel that everything is recorded. Yes, I know it!” Fadel learned only recently that Al Rahman mosque is one of 18 Muslim centers cited in a leaked NYPD document this past January. While he worries about his personal life being monitored, he said, he understands the NYPD’s need to ensure national security. “I can understand that the police have fears. Like in any other country, they want to see what is going on,” remarked the young imam. Many at the mosque share Fadel’s views. Student Mohamed Mousa, 22, said he has THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

mixed feelings.“Do I think it’s moral? No. But there’s not much we can do about it but go on with our daily lives,” he concluded. “As long as you’re not doing anything wrong, you’ve got nothing to worry about.” But Zead Ramadan, president of the New York chapter of the Council on AmericanIslamic Relations (CAIR), warns that allowing authorities to profile people on the basis of their religion is dangerous. “Did you know that praying five times a day elevates your security risk, according to NYPD surveillance?” he asked. “I think once [Muslims] find out those things they realize, ‘Well, wait a minute, but I’m a Muslim, those are requirements of my faith.’ Your religion has become equated to terrorism,” Ramadan explained, “and that’s MAY 2012

omer_36-37_Special Report 4/5/12 3:18 PM Page 37

a bad thing.â&#x20AC;? But NYPD policies have received support from some local politicians. In 2010 State Sen. Martin Golden, who represents the Bay Ridge neighborhood, co-sponsored a policy that would allow the NYPD to search anybody who fit a potential terrorist profile based on national origin, including mainly Muslim-majority countries. The bill ultimately failed, however. At a February press conference, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg defended the NYPD surveillance. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s cute to go and blame everybody and say we should stay away from anything that smacks of intelligence gathering,â&#x20AC;? he said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the job of our law enforcement to make sure that they prevent things.â&#x20AC;? Bloomberg does have some allies in the Muslim community, however, including Dr. Zhudi Jasser, president of the Arizonabased American Islamic Forum for Democracy. Jasser has been known as a supporter of NYPD policies since 2008, when he narrated the anti-Muslim film â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Third Jihad,â&#x20AC;? used by the NYPD as a training tool for new recruits (see p. 52). In March

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) appointed the controversial antiMuslim activist to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. Speaking at a March 5 press conference in front of police headquarters, Jasser argued that targeting Muslim communities is essential, because terrorists often hide behind religion. He went on to call on the NYPD to conduct blanket surveillance of citizens under suspicion. Linda Sarsour, a member of the Muslim American Civil Liberties Coalition, disagrees with Jassar. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Muslim Americans are simply saying weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re concerned,â&#x20AC;? she explained. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re asking questions of our government, our law enforcement, and now weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re being labeled as radical Islamists.â&#x20AC;? Under Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1987 Civil Rights Restortion Act, it is illegal in the United States to discriminate against anyone because of their race, sex, religion or national origin. Today, however, it appears that â&#x20AC;&#x153;terrorismâ&#x20AC;? is being used to circumvent the law and establish a two-tiered legal system, one

in which certain Americans are judged differently and forced to abdicate their rights. While itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Muslims who are the targets of official suspicion, they are not the only ones affected. â&#x20AC;&#x153;To me,â&#x20AC;? lamented CAIRâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Ramadan, â&#x20AC;&#x153;the greatest concern is that, 11 years after 9/11, Osama bin Ladenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s tactics are working. They are dividing Americans. They are turning good people against good people and making them bad. And itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s happening within our country.â&#x20AC;? â?&#x2018;

Trayvon Martinâ&#x20AC;Ś Continued from page 35

to harm the national cohesion of the American people, as well as the rule of law. In the United Statesâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;this great melting pot, the land of the freeâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;people are supposed to be able to believe what they want and look different from each other. The way Trayvon was profiled and followed is horrifyingâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;but perhaps something good can come from this. We can create a new version of â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Talkâ&#x20AC;?â&#x20AC;&#x201D;one which ends racial profiling in America. â?&#x2018;

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marshall_38-39_Special Report 4/5/12 11:01 AM Page 38

The Beginning of the End in Afghanistan SpecialReport

QAIS USYAN/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

By Rachelle Marshall

Afghan women gather around tombs in a graveyard of Mazar-i Sharif, the capital of Balkh province, March 30, 2012. n the end it may not be the Taliban who

Iforce the withdrawal of NATO troops

from Afghanistan, but the growing anger of the Afghan people at the actions of those troops. On the night of March 11, 17 residents of a village near Kandahar were shot or stabbed to death and some of their bodies burned. Almost all of the victims were women and children. The army withheld the name of the suspected killer for a week, then charged Staff Sgt. Robert Bales with the deaths. Bales was serving his fourth tour of duty after suffering a head wound and losing part of his foot in Iraq. It was assumed he was suffering from battle-related stress. Soon, however, testimony from local villagers suggested that the massacre was not the work of a single battle-worn soldier but an act of revenge by several members of his unit for the nearby bombing of a U.S. convoy earlier in the week. According to Justin Raimondo of Anti-war.com (see this issue’s “Other Voices” supplement), at least one tribal elder and several villagers testified to 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. 38

President Hamid Karzai that soldiers had come to their village, called the people together, and warned that at least 20 of them would be shot. The accusation, while yet to be verified, is in keeping with the record of criminal behavior by U.S. soldiers toward Afghan civilians. In the last year, American soldiers were discovered to have been killing Afghans for sport; a group of boys tending sheep were shot dead from a NATO helicopter hovering overhead; a video was circulated showing soldiers urinating on Afghan corpses; and American troops burned several copies of the Qur’an in a trash fire. Two days before the mass killing by Bales, a NATO helicopter fired on a group of Afghan civilians, killing four of them. These were not isolated incidents. The London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism reported in February that since January 2009, from 282 to 535 civilians had been killed in drone attacks, including some 60 children. The report said that many of the strikes were aimed at rescuers who responded at the scene, and even at mourners atttending the subsequent funerals. American officials speaking anonymously admitted that missiles were often aimed at any men carrying weapons, even if they were not on a list of suspects. THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

A senior American counterterrorism official blamed such reports on “elements who would like nothing more than to help alQaeda succeed,” but in fact the terrorist group has long been gone from Afghanistan. It is the Taliban that is benefitting from the anger aroused by the actions of NATO troops. More and more Afghans are asking why they should go on allowing foreign soldiers to shoot at their children, tear up their fields with armored vehicles, break into their homes at night, and take away a husband or son. The billions of dollars in aid that have poured into the country have brought little benefit to ordinary Afghans but has mainly enriched a small elite. Afghanistan receives $15 billion a year in foreign aid, and some $4 billion a year leaves the country headed for foreign bank accounts. The signals coming from Kabul, from Washington and from NATO commanders are confusing, if not contradictory. The Obama administration’s plans call for a complete withdrawal of U.S. combat troops by December 2014, but the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. John Allen, told Congress in late March that the pace and number of troop reductions will depend on the success of the next six months of fighting. Meanwhile, the administration is attemptMAY 2012

marshall_38-39_Special Report 4/5/12 11:01 AM Page 39

ing to achieve an agreement with the Afghan government that will allow the U.S. to maintain military bases, and troops, in that country indefinitely. Popular anger at NATO’s intrusive night raids has prompted President Hamid Karzai to demand that NATO troops immediately end such raids and move from the countryside back to their military bases. General Allen, however, has declared that the night raids and similar operations are necessary in order to defeat the Taliban, and will remain at current levels or increase. Analysts agree that the Taliban now controls large areas of Afghanistan, and that the U.S. is no closer to creating a trustworthy Afghan security force. Desertions are common, and attacks by Afghan soldiers on their NATO counterparts have increased at an “alarming rate,” according to NATO commanders. The angry response of thousands of Afghans to the burning of the Qur’ans and to the repeated killing of civilians leaves no doubt that all but the few who profit from foreign aid want NATO troops out of their country. Such realities have failed to move policy makers. “The critical issue,” said Vali Nasr, until recently a State Department official, “is for the president to make the case that the military picture is good, the insurgency has been weakened, and the Afghan security forces are ready to take over.” As a senior European official put it, “The most important thing now is the messaging.” But Anatol Lieven, who has conducted extensive interviews with Taliban leaders, disagrees. In the Feb.9 New York Review of Books, he writes that peace will only be achieved through an agreement with the Taliban that calls for the complete withdrawal of U.S. troops and a new constitution that gives the Taliban a role in government. In return the Taliban must pledge to exclude al-Qaeda from areas it controls. Such an approach is based on the recognition that the forces the U.S. and NATO call “insurgents” are in fact indigenous Afghans, most of them strict Muslims, whose goal is to rid their country of foreign invaders. It is certain that neither “messaging” designed to whitewash NATO’s failures, nor persistent efforts to defeat the Taliban, will succeed in ending this war or preventing Afghanistan’s descent into greater corruption and poverty. Given the mood of the Afghan people, the U.S. will sooner or later have to withdraw from their country. A peace agreement negotiated and endorsed by all Afghan factions would allow the U.S. to do so in orderly fashion and without further waste of lives. ❑ MAY 2012

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margolis_40_Special Report 4/5/12 11:02 AM Page 40

The Dangerous Mess in Syria Grows Murkier SpecialReport

AHMAD AL-RUBAYE/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

By Eric S. Margolis

The seat reserved for the Syrian president remains empty during the March 29 opening session of the first Arab League summit to be held in Baghdad in 22 years, which focused on the year-long crisis in Syria. yria’s murky, multi-level conflict contin-

Sues to grow worse. So does public confu-

sion here in the West as the U.S., British and some European media keep depicting Syria’s civil war as a simple passion play pitting the evil Assad regime in Damascus against mostly unarmed democratic protesters. We saw this same one-dimensional, deceptive reporting recently in Libya that was designed to support foreign intervention. It’s as incomplete today about Syria as it was in Libya which, by the way, is turning into a dangerous mess. My assessment based on reliable primary sources in Washington, Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon: Support for the Assad family’s Ba’ath regime, now in power for 41 years, is clearly slipping. But important sections of the armed forces, the 17 intelligence and security agencies, the powerful Alawite minority, most Syrian Christians, tribal elements and much of the commercial middle and upper class still back the Assads. In spite of intense Western efforts to overEric S. Margolis is an award-winning, internationally syndicated columnist. Copyright © 2012 Eric S. Margolis. 40

throw him, Bashar Assad, a mild-mannered former eye specialist, is still hanging on. The U.S., Britain, France, and some conservative Arab allies have funded and armed the Syrian rebellion from its start a year ago. In fact, the U.S. has been funding anti-Assad groups since the mid-1990s. Arms and munitions are said to be flowing to Syria’s rebels through Jordan and Lebanon. Extreme right-wing groups in Lebanon, funded by Western and Arab powers and Israel, are playing a key role in infiltrating gunmen and arms into northern Syria. The Sunni Muslim Brotherhood has once again risen against the Alawi-dominated regime in Damascus. In 1982, this writer was outside the Syrian city of Hama when government forces crushed a Brotherhood uprising, killing an estimated 10,000 people and razing part of the city with heavy artillery. Enter the jihadis. Recently, small numbers of al-Qaeda veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan have entered Syria and are using car bombs to try to destabilize the government. Current al-Qaeda leader Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri has called for all-out war against the Assad regime. THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

Interestingly, the U.S., France and Britain now find themselves in bed with the very jihadist forces they profess to abhor—but, of course, whom they used in Afghanistan in the 1980s and, lately, in Libya. Add to this dangerous mix growing numbers of local militias in Syria who are battling one another and committing many of the atrocities against civilians, recalling Iraq and Lebanon’s bloody civil wars. Washington’s key objective in Syria is to overthrow the Assad regime in order to injure its closest ally, Iran. There is so much anti-Iranian hysteria now in the U.S. that any blow against the Islamic republic is seen as good. Former U.S. fears of a chaotic, postAssad Syria are now forgotten in the rush to undermine Iran, by destabilizing Syria. Republicans, led by Sen. John McCain, are baying for war against Syria as President Barack Obama tries to hold back the war hawks. Israel, whose influence in Washington in this election year is unprecedented, is stoking war fever against Syria and Iran. Israel is delighted that the crises with both nations have eclipsed the issue of Palestine and of Syria’s Golan Heights, which were illegally annexed by Israel in 1981. Golan supplies one-third of Israel’s total water. Israel’s objective is to see Syria splintered into feuding cantons like today’s Iraq. France’s right wing, led by President Nicholas Sarkozy’s UMP party, has long desired to re-establish France’s former colonial influence in Lebanon and Syria. The Assad regime in Syria has been a thorn in France’s side for four decades, particularly so in Lebanon, which Syria still insists is an historical part of Syria. France hopes to duplicate in Syria its success in stirring up and profiting from the uprising in Libya. Russia has been defending the Assad regime and is determined not to be outfoxed in Syria by a false “humanitarian” intervention as it was in Libya. China is similarly cautious. But both are slowly lessening their former staunch support of Damascus as seen by March’s U.N. Security Council call for a new peace plan in Syria. A cease-fire is urgently needed. Syria must stop using heavy weapons in urban areas. But outside powers must also stop supporting violent armed groups that Damascus calls “terrorists.” There are no clean hands in Syria. ❑ MAY 2012

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Years of Telling the Truth THE MET’S GLORIOUS NEW ISLAMIC ART GALLERIES MISUND ERSTAN DINGS A BOUT JE RUSALE M’S TEM PLE MO UNT

” SECURITY ERN FOR “ C N O C S L’ IE: ISRAE THE BIG L

MISUNDERSTANDINGS ABOUT JERUSALEM’S TEMPLE MOUNT TOTAL U.S. AID TO ISRAEL: MORE THAN $123 BILLION

COMPARING ISRAEL’S AND IRAN’S NUCLEAR PROGRAMS

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An Wall THEUnneighborly MENDACIOUS WALL Story and photos by William Parry PARRY WORDS AND PHOTOS BY WILLIAM

hat is it about Jewish Israelis and walls? W When selling the idea of Israel’s illegal W apartheid wall to President George W. Bush, former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon quoted a line from Robert Frost’s poem “Mending Wall”: “Good fences make good neighbors.” Neither leader, it seems, understood the poem. The same year construction on the West Bank wall began, Jewish Israelis started building another wall to separate them from Palestinians—in this case their fellow citizens—on 42

the Mediterranean coast in Israel’s northern Sharon region. This one consists of a strip of earth that runs for about one mile and is between four and five yards high (above center). To the north of this wall is the Arab town of Jisr al-Zarqa, one of the most impoverished communities in Israel, with severe overcrowding and no space to expand. South of the wall, which is lined with trees and shrubs to help give it a more natural, organic feel—and to raise the horizon a bit more—is one of Israel’s most affluent communities, Qasariya. THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

The barrier was built and financed by the Qasariya Development Company (QDC), which called it an “acoustic embankment.” It was built without a legal permit, and without the knowledge or consultation of the council of Jisr al-Zarqa, according to the Arab Association for Human Rights (HRA). The QDC says it was built to protect residents of Qasariya from such noise “hazards” as the call to prayer, loud music, and shooting into the air and fireworks during celebrations, and to reduce the incidence of theft and the negative impact on MAY 2012

parry_wall_42-43_Center Spread 4/6/12 12:11 PM Page 43

property prices in Qasariya. Qasariya’s streets are meticulously maintained (see photos above right). Its sidewalks, street signs, bus shelters, cultural center and plaza, and all public areas are beautifully manicured, with well-watered plants and lawns. A private security firm patrols the streets. Like other nearby Jewish-only communities, the town is directly linked to the Tel Aviv-Haifa coastal highway. In contrast, just a few hundred yards away, Jisr al-Zarqa is a squalid ghetto, with chronic underinvestment (see photos above left). Its MAY 2012

infrastructure—roads, sewage, water connections, etc.—is visibly dilapidated, and raw rather than refined. Residents of Jisr al-Zarqa have no public transportation system and no direct access to the same coastal highway that their Jewish neighbors have. There are no banks there, although there is one post office for this town of 10,500 residents. Surely it was an eyesore for the well-heeled Qasariyans, eying the squalor from their poolsides—until, that is, the wall blocked another bit of uncomfortable reality from their sheltered lives. THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

As Frost’s “Mending Wall” narrator says:

Before I built a wall I’d ask to know What I was walling in or walling out, And to whom I was like to give offense. Something there is that doesn’t love a wall, That wants it down. But not in Israel’s Jewish communities. 43

mayton_44_Cairo Communique 4/4/12 10:30 PM Page 44

Despite Verdict in “Virginity Test” Trial, Egypt’s Samira Ibrahim Keeps on Fighting CairoCommuniqué

REUTERS/MOHAMED ABD EL GHANY

By Joseph Mayton

Five days after an army doctor was acquitted of ordering “virginity tests,” activist Samira Ibrahim attends a March 16 demonstration against Egypt’s ruling military council in front of a Cairo courthouse. n the end, soft-spoken Samira Ibrahim

Isaw the doctor who ordered her to un-

dergo a “virginity test” acquitted. It was a bitter verdict in a case that pitted an average Egyptian woman against the hegemony of the military junta. And, in the latest sign of its authoritarian power, the junta won. The young Ibrahim is not the likeliest of activists, even though she says she has protested on the streets for years. Her quiet demeanor and sense of humor defy the violence meted out against her at the hands of the military rulers of Egypt’s post-uprising “transition.” She went forward with the case, Ibrahim said, “so no other girls are subjected to this kind of torture and violence in Egypt.” But she acknowledged that it was a struggle— and one the military was up for. Ibrahim had accused the doctor of forcing her to undergo a virginity test in Joseph Mayton is a free-lance journalist based in Cairo, where he administers the Web site <http://bikyamasr.com>. 44

March 2011, after she and other female protesters in a sit-in at Cairo’s Tahrir Square were arrested and taken to the military facility where the doctor works. Ibrahim’s account of what happened next is astonishing, almost surreal, as she described the events a year later, as if they had occurred only days before. At a café in Cairo, she detailed the horrors of what happened to her that day, interspersing her story with jokes in an apparent effort to lessen the trauma inflicted on her and her fellow protesters only a stone’s throw from the very café in which we sat. In front of dozens of other soldiers, she said, the women were forced to take down their pants and allow a doctor to examine them. When Ibrahim asked for the procedure to be done in private she was assaulted, she said, and broke her arm, which was in a cast for four months. The military court charged the doctor with committing a “crime against modesty” and “neglecting to obey military orders.” According to rights groups, these charges meant that, instead of felony by THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

physical assault, the “alleged” crimes came under the category of indecent misdemeanor, punishable by only a fine or imprisonment of no more than one year. On the next to the last day of the trial, two female prison guards testified that the tests were in fact merely a question of “who is married and who is a virgin.” The women said it was out of “medical concern” for the arrested women, in case any of them were pregnant. According to the guards, the doctor never ordered any woman to take off her clothes. Instead they asked them verbally who was and wasn’t a virgin, then told the virgins to stand in one line and the nonvirgins in another. Human Rights Watch said the not-guilty verdict was more evidence that the case should have been tried in a civilian rather than a military court. Local groups condemned the continued protection of Egypt’s armed forces from any accountability for crimes committed against civilians. According to Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, deputy Middle East and North Africa director at Amnesty International: “Ever since this unacceptable episode, which is nothing less than torture, women protesters have repeatedly faced beatings, torture and other ill-treatment at the hands of Egypt’s army and security forces.” A military judge had called on the Egyptian media not to cover or report on the case, saying it gave Egypt “a bad name.” But Ibrahim’s lawsuit embroiled activists, especially young Egyptian women, who have turned to politics in greater numbers over the past year. Samiha, a 29year-old doctor from Alexandria who was in Cairo for a training conference at the Doctor’s Syndicate, said that Ibrahim has become almost a symbol of Egypt’s revolution. “She is strong and someone I look up to as a woman because she is fighting a power that is so strong,” Samiha told the Washington Report. No women’s group has come forward to offer assistance to her and the other young women subjected to the tests, Ibrahim Continued on page 46 MAY 2012

gee_45-46_Islam and the Near East in the Far East 4/4/12 10:31 PM Page 45

Malaysian Revelations Highlight Price of Israeli Rejectionism By John Gee

Islam and the Near East in theFar East

hree letters from Malaysia’s former

hamed to his Israeli counterparts were published Feb. 29 by the Malaysian Foreign Ministry. They were released as a result of bitter exchanges between the ruling Barisan Nasional Alliance and the opposition, as the country gears up for its next general election. Each side had accused the other of supporting the establishment of diplomatic relations with Israel and of having covert dealings with it. The government released the letters to show that, while it had held open the door to normalizing relations with Israel, this would not be at the expense of the sacrifice of the Palestinians’ rights. The first letter was sent to Yitzhak Rabin, then prime minister of Israel, on Dec. 21, 1993, two and a half months after Rabin signed the Declaration of Principles alongside PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat and they stood before the world’s media along with President Bill Clinton on the White House lawn. The Malaysian prime minister acknowledged with thanks a letter from Rabin and wrote of the PLO-Israel moves: “My government supports this positive development and views it as a first step toward the realization of a comprehensive solution to the Middle East problem.” After pledging Malaysian financial and technical support to the Palestinians to help implement the agreement, Mahathir wrote: Malaysia as a matter of general principle is prepared to develop relations with Israel at the appropriate time. In the meantime, we would like to see tangible progress in the implementation of the peace agreement. The Middle East problem particularly the Palestinian issue has been a cause of instability to the region and I hope the recent agreement between Israel and PLO would contribute to lasting peace to the area. I look forward to normal relations with Israel. The last line was added in handwriting. Three years later, Rabin was dead and Netanyahu was Israel’s prime minister. He John Gee is a free-lance journalist based in Singapore, and the author of Unequal Conflict: The Palestinians and Israel. MAY 2012

ISAEED KHAN/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

TPrime Minister Dr. Mahathir bin Mo-

Malaysians hold placards and shout slogans at a Land Day rally outside Kuala Lumpur in support of Palestine, March 30, 2012. evidently had written to Mahathir, and the next letter in the series was Mahathir’s reply, dated March 14, 1997. The tone was distinctly different, though it continued to favor peaceful dialogue over violence: Malaysia believes in peace and in settlement of problems between neighbors through negotiations. As a last resort, we turn to third parties. In disputes over territories between Malaysia and Singapore and Malaysia and Indonesia we have agreed to get the World Court to decide. Dispute between Malaysia and Thailand over territorial waters was resolved by agreeing to share the non-marine resources equally. Within the country, disparities in wealth distribution between the indigenous people and those of immigrant origins were resolved through affirmative action in which the have nots would have a bigger share of a growing economic cake but there would be no expropriation and redistribution of what already belonged to the descendants of immigrants. Everyone has very nearly a fair share now and everyone is fairly satisfied. Relations beTHE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

tween the different races in Malaysia are good and not disruptive. The important point I would like to stress is not to take what already belongs to others even though historically they may be yours. Lately, Israel has been pulling down Arab dwellings in order to erect houses for Israelis. The whole world, including your ally, the United States condemns this. But Israel has gone ahead. You condemn Syria for making threats. But their threats are the response to your own action. If you forcibly take over land and property belonging to the Palestinians, the only response if they are not to violently act against you, is to threaten to act against you. If they cannot retaliate and they cannot voice their intended retaliation, then they would have to submit to all your action no matter how wrong. What you are doing now is against the spirit and the letter of the peace process agreed to by your predecessor. How can we trust Israel if a change in the government negates solemnly given undertakings by a Government of Israel. Please reconsider your 45

gee_45-46_Islam and the Near East in the Far East 4/4/12 10:31 PM Page 46

decision to build new Jewish settlements on Arab land. After referring to the presence of a delegation of young Israelis in Malaysia, Mahathir went on: We should remember that when Jews were persecuted in Europe, they had always found sanctuary among Muslims in Muslim countries. We don’t regard Israelis as eternal enemies. But we cannot help but sympathize with the Palestinians because their land is being taken away from them now. It may have belonged to Jews three thousand years ago. A lot of traditional Malay lands have been made part of Thailand. But we are not claiming southern Thailand as part of Malaysia. If we go too far into the past we cannot live with our neighbors. We are ready to have economic and technological cooperation with Israel but we cannot do so yet because you have not honored commitments made by a legitimate Government of Israel. We would like to think that once we have established relations with you, it would be permanent. The third letter was sent on June 8, 1999 to Ehud Barak, newly victorious in the 1999 Israeli general election. This time, the initiative to make contact was Mahathir’s. He clearly hoped for a decisive change in Israeli policy, with Netanyahu out of office. He wrote that: ...[I]f the peace process is to be salvaged, sincere and effective steps must be taken to honor commitments. As an important partner in the peace process it is crucial for Israel to be more accommodating. The Palestinians have made major sacrifices. They no longer demand the elimination of Israel. They are even prepared to share Jerusalem with you. It is therefore timely that Israel respond positively so as to sustain the hopes of the people in both Palestine and Israel. Solemn commitments made by a previous Goverment must be honored. The alternative I am afraid, would be a permanent state of conflict and regional instability extending into the next century. This is certainly a prospect that must be avoided. The crux of the problem is that no party should revert to the old ways of taking what belongs to others, on the one hand and instigating hatred and violence, on the other. Malaysia cannot countenance aggression by anyone, whether friend or foe. Any country that forcibly takes over land and properties of others, or demolishes dwellings belonging to others in order to set up its own settlements cannot be said to be sincere in wanting peace. Malaysia is of the firm conviction that the security of all countries in West Asia can only be assured with the establishment of a just, 46

lasting, and comprehensive peace in the region. This must be based on the principle of “exchange of land for peace” and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital. The world looks foward to Israel under your leadership, to push foward the peace process with true determination. It is my sincere hope that the attainment of a comprehensive settlement in the region would allow Malaysia to realistically envisage a positive move toward the establishment of normal relations with Israel. The letters show that, far from demonstrating unrelenting hostility toward Israel, Mahathir was fully prepared to normalize relations with an Israel reconciled to accepting Palestinian statehood in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. He didn’t even raise the issue of the right of return of Palestinians exiled since 1948. This was the position taken by most of the other Arab and Muslim countries, in fact. Even Iran, Israel’s arch bogeyman, indicated that it would be bound to accept the decision of the Palestinians on a settlement with Israel, however much it might disagree with them. There was a time when pro-Israel commentators never seemed to tire of criticizing Palestinian leaders for “never missing an opportunity to miss an opportunity.” If this phrase recently has been heard less, it is perhaps because it could so easily be used to describe the position of Israel’s own governments. They could have had peace and diplomatic relations with almost every country in the world if they had only genuinely committed themselves to withdrawal from the lands occupied in 1967. Instead they took the path of expanding the settlements, holding land and repressing the resistance that was the natural and inevitable consequence of their policies.

India Bans Leading Israeli Arms Maker State-owned Israel Military Industries was one of six companies barred for 10 years from doing business with the Indian armed forces. The March 5 announcement banned the six for paying kickbacks to Sudipta Ghosh, former director-general of India’s state-run Ordnance Factory Board. According to the Ministry of Defense, “The firms were recommended for blacklisting by the Central Bureau of Investigation on the basis of evidence collected against them.” The firms, from Israel, Singapore, Switzerland, Russia and India itself, were each given a chance to respond to the evidence against them. The ban was imposed after their replies had been considered and THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

found to be “unsatisfactory.” The bribes first came to light in 2009, and led to a freeze on existing projects, including a $24 million scheme to set up five factories to produce propellants for the large-caliber artillery operated by the Indian army, according to a UPI report. During the first decades of India’s independence, the country took a firm stand in support of the rights of the Palestinians, but after the Janata party, with its Hindu communalist elements, took office, a more sympathetic attitude toward Israel prevailed. Though India continued its support for the U.N.’s resolutions on Palestine, relations with Israel developed apace in the economic and military spheres. Israel has become the second largest supplier of weaponry to India, after Russia. How big a dent the bar on IMI will make remains to be seen. ❑

Samira Ibrahim… Continued from page 44

said. Nevertheless, many independent activists have not hesitated to show their support, even after the military court acquitted its own doctor of any wrongdoing. “It is an absolutely shameful procedure that makes our society naked and exposed its paradoxes,” said leading activist and former parliamentary candidate Dalia Ziada. “The acquittal of the doctor was expected under the lousy atmosphere of chaos we love,” she added, “but what I really cannot accept is the lack of response from Islamist politicians and extremists in general who did not hesitate to file court claims against Alia Mahdy and called for her death when she got naked by her own free will”—Mahdy is the so-called “Nude Revolutionary Blogger” who posted a full frontal nude image of herself last November in the name of freedom of speech— “while now they are dead silent on a case of a girl who was forced to show herself to soldiers and a doctor under the claim of testing her virginity.” For many Egyptians, Ibrahim’s case highlighted the divide between the country’s military rule and the goals and successes of the revolution. To them the case was more than simply about one woman’s fight for justice. It was about justice, freedom and, ultimately, the rule of law— which, they argue, has been broken once again by those in positions of power. Summing up the dire situation currently facing women, and activists, in Egypt, Ziada said simply, “What a shame.” ❑ MAY 2012

Al-Mustaqbal, LebanonNew York Times Syndicate, New York

New York Times Syndicate, New York

KHALIL BENDIB

The Economist, London

CWS/CARTOONARTS INTERNATIONAL www.cartoonweb.com

THE WORLD LOOKS AT THE MIDDLE EAST

Universal Uclick

CWS/CARTOONARTS INTERNATIONAL www.cartoonweb.com

The Muslim Observer, Livonia

Den Korte Avis, Denmark

National Post, Toronto

MAY 2012

THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

opm_48-49_Other People's Mail 4/3/12 8:31 PM Page 48

Other People’s Mail Compiled by Dale Sprusansky

War Is Not the Answer on Iran To the Detroit Free Press, March 6, 2012 A military attack on Iran by either the U.S. or Israel would cause a large increase in the price of oil and potentially lead to a regional war that we taxpayers cannot afford. Our senators need to do everything possible to prevent military action against Iran and keep our gasoline prices from hitting $6 per gallon. A military strike on Iran would basically assure the opposite of the security goals of the U.S. and Israel. Bombing Iran would probably result in Iran becoming absolutely committed to building nuclear weapons. A war would most likely unify a divided Iran and give Iran an excuse to disallow any inspections of its nuclear activities. We need our senators to advocate for sustained diplomacy. The U.S. talked to the Soviet Union during the darkest days of the Cold War and has recently negotiated a step back from war with North Korea. The U.S. has had only two rounds of diplomacy with Iran during President Barack Obama’s administration. Brazil and Turkey presented a deal just a couple of years ago that came close to a resolution. There should be bipartisan support for pursuing bilateral and multilateral engagement with Iran. Our country needs to lead in calming the rhetoric and sending signals to Tel Aviv and Tehran that war is not the answer. While diplomacy offers no guaranteed results, we should have learned from the war with Iraq that military actions do not have assured results, either. Rev. Rich Peacock, Sterling Heights, MI

Iran Talk Echoes Iraq Buildup To USA Today, March 7, 2012 Does anybody else hear a familiar tune in the air? When I hear the rhetoric from the United States and Israel toward Iran these days, I hear echoes of the drumbeat that led us into war with Iraq (“Obama warns of ‘loose talk’ of war at AIPAC conference”). Then, too, no amount of denial from Iraq that it had weapons of mass destruction could deter the U.S. from its actions. Nobody asked the question, “Would it really be in Saddam Hussain’s best interest to hit a superpower with chemical or nu48

clear weapons?” Invasion seemed to be predetermined. But surely the situation is different with Iran, right? Maybe, but maybe not. Nine years ago, we stormed into Iraq on the assurance by our government that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. Would the government do that again? I don’t know, but it makes one think. Drummond A. Drew, Carmel, IN

ing raids on one of the most densely populated urban centers of the world. Meanwhile, Israel leads a tirade against Iran’s nuclear program, even threatening to go to war. If Israel starts a war with Iran, we all will suffer the consequences. It must be noted that Israel, known to be a nuclear power, has not signed the Nuclear NonProliferation Treaty. Iran has. Marilyn Raschka, Hartford, WI

Resist Israel’s Push

Two Sides in Mideast

To the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, Feb. 20, 2012 The article “Missiles meant to target U.S., Israel says” (Feb. 3) describes Israel’s effort to provoke the U.S. into attacking Iran in order to remove a regime unfriendly to Israel. Even usually subservient U.S. officials said that Israel’s assertions were at best premature and at worst badly exaggerated. We cannot allow Israel and its powerful lobby to drag us into a disastrous war in Iran. Recently, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz stated in an editorial, “Israel is using Iran to sidestep Mideast peace talks.” The U.S. must dialogue and trade with Iran, not threaten it with harsher sanctions or, even worse, military action. We need to become an honest broker for peace in the Middle East, rather than the lackey for Israel that we have been for too long. Ray Gordon, Venice, FL

To The Miami Herald, March 19, 2012 Israeli oppression, occupation and denial of human rights for Palestinians are not treated with the same sympathy as the treatment of Israel. To portray Israelis as having their lives disrupted by the threat of rocket attacks and sirens warning them to run for cover simply ignores reality. Every day Palestinian lives are threatened by Israeli bombs, soldiers and silent drone attacks with no warning whatsoever. Yet these attacks do not make for sympathetic articles on Palestinians who are constantly dehumanized, killed, maimed and bombed. I am Jewish and anti-Zionist and feel that it’s time that unbiased and fair articles are published about the Zionist state of Israel. Len Kaminsky, co-chairman, South Florida Boycott, Divest and Sanction, Surfside, FL

Be Wary of Israel

Boycott Question in Mideast

To the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, March 22, 2012 The authors of the March 13 letter on Israel, Iran and violence neglected to look at some important facts (“Hold Iran accountable for attacks on Israel”). Gaza is a 25-mileby-6 mile strip that is a miserable home to 1.7 million Palestinians, many of whom are refugees and descendants of refugees who fled their homes when Israel was created in 1948. Israel’s policies toward all the Palestinians are designed to maintain the status quo of misery, deprivation and hopelessness. Who would not see that this situation leads to frustration and violent reaction? The United States should not defend these bankrupt politics. Sadly, we ourselves are culpable by providing much of the weaponry used by Israel in its bomb-

To The New York Times, March 19, 2012 Peter Beinart sees an absence of democracy in the occupied territories, and contrasts that with the situation in Israel proper. The contrast is an illusion. Israeli law treats Jewish and non-Jewish citizens differently in important areas like the process of obtaining citizenship, state spending on education and infrastructure, who can live and build in East Jerusalem, and who is required to serve in the military. Israel is, after all, a Jewish state. But such a state cannot be a democracy. Sooner or later, Israelis will have to choose between ethnic privilege or a state that recognizes the equality of all of its citizens before the law. As an American Jew, I hope that they will choose democracy. Jesse Larner, New York, NY

THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

MAY 2012

opm_48-49_Other People's Mail 4/3/12 8:31 PM Page 49

Release Hunger Striker To The Times of Trenton, March 16, 2012

On March 8, International Women’s Day, 50 Palestinian women marched in Ramallah, West Bank, to demand the release of Hana Shalabi, who had been placed under administrative detention in Israel—imprisonment without charge or trial for up to six months—since the Israeli military arrested her Feb. 16, shortly after she was released from more than two years of administrative detention. Ms. Shalabi has clearly had enough, because she went on a hunger strike to reclaim her rights, as a human being, to live in peace, fall in love, get married, have children, watch her children grow up, grow old and pass away under natural causes—instead of spending the rest of her life in an Israeli prison. Sadly, Ms. Shalabi’s story is not unique. According to B’Tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, Israel has 309 Palestinians under administrative detention as of January. We, as people of conscience, must answer the international appeal from Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association-Addameer, Amnesty International, and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel by contacting authorities to demand that Israel release Hana Shalabi, as well as the other individuals placed under administrative detention. Yeou-Shiuh Hsu, Princeton, NJ

Egypt’s Restriction on NGOs To The Washington Post, March 13, 2012 Fayza Aboulnaga’s March 10 op-ed, “Why Egypt moved on the NGOs,” overlooked the struggle of Egyptian civil society for a democratic legal framework consistent with international law. Under Egyptian law, individuals must obtain permission from the government to associate or they risk imprisonment. The application process for nongovernmental organizations can take months, if not years, while a group’s founders are vetted by security agencies. Mandatory registration violates international law, and the government uses this requirement to exclude organizations it disfavors. The Egyptian Organization for Human Rights waited more than 15 years before receiving a license to operate; many other groups are never registered. Even if the registration hurdle is overcome, organizations face government interference with nearly all aspects of their activities. In addition, the government can MAY 2012

ban funding from practically any source. Recently, the government prohibited the New Woman Foundation from accepting a $5,000 “Nelson Mandela Innovation Award,” citing unspecified “security reasons.” In the wake of the Arab Spring, Tunisia and Libya are reforming antiquated, authoritarian NGO laws. In contrast, the Egyptian government recently proposed legislation to further clamp down on civil society. Casting this issue as a dispute over illegal NGOs is rhetorically clever. But it disguises the fundamental point that Egypt’s policy violates international law. Kareem Elbayar, Amman, Jordan. The writer is a lawyer with the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law.

Tragedy vs. Terrorism To The Seattle Times, March 12, 2012 Afghanistan’s president describes the murder of 16 civilians by a U.S. soldier as “an act of terrorism” [“Lewis-McChord soldier held in Afghan rampage,” March 12]. But Americans describe it as a “tragedy.” In these two perspectives lies the whole story of American denial. Each of us is an accessory to this crime.

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

When we say “tragedy,” we imply that some inexplicable fate is at work, and no one is really responsible, except one flawed individual, “a bad apple.” We shirk our national responsibility for this war crime, and all the others. For too long American civilians have ignored the suffering we cause Iraqis and Afghans. We ignored the suffering of our military families. We ignored the drift of our original mission, to root out al-Qaeda bases, into an indefinite imperial occupation that benefits no one but the corporations of the weapons industry. We allowed good men and women to be broken by multiple tours of combat. Our Constitution makes it clear that the military is under civilian control. We the people elect those civilians. Therefore these wars and war crimes are ours. With one voice, Americans must rise up and demand an immediate end to the occupation of Afghanistan. Fred LaMotte, Steilacoom, WA

It’s Time to Leave Afghanistan To The Buffalo News, March 25, 2012 Imagine if the United States were occupied by a foreign army. After 10 years of uninterrupted carnage, we learn that a sergeant in the foreign army shot and killed 16 innocent U.S. citizens. Nine of them were children; one was a 3-year-old girl. The sergeant killed many of the victims with a single shot to the head before he piled together 11 of the bodies and set them on fire. Tell me, what would our reaction be? Richard Furlong, Buffalo, NY

War Driving U.S. Mad and Broke To the Orange County Register, March 13, 2012 It seems ironic to me when President Barack Obama vows to “hold accountable anyone responsible” for the killing of innocent women and children in Afghanistan [“Afghans suspect multiple shooters,” March 12]. I have news for you, Mr. President: You are responsible. And so is any other member of our government who supports keeping troops in Afghanistan, and in so many other countries around the world where we have no business being. Please bring our troops home. This pattern of endless war is bankrupting the country and driving our soldiers and our society mad. Gaylen Corbett, San Juan Capistrano, CA❑ 49

pasquini_50-51_Northern California Chronicle 4/3/12 8:32 PM Page 50

SALAM Celebrates 25 Years of Building an American Islamic Center

Northern California Chronicle

By Elaine Pasquini

project over the last two decades. “These special people have made SALAM what it is today: the pride of our community and the beacon for an American Islamic center,” he said. Other speakers included Dr. Anne Kjemtrup, Farrukh Saeed, Professor Rosalie Amer, Javed Siddique, Nasreen Aboobakr, Asghar Aboobakr, Javed Iqbal, Dr. Sonney Chong, Rev. David Thompson and Andy Noguchi. For more information, visit <www.salamcenter.org>.

STAFF PHOTO PHIL PASQUINI

Zaytuna College Fund-raiser

In honor of SALAM’s 25th anniversary, Susan McKee (c) from the office of California Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg presents a Resolution from the California Legislature to SALAM co-founder Dr. Metwalli Amer (r) and Board Chairman Farrukh Saeed. ublic officials, community leaders and

Pmembers of Sacramento’s diverse in-

terfaith community were on hand to offer praise and congratulations to the Sacramento Area League of Associated Muslims (SALAM) at a Feb. 24 reception to celebrate the organization’s 25th anniversary. Initially conducting its activities through a post office box and rented offices, SALAM eventually acquired property on which it built, in three phases, a campus encompassing a community hall, conference room, commercial kitchen, weekend and elementary school, parking lot and spectacular masjid and Center for Higher Islamic Learning, which was completed in late 2010. (See August 2011 Washington Report, p. 32.) “I appreciated the fact that the invitation to tonight’s event described SALAM as an ‘American’ Islamic Center,” U.S. Attorney Ben Wagner told guests. “That is a wonderful representation of the model for an Islamic community in America that SALAM Elaine Pasquini is a free-lance journalist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. 50

has built here. SALAM has committed itself to a vision of Islam in America that reflects the values of Islam—unity, community, hospitality and devotion—and also the values that characterize America—tolerance, equality, and respect for diversity. SALAM and its members have worked hard to build bridges to other faith communities, to foster understanding, and represent Islam to the wider non-Muslim community. It provides a great example to Muslims and nonMuslims alike of how an American Muslim community can take a constructive leadership role in community affairs. What you are building here is a model for the future and for the country, and you should be very proud of that experience.” Reminding guests that “we only fear what we don’t know” and that “frightened people do fearful things,” Rev. Michael Moran, a longtime SALAM supporter, praised the group for continuing to offer “education, hospitality, and transparency as the antidote to fear and paranoia.” SALAM co-founder Dr. Metwalli Amer praised the many individuals who gave their time, money and expertise to this THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

A fund-raising dinner for Zaytuna College, the Berkeley-based school which its cofounders hope will be the United States’ first accredited, four-year Muslim liberal arts college, was held Feb.18 at San Jose’s Fairmont Hotel. Currently holding classes in rented premises, Zaytuna is raising funds to purchase its own building in Berkeley. More than 1,000 guests attended the evening event sponsored by Rumi Bookstore and Averroes Institute. “Having a Muslim college means having a place where Muslims can contribute to society—to critique our society, but also to critique ourselves,” Zaytuna co-founder Dr. Hatem Bazian told the audience. “We are the most diverse community in this country, and our challenge is to take our diversity and make it unique and build an institution that represents all of us.” Zaytuna co-founder Hamza Yusuf spoke about the value of a liberal arts education—which, he explained, is not alien to the Islamic tradition. “Islamic tradition is rooted in a liberal arts tradition, including the arts of communication and understanding language,” Yusuf said. “The goal of this education is to teach people how to use their intellect, and be a better human being. We want to provide a college where students are actually taught the tools of learning.There is interest from major universities in what we are doing here. There are actually Master’s dissertations now being done, either entirely on Zaytuna, or as part of a dissertation.” The program also included remarks by Zaytuna co-founder Imam Zaid Shakir, Pervez Qureshi of Zaytuna’s board of trustees, and Jonathan Brown, assistant professor of MAY 2012

pasquini_50-51_Northern California Chronicle 4/3/12 8:32 PM Page 51

Rising from Tahrir author Hoda Rashad told the audience that the goal of her book was to make Egypt’s story accessible to individuals beyond Egypt and the Middle East. “It is also to show Egyptians that we are all part of the daily struggle and we need to understand the struggle and move forward,” Rashad said. Following dinner and remarks, guests enjoyed the music of singer and keyboardist Sami Ehsad.

Islamic Studies and MuslimChristian Understanding at Georgetown University. For m o re i n fo r m a t i o n v i s i t <www.zaytunacollege.org>.

Egyptian Solidarity Rally

Egyptian American Society Gala

Rabbi Michael Lerner on Embracing Israel/Palestine Tikkun magazine editor Rabbi Michael Lerner drew some 150 people to his Feb. 6 talk at The Redwoods Retirement Community in Mill Valley hosted by Seniors for Peace. The controversial rabbi discussed his book, Embracing Isr a e l / P a l e s t i n e, i n which he claims that the path to peace between Israelis and Palestinians requires a transformation of consciousness. “The thesis of the book is that the only way to bring peace is to be both pro-Israel and proPalestine, and that the only path that is ever going to work is a path that affirms the humanity of both sides,” he argued. “I believe that the majority of both Israelis and Palestinians actually want peace but cannot believe that the other side wants it too. The book is an attempt to dispel the myth that one side is evil and the other side is good, and that is the first step toward a transformation of conscious-

STAFF PHOTOS PHIL PASQUINI

Members of the Bay Area’s Egyptian community held a Day of Mobilization in Solidarity with the Egyptian revolution in San Francisco’s U.N. Plaza on Feb. 11. Speakers called for the end of military rule and a handover of power to civilians. For the past year, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) has retained the “emergency law” to suppress freedom of speech, detain human rights activists and incarcerate civilians in military prisons. Egyptian Americans Momen El Husseiny and Mahmoud Ali Ibrahim spoke about their recent visits to Egypt. Attendees at the rally were urged to contact President Barack Obama and Congress and demand an end to the $1.3 billion military aid to SCAF, and direct funds instead to the Egyptian people for education and health care. More than 40 percent of Egyptians live on less than $2 per day, 60 percent of the population is under age 30, and youth unemployment is about 25 percent.

The Egyptian American Society for the San Francisco Bay Area hosted a Feb. 12 TOP: Zaytuna College co-founders Hatem Bazian (l) and Hamza Yusuf; dinner at Burlingame’s Dou- MIDDLE: author Hoda Rashad (l), and San Francisco protesters calling bletree Hotel. Opening the for an end to military rule in Egypt; ABOVE: Rabbi Michael Lerner greets program, Dr. Ossama Has- Seniors for Peace member Barbara Graves. sanein discussed Egyptian history and shared his personal reflections democratic principles were marginalized. ness.” Lerner called for “a new global ethos” Last year our youth said ‘no’ to the subjuabout his homeland. “From Nasser to Mubarak,” he said, “the gation of the civil society and the follies of based on love, kindness and a spirit of carcenter of society was oppressed or liqui- the marshals. They united to give the ing. “This is possible if we stop telling each other it is impossible,” he claimed. ❑ dated at enormous cost, and the most basic power back to the people.” MAY 2012

THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

adas_52-53_New York City and Tri-State News 4/3/12 8:35 PM Page 52

STAFF PHOTO J. ADAS

By Jane Adas

Prof. Oren Yiftachel. ren Yiftachel, professor of political ge-

Oography at Ben Gurion University and

co-chairman of B’Tselem, spoke at Columbia University on Feb. 20 about his work in the Negev with the Bedouin. He described the Negev as a battleground—one with less exposure than the West Bank or Gaza, but just as critical—where 100,000 people living on their ancestral land are the most impoverished of Palestinians. The Negev, Yiftachel elaborated, is a “grey space” of permanent temporariness where nothing is resolved and people are always under threat. Although Palestinians of the Negev are Israeli citizens, 46 of their villages are unrecognized, meaning they receive no government services at all. In the last two years there have been more home demolitions within Israel in the Negev than in the occupied territories, Yiftachel said. Israeli bulldozers have repeatedly razed Araqib village—for the 36th time this past March 8—with the intention of planting a pine forest in its place, to be funded by God TV, a worldwide Christian television network. According to Yiftachel, the Israeli government’s position is that the entire Negev is Jane Adas is a free-lance writer based in the New York City metropolitan area. 52

“dead” land, meaning that because the residents did not register the land during the British Mandate, it belongs to the state. The government further claims that the Bedouin are not indigenous to the area, but are nomadic Saudis with no legal autonomy. In fact, Yiftachel said, the Bedouin have not been nomads for centuries. He has found records as far back as the 16th century showing that the Bedouin paid agricultural taxes to the Ottomans, and by the 18th century land allocation was quite fixed. According to a 1922 British census, 89.3 percent of the population in the Negev was in agriculture; the rest were herders who had limited mobility within tribal territories. Many of the “illegal” unrecognized villages are mentioned in 1920 Jewish Agency reports and appear on the 1928 Mandate map. In 1971, the Israeli government asked the Bedouin to register their land. Claims were launched by 3,320 of them, but today, 40 years on, 90 percent of the claims have yet to be resolved. Last Sept. 11, the government approved a plan for the “Regulation of the Bedouin Settlement in the Negev,” prepared by a committee headed by ex-generals with no Bedouin representation. Under this plan, the government will erase the 46 “unrecognized” villages and move the residents to seven government-planned towns. The few Bedouin whose claims have been recognized may receive some compensation. The exgenerals view this as generous, Yiftachel noted wryly, since in their view the Bedouin citizens of Israel have no land rights at all.

Guilty Until Proven Innocent Prof. Emeritus Jack Shaheen has dedicated his career to identifying and countering dehumanizing portrayals of Arabs in American media. He published his findings in such books as Arab and Muslim Stereotyping in American Culture; Guilty: Hollywood’s Verdict on Arabs after 9/11; and Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People (all available from the AET Book Club). In the course of his research, Shaheen collected thousands of anti-Arab images: movies, cartoons, advertisements, comic books and games. These now constitute the Jack G. Shaheen Archive, which Shaheen donated to New York University’s Taminent Library. THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

New York City and Tri-StateNews

To mark the occasion, the university held a three-day symposium of film screenings and panel discussions.

STAFF PHOTO J. ADAS

Oren Yiftachel Discusses Dispossession of Some Israeli Citizens: Bedouin of the Negev

Dr. Jack Shaheen. “Guilty Until Proven Innocent,” a panel held on Feb. 24, addressed the issue of the New York Police Department’s (NYPD) use of an anti-Muslim film, “The Third Jihad,” as part of its officer-training program. The event began with clips from the film, which warns that “Islamo-fascists” plan to “infiltrate and dominate America,” and includes a doctored photo of the White House with an Islamic flag flying over it. Those interviewed in “The Third Jihad,” such as Bernard Lewis and Walid Phares, explain that the first jihad was the 7th-century Arab conquest; the second was the Ottoman expansion into the Balkans. Now, they charge, we have the final jihad of the 1,400-year war, with CAIR (the Council on AmericanIslamic Relations) serving as the conduit for the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, Hezbollah and al-Qaeda, among others. In January 2011, the Village Voice published an article about the NYPD’s use of “The Third Jihad.” NYPD spokesman Paul Browne responded that it was shown only once or twice, then pulled. The interview with Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly shown in the film, Browne added, was excerpted from other sources. Faiza Patel, on MAY 2012

behalf of NYUâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Brennan Center, filed a Freedom of Information request. It took the NYPD nearly a year to respond with 20 pages of heavily redacted material. But, Patel said, it was enough to prove that the film was shown on a continuous loop for at least three months, was seen by 1,489 police officers of all ranks, and that Kelly had sat for a 90-minute interview with the filmâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s producer, Raphael Shore. Patel contacted The New York Times and, to her surprise, the story appeared on the front page of the Jan. 24 edition. Still unknown is how the NYPD acquired the film and who made the decision to use it for training sessions. Moustafa Bayoumi, author of How Does It Feel To Be a Problem?: Being Young and Arab in America (available from the AET Book Club), noted that the New York Times story came out four months after the AP published articles about the NYPD spying on Muslim communities. He therefore began by greeting any informers in the audience. Since 9/11, Bayoumi observed, the notion of what the U.S. meansâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;that citizens have a right to be private and the government is supposed to be publicâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;has been turned on its head. A â&#x20AC;&#x153;terrorocracyâ&#x20AC;? has developed where massive resources are wasted on bad policies, like profiling, mapping and surveillance. Yet the NYPD missed the Times Square and subway bombers, Bayoumi pointed out. What the bad policies have accomplished, he concluded, is to raise the level of populist anger at Muslims, making them feel radioactive. Jack Shaheen described â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Third Jihadâ&#x20AC;? as emblematic of the politics of fear and exclusion. It is â&#x20AC;&#x153;extremely well done,â&#x20AC;? he continued, â&#x20AC;&#x153;as were Nazi anti-Semitic films.â&#x20AC;? The film was financed by the Clarion Fund, he noted, a New York-based nonprofit group that shares officials with an Israeli organization, Aish HaTorah. Shaheen said that what most disturbs him, other than â&#x20AC;&#x153;they got away with it,â&#x20AC;? is how such stereotyping affects the way New York City police officers deal with Arab Americans.

Trita Parsi at Carnegie Council Trita Parsi, on tour promoting his latest book (see â&#x20AC;&#x153;Parsi Discusses A Single Roll of the Dice: Obamaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Diplomacy with Iran, March/April 2012 Washington Report, p. 57), spoke in New York City at the Carnegie Council on Jan. 10 and at a Global Affairs Forum on Feb. 27. His topicâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;U.S./Iranian relationsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;could not be timelier. The Bush administrationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s refusal to negotiate with the Islamic Republic, Parsi began, only made Iran more powerful, because it was seen to be challenging an increasingly unpopular MAY 2012

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Author Trita Parsi. U.S. administration. President Barack Obama began with good intentions for diplomacyâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;but, Parsi argued, pressure from Congress and Israel ate up his political capital. Then Iranâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s fraudulent elections on June 13, 2009, followed by massive demonstrations and a government crackdown, gave a moral blow to the Obama administrationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s policy of pursuing negotiations. Obama then activated the pressure track. The relationship has been exacerbated by irresponsible rhetoric on all sides, Parsi said. He criticized the U.S. media and politicians for cherry-picking their quotes. They rarely mention Ayatollah Khameneiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s religious fatwa about the immorality of possessing nuclear weapons, but endlessly repeat President Mahmoud Ahmadinejadâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s alleged statement that â&#x20AC;&#x153;Israel should be wiped off the map.â&#x20AC;? Ahmadinejad did not actually say the words â&#x20AC;&#x153;Israel,â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;wipe,â&#x20AC;? or â&#x20AC;&#x153;map,â&#x20AC;? Parsi pointed out, but instead was quoting Khomeiniâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Zionist entity will evaporate from the pages of history.â&#x20AC;? Washingtonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s â&#x20AC;&#x153;all options are on the tableâ&#x20AC;? is a constant threat, but Parsi warned that not all options are compatible with international law. The pressure track comprises increasingly devastating sanctions, Parsi saidâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; but pointed out that every escalation in sanctions has led to Iranian nuclear advances. Ten countries have had such severe sanctions imposed on them, he noted, but in only one caseâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;South Africaâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;did the regime dismantle its nuclear weapons program. The others became more difficult and autocratic. Moreover, Parsi continued, Tehran assumes that Washington is seeking regime change, so even if Iran changes course on the nuclear issue, the U.S. would pick another fightâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;over, for example, human rights. Parsi also noted that the THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

sanctions are harming the U.S. economy by re-directing business opportunities to the Chinese and causing oil prices to rise. Parsi said he does not believe Israeli leaders truly believe a nuclear-capable Iran poses an existential threat. Rather, he views such language, along with â&#x20AC;&#x153;irrational leadersâ&#x20AC;? and â&#x20AC;&#x153;intractable mullahs,â&#x20AC;? as designed to close off all options except war. According to Parsi, this presents a false choice: bomb Iran or accept a nuclear Iran. He sees Israelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s time frame as more dependent on the American electoral cycle than anything Iran might do, because the risk of jeopardizing U.S.-Israeli relations is lowest during the campaign season. Parsi predicted that Israel would feel pressured to act soon if it looks like President Obama will be re-elected. The Obama administration is resisting pressure from Israel and Congress, Parsi said, citing recent articles that he assumes were planted in The New York Times: one stating that the Israeli military does not have the capacity to destroy Iranâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s nuclear reactors, another reporting that Israel was behind the assassinations of Iranian scientists via a group on the U.S. terrorist list. Indeed, two days after Parsiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s talk, a frontpage headline read: â&#x20AC;&#x153;U.S. Sees Iran Attacks as Likely if Israel Strikes.â&#x20AC;? The solution, Parsi asserted, is diplomacy, which takes time and requires the political will and courage to overcome the imperfections of any agreement. However, he concluded, as long as it is less costly politically to send 40,000 troops rather than a few diplomats, U.S. policy will continue to be a clenched fist. The status quo is not motionless, he warned. It is tipping toward confrontation and making any resumption of negotiations more difficult. Parsi called it a three-way game of chicken, in which it is not clear that any steering wheel works. â?&#x2018; (Advertisement)

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twair_54-55_Southern California Chronicle 4/3/12 8:46 PM Page 54

Attempt to Silence Ilan Pappe Lectures Backfires at Three CSU Campuses By Pat and Samir Twair

STAFF PHOTO S. TWAIR

paper, but it documents what Palestinians have always suspected: that Israel planned to occupy the West Bank and Gaza while denying their Arab residents Israeli citizenship. In July and August 1967, the declassified documents show, occupation plans were set and religiously adhered to. The only way to challenge them, Pappe explained, was to question Zionism and its goal of an exclusive Jewish state. The military government exercised unlimIlan Pappe (l) with Susan Slyomovics, director of UCLA’s Center ited control over Palesfor Near Eastern Studies. tinians—it could expel anyone, arrest and imhen the hard-line Israel-first group prison people without trial, direct all busiAmsha (Hebrew for “our people”) ness transactions and decide school curriclearned that Israeli historical revisionist ula. Israel deemed it undesirable to annex the scholar Ilan Pappe was going to speak at three California State University campuses West Bank and Gaza because of the Pales(Northridge, San Luis Obispo and Fresno), tinian population, which couldn’t be driit sent a formal letter to the CSU chancellor ven out as happened in 1947-48, so “peace asking him to rescind Pappe’s invitation to process” was the euphemism for annexaspeak because he criticizes Israeli policies. tion. Eventually, Pappe concluded, this reA Feb. 14 response from the chancellor sulted in the world’s largest mega prisons and the three CSU campus presidents shot for four million people living under these down any ambitions the Zionist organiza- restrictions for three generations. The question of Israel attacking Iran was tion had of silencing Pappe’s talk on his latest research into newly declassified 1967 raised in the question-and-answer session. Israeli military documents. Dismissing its “Israel invented the narrative that an Iranclaims, CSU administrators stated that ian nuclear war is an existential threat to there is no danger to a free society in hear- its existence, Israel wants to be the only ing opposing views—but there is a real stud in the neighborhood,” Pappe replied. “Israel is debating only one issue—can it danger in censoring them. As it turned out, Amsha’s ploy backfired: successfully carry out such a strike?” audience numbers were two and three times those originally expected. Pappe ad- Assad Has Lost All Legitimacy, Avers dressed “The False Paradigm of Parity and U.S. Ambassador to Syria Partition: Revisiting 1967” on Feb. 24 at The first anniversary of the Syrian uprisUCLA. There were no revelations in his ing against the government of Bashar Assad was marked by the Southern CaliPat and Samir Twair are free-lance journal- fornia Syrian American Council (SAC) with ists based in Los Angeles. a March 18 town hall meeting featuring

Southern California Chronicle

U.S. Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford and Congresswoman Maxine Waters. More than 800 Syrian Americans assembled in the Anaheim Hilton to hear the speakers, while outside a crowd of perhaps 50 government loyalists held photos of the Syrian president. Ford openly met with opposition leaders while in Syria—where U.S. Embassy operations have been suspended—and is credited with personally preventing a massacre in Hama when he visited the city in August amid rumors of a pending government assault on civilian protesters. On Oct. 24, he was recalled to Washington because of credible threats to his safety, including an attempted break-in at the U.S. Embassy.

THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

STAFF PHOTO S. TWAIR

Ambassador Robert Ford. “The Syrian government is hiding behind the excuse that terrorists are killing the people,” Ford charged. It must understand that 2012 is not the same as 1982 or 2005, he added, and that the world will not open its doors to Syria again. “You need a plan to unite around, and to convince fearful minorities in Syria that a post-Bashar Syria will be better than his rubbish,” he urged the audience. “You can offer ideas on how to create a peaceful transition. You understand minority rights and the need for a free press and TV.” Observing that more than 200,000 Syrians have become internal refugees, Ford noted that Syrian Christians are afraid of a fate similar to that of Christians in postMAY 2012

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Saddam Iraq, while Alawite families are retreating to Latakia because they fear a Rawandalike situation when Assad falls. The fears of Syria’s minorities must be addressed, he concluded. Congressional deputy whip Maxine Waters (D-CA), who sits on the House Finance and Judicial committees, vowed she would inform the Black, Progressive and Women’s Caucuses of the need for Congress to support the Syrian peoples’ struggle for democracy. When the audience repeatedly asked why the U.S. doesn’t supply arms to the Free Syria Army (FSA), Ford replied: “If the FSA is given weapons, will the government intensify its fire power? We don’t know who is in the FSA or what it would do with those weapons. Once a military campaign begins, one doesn’t know what will happen.” Defending the Obama administration, he added: “No other country but the U.S. has called for Assad to step down. No other country has formed a coalition of 137 countries in the U.N. General Assembly critical of Syria.”

called for an end to representation without elections, as in the case of Mahmoud Abbas’ seemingly endless leadership. “We’re not waiting for some president to save us,” Barghouti continued. “Israel took power from the Palestinians—now we must take back power and mobilize through nonviolent resistance.” Stressing the Palestinians have no security, Barghouti cited the example of Israeli troops invading the headquarters of Watan TV and Jerusalem TV just the day before. “The peace process is over and dead,” he declared. “Occupation is profitable for Israel. It’s confiscating 90 percent of the West Bank’s water. We must make the occupation a losing one, not a profitable one, by exercising BDS [boycott, divestment, sanctions] worldwide.”

Stanley Sheinbaum Saluted

MAY 2012

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What an extraordinary life Stanley K. Sheinbaum has led. Friend to prime ministers, political leaders, movie stars and even some regarded by the right-wing as renegades, at age 91, he’s put it all down in a memoir, A 20th Century Knight’s TOP: BDS supporters (l-r) Tawfieq Mousa, Dr. Mustafa Bar- Quest for Peace, Civil Liberties ghouti and Dr. Laila El-Marayati. ABOVE: Stanley K. Schein- and Economic Justice. And so, on “Monsieur Lazhar” a Feb. 12, more than 200 friends baum (l) with co-author William A. Meis. Must-See Film and admirers gathered at the Canada’s official entry in this year’s Acad- deaths in Algeria of his teacher wife and Brentwood home of Sheinbaum and his emy Awards foreign film category, “Mon- their two children, killed by terrorists. Is wife, Betty, to celebrate the publication of sieur Lazhar,” lost to Iran’s “A Separation.” πhe a genuine educator? Will he be his book. Sheinbaum risked danger and severe critBut in introducing the work and its cre- granted political asylum? Falardeau developed the film from a 78- icism in his struggles for justice, such as ator, Philippe Falardeau, at a Feb. 12 screening at The Los Angeles Screen Di- minute one-man play by Evelyne de la organizing Daniel Ellsberg’s defense for rectors Guild, venerated film director Nor- Cheneliere and recruited his child actors the Pentagon Papers trial, securing the reman Jewison described it as a unique and from a Montreal school. It is a quiet little lease of his friend, Greek Prime Minister masterpiece that shouldn’t be missed. Andreas Papandreou, from a military one-of-its-kind production. We agreed. Viewers quickly are caught “Monsieur Lazhar” opens April 13 in Los junta, or personally persuading PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat to talk to the Isup in the trauma suffered by Montreal Angeles and New York. raelis. grade schoolers whose teacher hanged herColumnist Robert Scheer recounted a self in the classroom. Enter immigrant Moustafa Barghouti Urges Unity Bachir Lazhar (Algerian comedian Fellag), Dr. Moustafa Barghouti addressed a stand- few of the adventures he shared with the who applies for and fills the deceased in- ing-room-only audience March 2 in La Mi- vigorous activist, and Sheinbaum’s co-austructor’s job. rada Inn with the statement: “We need thor, William A. Meis, described the Things don’t go easily. Monsieur unity. Some want a socialist Palestine, some many hours of interviews that made up Lazhar’s teaching is antiquated and diffi- want a free-market Palestine, others want the book In his own words, Sheinbaum says it all: cult for the students, but two of them, a feminist Palestine. I don’t care. Let’s first “It’s not so important whether we win the Alice (Sophie Nelisse) and Simon (Emilien have a Palestine.” Neron) develop a deep connection with The secretary-general of the Palestinian battles. What really matters is that we contheir concerned teacher. Lazhar has his Initiative urged Palestinians living in the tinue to fight the battles—for justice, for own problems grieving over the violent U.S. to demand unity inside Palestine and equality, for fairness…” ❑ THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

brownfeld_56-57_Israel and Judaism 4/5/12 11:08 AM Page 56

American Jewish Community Not Represented By Those Pushing for War With Iran Israel andJudaism

JEWEL SAMAD/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

By Allan C. Brownfeld

Demonstrators protesting a war on Iran shout slogans as President Barack Obama’s motorcade passes by following his speech to AIPAC’s annual policy conference, March 4, 2012. he annual meeting of the American Is-

Trael Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in Washington in March was dominated by talk of Iran’s nuclear program and the need to combat it. Covering it for The Washington Post, Dana Milbank headlined his March 6, 2012 report “AIPAC Sounds Its War Cry.” “It’s beginning to feel a lot like 2003 in the capital,” he wrote. “Nine years ago... there was a similar feeling of inevitability—that despite President George W. Bush’s frequent insistence that ‘war is my last choice,’ war in Iraq was coming. Now Israel is moving toward a pre-emptive strike on Iran’s nuclear program, and American leaders are coming before AIPAC...to give their blessings....Howard Kohr, AIPAC’s executive director, told the crowd that ‘time is running out quickly.’” 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. 56

Attendees at the AIPAC meeting admired an armored personnel carrier, a surface-to-air missile and a model of an Israeli drone. To those who opposed military action against Iran, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu cited a 1944 letter from the World Jewish Congress, which pleaded with the U.S. to bomb Auschwitz but was rebuffed by Washington’s War Department. “My friends, 2012 is not 1944,” the Israeli prime minister said. “Never again will the Jewish people be powerless.” Writing in the liberal Israeli newspaper Haaretz on March 4, Gideon Levy noted that, “An elephant and an ant will meet in Washington...for a critical summit. But wait, who here is the elephant and who the ant? Who is the superpower and who the patronage state? A new chapter is being written in the history of nations. Never before has a small country dictated to a superpower; never before has the chirp of the cricket sounded like a roar; never has the elephant resembled the ant---and vice versa. No Roman province dared to tell Julius Caesar what to do, no tribe ever dreamed of forcing Genghis Khan to act in THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

accordance with its own tribal interests. Only Israel does this.” Continued Levy: “For the past few years the Israeli cricket has been chirping ‘Iran,’ and the world responds with a muffled echo. It isn’t that Iran is only an Israeli problem, but North Korea could endanger Japan just as much as Iran endangers Israel—and the world has not come running to Japan’s side. Netanyahu’s Israel has dictated the global agenda as no small state has ever done before, just as its international standard is at its nadir and its dependence on the United States at a zenith.” In Levy’s view, “When [Netanyahu] goes to the White House...he will make a new demand: Either you or we [attack Iran], putting the leader of the free world in a tight spot. Obama does not want to ensnare his country in another war or in an energy crisis, but when Netanyahu demanded, who will not fear? This would appear to be a good thing, a reason to marvel at the prime minister. A cat may look at a king, but it does not always end well. One day, perhaps, even in a brainwashed America the questions may begin: another war? Is it right to put more American soldiers in harm’s way for an interest that is more Israeli than American? And perhaps we should also make demands from the small protégé.” Haaretz editor-in-chief Aluf Benn, who covered Netanyahu for years as the newspaper’s diplomatic correspondent, said the prime minister had succeeded in shifting the diplomatic conversation, after the Obama administration has been focused on peace efforts with the Palestinians. Then, Netanyahu’s rhetoric on Iran was seen as an effort to divert attention from Israeli settlement building in the West Bank, which was opposed by Washington. “He did a very good job of changing the world’s priorities,” Benn said, “and he achieved that by saber rattling vis-à-vis Iran. The problem is that you can reach a point when the political price of not going to war becomes too much to bear. If the Iranian nuclear program is the Holocaust, then, the question becomes: What did you do, Mr. Netanyahu, to prevent it? You have to deliver.” Iran, of course, does not currently have a nuclear weapon—while Israel has a huge MAY 2012

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arsenal of such weapons. U.S. intelligence believes that Iran is several years away from achieving a nuclear capacity, and that it remains unclear that the Iranian leaders have even made a decision to move in this direction. Former national security adviser Gary Sick, who worked on Iran during the country’s 1979 Islamic revolution, does not envision a situation in which Tehran decides to break out and build a bomb—unless it is attacked. Actually crossing the nuclear threshold would be “inviting an attack,” Sick said, and would not be in Iran’s interest. But even if it doesn’t build a bomb, Sick believes, Iran’s demonstrated capability to do so will make it a member of a small club of nations, such as Japan, Brazil and Sweden, that can acquire a nuclear weapon if they break away from the Non-Proliferation Treaty. In either case, he argues, Iran’s goal is to assert its position as a major player in the region—one that the world should take seriously and with which it should consult. This, however, seemed of little interest to the approximately 13,000 supporters of Israel who attended the AIPAC conference, then went to Capitol Hill to lobby their members of Congress. The fact is that, although it often promotes itself as the voice of the Jewish community, AIPAC is hardly representative of American Jewish opinion. In a full-page ad in the March 7, 2012 New York Times headlined, “No, Mr. Netanyahu, No, President Obama: No War On Iran and No First Strike,” the liberal Jewish journal Tikkun, along with the Network of Spiritual Progressives and the Shalem Center, declared: “Some of us who signed this ad believe that even a nuclear Iran—faced with the certainty that its first aggressive use of nuclear weapons would engender a massive retaliation sufficient to kill most of the people of Iran—would not dare take a first nuclear strike against Israel or the United States. Americans once perceived the Soviet Union to be equally evil, irrational and driven by ideological fundamentalism—yet the Soviet Union, armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons, was constrained by the possibility of mutually assured destruction. The same is likely to be true of Iran should its ideologically driven leaders ever decide to develop nuclear weapons.” The ad continued: “Some of us believe that Israel could actually work out peaceful relations with Iran and enhance its own security and U.S. security by ending the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, MAY 2012

helping the Palestinian people create an economically and politically viable state, taking generous steps to alleviate the humiliation and suffering of Palestinian refugees, and supporting Palestinian membership in the United Nations. Those steps, done with a spirit of openhearted generosity toward the Palestinian people and the people of all the surrounding states, is far more likely than military strikes against Iran...to provide a safe and secure future for Israel.” Although many Americans are unaware of it, Israeli opinion itself is sharply divided over Netanyahu’s call for pre-emptive war. Many respected Israelis believe that a pre-emptive attack against Iran would be a major mistake for Israel and do it serious long-term harm. Political scientist Yehezkel Dror, an Israel Prize winner and founding president of the Jewish People Policy Institute, says that with regard to Iran, Israel needs to rely on “ultimate deterrence.” Not only will an attack on Tehran’s nuclear facilities be counterproductive, he argues, but the real danger Is-

rael faces is from a gradual wearing away of its staying power. “Assuming you attack, then what?” Dror asks. “In five years, they will recuperate with absolute determination to revenge. The idea that an Israeli attack will make Iran into a peace-loving country is not on my horizon. I don’t know anything like this in history. I know the opposite from history...Iran has a very low probability of being a suicidal state. They have a long culture, a long history, and they are much more involved in the Sh’i-Sunni conflict than in the Israeli side-issue. I think no one has any doubt that if Israel’s existence is in danger it will use mass killing weapons.” While the promotion of pre-emptive war with Iran does not represent the views of the vast majority of American Jews, politicians are acting as if it does. Loose talk of war is dangerous, not least to Israel itself. It is time for leading Jewish voices to vocally repudiate those who are prepared to lead our own country—and Israel as well—into a war whose unintended consequences they seem not to have considered. ❑

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Rassem El Massih: A Voice of the Faithful

Christianity and the Middle East

PHOTO BY LINDA THOMAS

By Linda M. Thomas

Rassem El Massih (c) sings with seminarians and cantors at the Holy Cross School of Theology. housands of miles from the tiny church

Twhere he first began to chant, the pure

and powerful vocals of Rassem El Massih ring out in prayer. The first cantor at St. George Orthodox Church in West Roxbury, Massachusetts has embraced Byzantine music from the time he was a small boy growing up on the coast of north Lebanon in a town called Anfeh. Today his voice and spiritual presence are felt during vespers service at Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology in Brookline as well as Sunday mornings in nearby West Roxbury. On Oct. 26, 2009, El Massih led the choir at the UN prayer services presided over by the Ecumenical Patriarch, Archbishop Constantinople, at the cathedral of the Holy Trinity of the Greek Archdiocese. Last December, El Massih and four other seminarians from Holy Cross were invited to perform at Carnegie Hall with the Archdiocesan Byzantine Choir of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America. The concert honored St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church at Ground Zero, the only house of Linda M. Thomas is a Boston paralegal and profile writer. She can be reached at <lin dasfaces@gmail.com>. 58

worship destroyed on 9/11, and in thanksgiving for the announcement of its rebuilding. “Rassem’s voice is beautiful,” said His Eminence the Most Reverend Metropolitan Philip, Primate of the Antiochian Archdiocese of North America, who said he was “edified” listening to the first-ever Byzantine music concert at Carnegie Hall. “When he chants, it sounds like a nightingale. His voice is very soothing to the soul and to the heart. Sometimes he is as gentle and soft as an evening summer breeze,” the Metropolitan said of El Massih. “Sometimes he roars like a waterfall.” Whether he’s chanting inside a celebrated arena like Carnegie Hall or a small out-of-the-way monastery, however, the 31-year-old divinity student says he feels the same: “My goal is to praise God regardless where I am.”

Drawn to Sacred Music “I was a very shy and quiet boy who was drawn to church and specifically its sacred music,” El Massih said. “After school, I would eat, then try to finish my homework as fast as I could so I could listen to Byzantine chant. I definitely wanted also to play THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

with my friends like any other boy my age, but church was as important to me as playing with my friends.” He began chanting in churches and in school when he was 9. Seeking to perfect his voice, he enrolled at the School of Byzantine Music of the Archdiocese of Tripoli and El-Koura, while at the same time directing the choir of Our Lady of AlNatour Monastery, a serene sanctuary surrounded by the Mediterranean Sea just outside Anfeh. “Anything they taught me I would say, ‘You don’t have to repeat the melody for me twice.’ Boom. I got it,” he recalled. “Because I was so in love with it, I would do anything to memorize it. I spent hours and hours practicing.” In 2002 El Massih came with his family to the United States and settled in Boston. At the time, his parents spoke no English, so El Massih got a job to help support them and his two younger sisters while still a full-time student. He earned a bachelor of arts degree in religious studies and a minor in human development from Hellenic College in 2010. Currently he is a graduate student at Holy Cross seminary, and hopes to receive a master’s in divinity in May 2013. In his 33 years as a priest, said Very Rev. Father Timothy Ferguson, pastor of the West Roxbury parish where El Massih and Continued on page 82 Byzantine Chant refers to the liturgical music used in the worship of the Greek Orthodox Church as well as other non-Greek-speaking Orthodox Churches. Instruments are excluded from chant, which is performed by members of the choir singing the same melody in unison, accompanied by a drone sung by the basses. —Prof. Grammenos Karanos To listen to Rassem El Massih, visit <www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxOiZXgjJaU> and <www.youtube. com/watch?v=CPt-XOXDfys>.

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Shadid kept his “stubborn optimism” even after he was shot in the back by an Israeli sniper, who missed his spinal cord by Anthony Shadid Honored at one inch, his cousin exclaimed. “It gave Busboys and Poets him a greater appreciation for life.” Anthony Shadid was no adrenaline Andy Shallal, owner of five Busboys and junkie and he wouldn’t like his death or Poets in the Washington, DC metro area, the risks he took to get his stories to be held a special event in remembrance of jourglorified or over-romanticized, his cousin nalist Anthony Shadid at the 5th and K Bussaid. In fact, Ed criticized The New York boys on March 17. In his 15-year career as a Times and other publications for insisting foreign correspondent Shadid worked for journalists like Shadid take those the Associated Press, The Boston risks and continue to work, igGlobe, The Washington Post and, noring their health or PTSD. finally, The New York Times. He (Shadid and three of his Times died Feb. 15, at the age of 43, colleagues were captured in while leaving Syria after covering Libya, held and tortured in the uprising there. March 2011.) Like other Arab-American Lebanese-American Ralph readers, Shallal said, “Anthony Nader, the revered American poShadid’s voice was also my litical activist who never shied voice.” When Shallal’s daughter away from discussing critical isLaila took a writing course, he sues as a presidential candidate, showed her one of Anthony Sharead an excerpt that he said did’s articles written in Iraq, deeply touched him from ShaShallal’s birthplace. “This is what did’s book House of Stone (availjournalism is supposed to look able from the AET Book Club), like,” he told her. “Shadid cuts describing the aftermath of Isthrough the garbage and gets rael’s air attack on Qana, near through to the heart and soul in Shadid’s ancestral home. “Some every story he writes and still he has the ability to retain neutral- Ralph Nader honors the “most gifted foreign correspondent in a suffering cannot be covered in words,” Shadid wrote. “In the ity,” Shallal told his daughter. generation.” Lebanese town of Qana, where From that day on, whenever an Israeli bombs caught their vicarticle by Anthony Shadid was tims in the midst of a morning’s published, Shallal said, he and work, we saw the dead standing, his daughter sat down to read it sitting, looking around...” aloud together. Shallal quoted “Shadid’s death has deprived Washington Post reporter Steve us of passionate dispatches from Fainaru, who worked with Shathe most gifted foreign corredid in Iraq, who said,“He was the spondent in a generation,” Nader best reporter, his attention to delamented. (See Nader’s article tail was amazing, he wrote poetry about Shadid in this issue’s on deadline.” “Other Voices” supplement.) In her remarks, Washington Referring to Shadid’s return to Post Cairo bureau chief Leila Fadel emphasized that Shadid Andy Shallal said he and his daughter read each Anthony Shadid his great-grandfather’s home in the southern Lebanese town of may have been the greatest piece together. Marjayoun, and his subsequent chronicler of the Middle East, but he was also a great advocate for young in Cairo and subsequently changed the memoir, House of Stone, Nader encouraged journalists—he always “turned around journalism industry by being able to speak his audience to follow Shadid’s lead. “Look and tugged others along.” Fadel described directly to people in the streets of war at your roots to examine where you came from.” the pep talks Shadid frequently gave her zones. Nader concluded his remarks by calling “He relentlessly humanized the people when she was a young aspiring journalist. “When I had been rejected from every of the Middle East,” Ed Shadid empha- for greater protection for correspondents, newspaper internship I had applied for, I sized, and “desanitized” the war in Iraq. and for establishing a new protocol to procalled him, dejected. He told me several in- For example, instead of counting civilian tect journalists when they’re sent into tern programs had turned him down. He casualties like most media outlets did, Sha- harm’s way. As the Busboys remembrance service saved every rejection letter and looked did focused on one unforgettable family back at them with satisfaction. They had looking for the grave of a son, missing for ended, people gathered around to offer five years in Iraq. [“Restoring Names to condolences to Anthony’s wife, New York been wrong about him.” In a culture where Arab-American par- War’s Unknown Casualties,” published in Times correspondent Nada Baki, his children Malik and Laila Shadid (Laila, 10, said ents hope their children become doctors, The New York Times on Aug. 30, 2010.] engineers or lawyers, “Shadid was the role model we never had,” Fadel noted. “He was a terrific advocate for young journalists who looked up to him and sought to emulate his work, but never could.” Ed Shadid, Anthony’s cousin, said that even as a 19-year-old, nothing intimidated him. Anthony developed a stubborn optimism that life was going to get better for Arab people, Ed Shadid observed. He studied Arabic at the American University

STAFF PHOTO D. HANLEY

Arab-American Activism

THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

MAY 2012

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ADC Women’s Initiative (DC Area) Celebrates International Women’s Day The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) Women’s Initiative held its first International Women’s Day celebration at the Fairfax Marriott Hotel in Fairfax, VA on March 25. The sold-out event honored the achievements of four extraordinary Arab-American women whose lives model true leadership and dedication to their community. The program included an art exhibit by Arab-American women, including Manal Deeb, Thoria Hassan, Muna Yousef, Helen Zughaib, Suad Raja, Sevim Alkhaldi and Rima Nasser. Dr. Amal David, chairman of the ADC Women’s Initiative, welcomed the guests and explained the purpose behind the initiative, which is to empower ADC as the organization protects civil rights, promotes mutual understanding and preserves Arab cultural heritage. Her husband, ADC President Warren David, a third-generation Arab American who has been active in Detroit’s ADC chapter since 1980, then spoke about ADC’s growth and projects since he took on the role of president last year. There are three and a half million Arab Americans,

many of them highly educated and successful, but they need to be active and united, he emphasized. That’s a good description of this year’s awardees, including Dr. Aziza Al-Hibri, the first female Muslim law professor in the United States, who in 1993 founded KARAMAH: Muslim Women Lawyers for Human Awardee Lobna Ismail (l) and her daughter Laila. Rights. In 2011 she was appointed by President Barack Obama to added, “We hope we do well by you and all serve on the U.S. Commission on Interna- girls ahead of us.” Reema Dodin, a staffer for Assistant Mational Religious Freedom. Arab Americans can help the U.S. become a more accepting jority Leader Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL), society because, she explained, “Arabs presented an award to Helen Zughaib, who know how to live in an interfaith culture— was honored for her outstanding achievements in the arts. Zughaib’s work has been we’ve done so for centuries.” Another awardee, Dr. Nuha Abudabbeh, exhibited in galleries and museums worlda specialist in cross-cultural issues and wide, and a special Arab Spring exhibit foforensic psychology, founded and operates cusing on women was on view in March NAIM, an Arab-American social service or- and April at the Jerusalem Fund Gallery. ganization. Abudabbeh, the host of a live Zughaib’s artwork compels viewers to discommunity radio show on ANA (Arab Net- cover people’s stories and think differently work of America) for more than 10 years, of- about the Arab world. Her best known series is “Stories My Father Told Me” (see Aufered to provide her expertise to ADC. The third awardee, Lobna Ismail, is the gust 2011 Washington Report, p. 34). founder and president of Connecting Cul- Zughaib said she was overwhelmed and tures, LLC and specializes in cross-cultural humbled by her award. “I paint by myself communication, cultural competence, Arab in a study with two cats,” she said. ”Everyand American cultures, Islamic awareness, one at every table has their own stories.” Dr. Huda Asfour sang and played moving and religious diversity. When she was growing up in a small evangelical Christian Arabic selections on the oud. After a prayer community, Ismail recalled, she was always for peace and tranquility in the Arab world, looking for a place for “all of me to fit in.” the evening concluded with more Arabic ADC is that place, she said, and asking her music and dancing, including the dabkeh. —Delinda C. Hanley daughter Laila to join her up front, she STAFF PHOTO D. HANLEY

she wants to be a writer like her father), and other relatives in the audience. This writer told Shadid’s young widow that the Washington Report has never had so many Arab-American applicants for our internship program as we’ve had since his death. We can only hope many more ArabAmericans will continue his remarkable work. —Delinda C. Hanley

Music & Arts

STAFF PHOTO D. HANLEY

Jerusalem Fund Gallery Hosts Zughaib’s “Thoughts on the Spring”

(L-r) Chair of the ADC Board of Directors Dr. Safa Rifka, congressional staffer Reema Dodin, honoree artist Helen Zughaib, and Amal and Warren David. MAY 2012

THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

The Jerusalem Fund Gallery’s March 9 opening reception for the fabulous exhibit “Thoughts on the Spring: New Paintings by Helen Zughaib” was packed. Was it because the revolutions and Arab Spring have captured the imagination of Americans, including art lovers? Was it the Washington Post DC Metro Arts column trumpeting the exhibit? Was it because under Dagmar Painter’s deft touch the gallery is the “go to” place for art lovers in DC? Or was it simply because this acclaimed Arab-American artist has earned accolades (see above) and a huge international following? Zughaib feels that her background allows her to observe both Arab and American cultures. She “believes that the arts are one of 61

COURTESY OF JERUSALEM GALLERY

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“Map of home,” by Helen Zughaib. the most important tools we have to help shape and foster dialogue and positive ideas between the Middle East and the United States,” she explained. Like her previous exhibit, “Stories My Father Told Me,” Zughaib’s reflections upon the Arab Spring in gouache paintings and collages are seriously thought-provoking as well as stirringly beautiful. Her loving depictions of Arab women, using vibrant colors or just black and white, make viewers confident that women will blossom—and have fun—in this Arab Spring. While the exhibit closed April 13, 2012, you can view Zughaib’s works right now on the Jerusalem Fund’s Web site, <www.the jerusalemfund.org>. —Delinda C. Hanley

Author Marwan Bishara Discusses The Invisible Arab

PHOTO COURTESY OF MESTO

MESTO Performs in Oman

formed in a concert replete with poetry reading and ballet numbers in the community center of the Annunciation Church next to Mary’s Well in Nazareth. —Pat McDonnell Twair

Southern California has many symphony orchestras, but musicians compete to join the Multi-Ethnic Star Orchestra (MESTO) founded by Dr. Nabil Azzam in Los Angeles in 2000. Each year it performs in music festivals in distant lands, including Abu Dhabi, UAE; Amman, Jordan; Cairo and Alexandria, Egypt; and Lebanon. On Feb. 7, it performed before an audience of 1,100 in the Royal Opera House of Muscat, Oman. No expenses were spared for the concert in the world-class opera house, which had its premiere performance Oct. 10 when Placido Domingo conducted “Turandot.” Not only were MESTO’s 50 musicians on an Emirates Airlines flight, but six cellos were strapped into separate seats. Omani dignitaries, as well as U.S. Ambassador to Oman Dr. Richard Schmierer and his wife, Sandy, were on hand to hear American musicians perform music of many cultures. MESTO is renowned for its precision in all instruments of a Western philharmonic orchestra—strings, wind, brass, percussion—as well as qanun, oud, darbuka and daff. The audience was charmed by guest star singer Dalal Abu Amneh who traveled from Nazareth for the performance. Favorite selections were Azzam’s playing of M. ‘Abd alWahhab’s “Unshudat al-Fann” on the violin and qanun virtuoso Lilit Khojayan performance of Maestro Azzam’s composition “Jasmine.” While the MESTO contingent returned from its adventure in Oman, Azzam traveled to his hometown of Nazareth, where he was honored Feb. 22 for his achievements in introducing classical Arab music to the West by the Art and Culture Organization of the Greek Orthodox Parish Council. Azzam per-

MESTO performs in Muscat, Oman’s Royal Opera House. 62

THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

Al Jazeera senior political analyst Marwan Bishara appeared at Georgetown University’s Edward B. Bunn, S.J. Intercultural Center in Washington, DC on Feb. 14 to discuss his new book The Invisible Arab: The Promise and Peril of the Arab Revolutions (available from the AET Book Club). Bishara began his remarks by suggesting that “context” and “perspective” have been lacking in discussions of the Arab revolutions. According to Bishara, many observers became enraptured by the initial successes of the protesters, and thus arbitrarily predetermined that the Arab Awakening would follow a positive trajectory. Due to the fact that the uprisings have not lived up to utopian expectations, Bishara opined that many individuals are now incorrectly portraying the region’s transitions as failures. Saying that he was inspired by the youths’ capacity to conduct sustained and peaceful revolutions, Bishara admitted that he, too, succumbed to blind optimism for the first several months of the uprisings. However, he continued, the initial period of hopeful euphoria has given way to the much “less dreamy” reality that each postuprising country must now confront a bevy of challenges. In his book, Bishara argues that, prior to 2011, Arabs, both at home and abroad, were made to be invisible. Quoting the proverb “a falling tree makes more noise than a growing forest,” he pointed out that for decades the Western world—obsessed with oil, Israel and Islamic fundamentalism—ignored the voices of nearly all Arabs. According to Bishara, by using censorship, imprisonment and the definitive word of staterun media, Arab governments also neglected to give voice to the desires of their citizens. Thus, Bishara explained, “if [an Arab] had anything interesting to say, you were invisible.” Noting that overthrown Arab regimes “peddled nationalism” but ultimately failed to solidify a believable national narrative, Bishara said that Arabs share a “common political language.” This common Arab identity, he believes, explains why revolutionary movements spread so quickly across the region. At the same time, Bishara argued, the expanded presence of satellite television in the Arab world helped create MAY 2012

control over water,” many Muslims for Palestine (AMP) on Feb. 25 at Palestinians lack ade- Belvedere Chateau in Palos Hills, IL. quate access to drinking El Assaad discussed how she overcame and farming water, he the obstacles she faced as a Palestinian said. refugee in Lebanon to graduate from high “To exist is to resist” is school when she was 12 years old and enter the common theme of the college in Qatar when she was 14. Although artwork found along the she is not allowed to go to Palestine, the Palestinian side of the young woman told of her burning desire to wall, Parry said. While see her homeland and for all Palestinians to anger and frustration to- return to “Safad, Haifa, Jaffa, Akkar and ward the U.S. and Israel is Ramallah.” She said she hopes to conduct present in much of the her residency in the United States before reartwork, Parry’s photos of turning first to Qatar and finally to the various graffiti Lebanon, where she wants to work with Al Jazeera analyst Marwan Bishara provides context to the demonstrate that humor, Palestinian refugees. biblical themes, and de“To all the youth here, I have a message,” Arab Awakening. pictions of international she said. “Study, study, study. Education is “a virtual public sphere” that “broke the human rights leaders and historical Pales- our weapon” to help us overcome the occupation. regimes’ hold on what people listen to and tinian figures are also popular. Epitomizing the sense of isolation felt by AMP presented El Assaad with its annual what people watch.” —Dale Sprusansky many who live behind the wall was a mes- Al Quds Award for the inspiration she Author Brings Israel’s Wall to sage on the wall, directed toward Israelis, brings to Palestinian youth around the Americans which reads “Nothing to see here.” This world. Chicago activist Kevin Clark, of the Photojournalist and regular Washington Re- message, Parry explained, is a playful but International Solidarity Movement and the port contributor William Parry [see pp. 16 serious commentary on the fact that most Is- Free Gaza Movement, received AMP’s inauand 42 of this issue] appeared at the 5th & raelis “don’t want to know what’s going on gural Distinction in Activism Award. In addition to the honorees, AMP’s fourth K Busboys and Poets in Washington, DC on behind the wall.” annual dinner featured a diverse and Feb. 17 to kick off the U.S. speaking intellectually stimulating program tour for his book Against the Wall: that included remarks by Karen The Art of Resistance in Palestine AbuZayd, former commissioner gen(available from the AET Book Club). eral of the United Nations Relief and He discussed and showed photos of Works Agency (UNRWA), which the various ways in which the Israel’s oversees Palestinian refugees; AMP illegal West Bank wall hinders and rechairman Dr. Hatem Bazian; and stricts the daily lives of most PalestiniTaher Herzallah, AMP campus coorans. The wall frequently cuts deep dinator, who was one of the “Irvine into Palestinian territory, he said, a 11.” Omar Barghouti, co-founder of fact that led the International Court of the Palestinian Campaign for the CulJustice (ICJ) to declare the wall illegal tural and Academic Boycott of Israel and rule that it must be torn down. and also the Boycott, Divestment and Parry described the town of JayySanctions movement, discussed BDS ous, traditionally known as the and its three “non-negotiable” de“breadbasket of Palestine.” Because a mands: The occupation must end; the significant percentage of Jayyous’ agricultural land has been cut off by William Parry’s photos demonstrate the painful effects system of discrimination against Palestinians living within 1948 Palesthe wall, he said, its residents are now of the wall. tine must end; and all Palestinian required to obtain a permit in order to Parry concluded his presentation with a refugees must be given their individual gain access to their own farmland. Only a limited number of permits are issued every message from the wall: “Now that I have right of return as enshrined in international year, Parry explained, so only about one- seen I am responsible.” —Dale Sprusansky law. Sheikh Jamal Said, director of the third of the town’s farmers are able to access Mosque Foundation, spoke about the imtheir land across the wall. The town’s econMuslim-American Activism portance of the noble cause of Palestine to omy devastated by the wall, two-thirds of Muslims. AMP-Chicago chapter chairman its residents now rely on international food Fadi Sahouri and AMP media director assistance, he said, while 70 percent of resi- AMP Annual Dinner Honors World’s Youngest Medical Student Kristin Szremski also spoke, and Awad dents are currently unemployed. In addition to preventing access to farm- Iqbal El Assaad, a 19-year-old medical stu- Hamdan, AMP national programs director, land, Parry explained that the wall has been dent at Qatar’s Weill Cornell Medical Col- served as emcee. “We were so pleased with the turnout used to limit the Palestinian’s access to lege, regaled more than 1,200 guests with water. Because it was designed to give Israel her story of determination, resilience and and the support shown to us by our comand West Bank settlers “disproportionate courage at the annual dinner for American munity,” Hamdan said. “It is a blessing to STAFF PHOTO D. SPRUSANSKY

STAFF PHOTO D. SPRUSANSKY

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parental decisions she and her husband must make. Ali concluded by sharing the personal stories of several incredible Muslims she has met and written about. The story of Edhi, an elderly Pakistan man “with a huge heart” who runs 300 centers that assist Pakistan’s needy particularly warmed the hearts of those in attendance. According to Ali, because the stories of Edhi and other compassionate and caring Muslims “don’t make it to the nightly news,” the task of telling their stories is incredibly important. —Dale Sprusansky

PHOTO COURTESY AMP

THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

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Speaking Truth to Power: Tribute To Askia Muhammad

Askia Muhammad, poet and journalist, is honored for his achievements. Too often we wait until a person is gone to celebrate his or her life, Rev. Graylan Hagler told the crowd gathered at Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ in Washington, DC on March 23. It makes more sense to examine and learn from the unfolding story of Askia Muhammad, whom Hagler called a “giant of a man in our midst.” Katea Stitt, music and cultural affairs coordinator for Pacifica Radio station WPFW, and Brian Becker, national coordinator of Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (ANSWER) Coalition, co-emceed this celebration of the poet, journalist, radio producer and commentator. Muhammad served as the editor of Muhammad Speaks and as the head of the Washington office of The Final Call, the official newspapers of the Nation of Islam. He currently is WPFW’s news director and host of “Spectrum” and the “Tuesday Morning Jazz Show,” as well as a commentator for National Public Radio. Muhammad has devoted four STAFF PHOTO D. SPRUSANSKY

positive feedback from readers who expressed pleasure in being able “to meet a Muslim family upclose and personal,” she recalled. In the years since her story was published, Ali has taken up freelance writing, and has sought out stories about other ordinary Muslims in an effort to spread interfaith and intercultural understanding. “Personal stories are important in breaking divides,” Ali said, arguing Sana Daoud (l), American Muslims for Palestine national that even the most seemboard member, presents AMP’s annual Al Quds Award to ingly ordinary accounts Iqbal El Assaad, one of the world’s youngest medical students. can be eye-opening and meaningful to others. “Stosee how much AMP has grown in the past ries humanize,” she explained, pointing out four years, from a relatively unknown vol- that “it’s hard to hate someone whose story unteer organization to a leading national or- you know.” For this reason, Ali told her felganization for pro-Palestinian advocacy and low Muslims “it is important that we open up and share [our stories].” Otherwise, she education.” Though they count the dinner as a suc- warned, “someone else will write our narcess, AMP is not content to rest on its lau- rative for us.” Ali told her own story of arriving in the rels. Upcoming events include sponsoring two Friends of Sabeel conferences in Cali- U.S. at age 7 from East Pakistan not speakfornia in March, while high school trainings ing a word of English or having any knowland the next regional Jerusalem Summit are edge of American culture. She initially had difficulty adjusting to life in a vastly differplanned for the East Coast, also in March. —Courtesy American Muslims for Palestine ent culture—one in which her cultural dress was mocked by fellow schoolchildren, Ordinary Muslims Inspire Peace, alcohol was widely consumed, and dating Understanding was a prominent part of the culture. Ali also discussed the challenges and Speaking at KARAMAH, Muslim Women Lawyers for Human Rights, in Washington, dilemmas she faces as a Muslim parent raisDC on March 13, freelance writer Salma ing her children in American society. She Hasan Ali discussed the powerful impact cited balancing study of the Qur’an with that the personal stories of ordinary people Western social activities, and determining can have on the way individuals of different to what extent her children will be permitted to date, as just a few of the difficult faiths and cultures view one another. She began by sharing how her personal experience led her to this revelation. When she began working on an account of her life as a Pakistani-American Muslim woman several years ago, Ali explained, she thought that only friends and family members would read her words. At the time, her only inspiration for writing her story was to educate her children about their family’s history and Pakistani heritage, she said. Much to Ali’s surprise, however, in December 2008 The Washingtonian magazine published her writing under the title “Pakistan on the Potomac,” after a friend of hers forwarded the publication’s editor a copy of her work. Her writing received copious amounts of Salma Hasan Ali writes about ordinary Muslims.

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by his father. Later he helped launch The Final Call, founded by Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. Askia Muhammad went on to describe his life on “the battlefield of ideals” trying to improve the United States. He joked that revolutionaries ride bikes to work and don’t have 401(k)s...but he didn’t seem to have any regrets for the hard road he has chosen. —Delinda C. Hanley

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Prof. Adeed Dawisha paints a grim picture of Iraq’s current government.

Following Iran’s March 2 parliamentary election, two Washington, DC-based organizations held events to analyze election results and discuss their implications on Iran’s internal political landscape and U.S. foreign policy. At a March 8 Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars event, Bijan Khajehpour, managing partner of Atieh International, noted that the parliamentary election boiled down to a competition between conservative supporters of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. “The choice in Iran was conservative vs. conservative,” said Khajehpour, who was imprisoned in Iran for three months in 2009.

Waging Peace Post-Occupation Iraq’s Crippled Political Institutions

Former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark recalled protecting Martin Luther King and other civil rights leaders on their 5-day nonviolent march from Selma to Montgomery, AL in 1965.

Post-Election Iran

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decades of his life to covering the stories and issues largely missed or misreported in the corporate-owned media. Numerous speakers praised his objective and insightful coverage of war, racism, poverty and inequality from a global perspective—as well as his quiet mentorship of young journalists working to join his profession. Journalist Nisa Muhammad first met Muhammad in 1982, when she was a young copy editor with Final Call. “He taught me the value and power of the words we write,” she recalled. Former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, one of the foremost voices to speak out against the war in Iraq, described the history Muhammad and he shared as they worked to overcome racism at home in the 1960s. He described the Watts Riots in Los Angeles caused by African Americans living in misery, coping with unemployment, bad food and no public transportation. “The way we acted at home,” Ramsey said, “our national reaction to those riots, was replicated in our conduct of foreign policy.” Americans didn’t care when 585,000 children under the age of 5 died in Iraq as a result of U.N. sanctions, Ramsey lamented. Ramsey concluded by hoping that people like Muhammad will help Americans see the truth in time to stop the next war— on Iran. Eugene Puryear, student organizer against mass incarceration, called Muhammad a role model and an encourager. Akbar Muhammad, the youngest child of Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad and his wife, Clara, praised the honoree as the first Muslim editor of the widely read newspaper Muhammad Speaks, produced

Adeed Dawisha, professor of political science at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, appeared at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC on Feb. 15 to discuss “Post-Occupation Iraq: The Brittleness of Political Institutions.” He offered a grim analysis on the progress of Iraq’s democratic experiment. According to Dawisha, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s “creeping authoritarian proclivities and attitudes” are a growing threat to the stability of Iraq’s political institutions. Maliki, the leader of the largely Shi’i State of Law Coalition, recently ordered security forces close to him to detain members of the Sunni-backed al-Iraqiya political coalition, accusing those targeted of having ties with the outlawed Ba’ath Party. These detentions, Dawisha said, outraged Deputy Prime Minister Saleh al-Mutlaq, a member of al-Iraqiya, leading him to decry Maliki as a “dictator.” According to Dawisha, Maliki took strong offense to al-Mutlaq’s condemnation, and in retaliation sent tanks to surround the deputy prime minister’s house. Furthermore, Dawisha noted, Maliki demanded that parliament fire al-

Mutlaq for “not having faith in the democratic process.” Despite classifying the overall performance of Iraq’s parliament as “weak” and “abysmal,” Dawisha did point out that the Iraqi parliament declined to act upon Maliki’s request. Dawisha cited as another source of concern the dysfunction of the Iraqi cabinet, which he described as a “brittle political institution.” Its large size and extreme heterogeneity have hindered its functionality and contributed to divided government, he said. With members from all sectors of Iraqi society, Dawisha noted, the Cabinet “finds it really difficult to reach political decisions” because its members tend to be “torn by loyalty” and often “do the bidding” of their local, religious or tribal leaders. The Cabinet’s diversity has been an issue since the U.S. invaded in 2003, said Dawisha, who placed part of the blame for the Cabinet’s shortcomings on the fact that “Washington is in love with governments of national unity.” In addition, he said, the Cabinet’s gridlock has given Prime Minister Maliki “the excuse to act unilaterally.” Dawisha concluded by discussing the ongoing “tug of war” between the provincial governments and the central government over political autonomy. According to Dawisha, a growing number of provinces, such as Basra and Saladin, have requested the same degree of autonomy currently enjoyed by the Iraqi Kurds. Despite the fact that Iraq’s constitution grants provinces the right to declare autonomy if a majority of provincial citizens approve of the new political status in a general election, Dawisha noted that Maliki, long an advocate of a strong central government, has “unilaterally refused” provinces the right to pursue autonomy, “as if the constitution does not exist.” —Dale Sprusansky

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(L-r) Alireza Nader, Suzanne Maloney, Yasmin Alem and moderator Barbara Slavin.

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the election were from “the overlap between the different conservative lists,” Khajehpour pointed out that individuals not strongly associated with either President Ahmadinejad or Ayatollah Khamenei fared well. Candidates associated with President Ahmadinejad performed particularly poorly on election day, he said. He attributed the reformists’ opting out of the election to a form of protest. At a March 19 panel discusBijan Khajehpour describes the competition between consersion on “Iran’s Internal Polivative voters in Iran’s recent elections. tics” hosted by the Atlantic According to Khajehpour, the growing ri- Council’s Iran Task Force, Suzanne Maloney, valry between President Ahmadinejad and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Ayatollah Khamenei resulted in 11 different Saban Center for Middle East Policy, stated conservative party lists vying for votes. that Iran’s parliamentary election results do “There is no such thing as conservative not “alter the fundamental political balance” unity in Iran,” Khajehpour explained, not- within the country: Ayatollah Khamenei “reing that there is “much more disagreement mains the clear decision maker,” she said. Author and independent scholar Yasmin between the conservatives than there ever was between the reformists and the conser- Alem predicted that the uneven election results will lead to an “increasingly fractionvatives.” Despite Ayatollah Khamenei’s call for a alized legislature,” allowing Ayatollah “record turnout” on March 2, Khajehpour Khamenei to become the “ultimate arbitrapointed out that the Iranian government re- tor.” Alireza Nader, senior international polported a 64 percent voter turnout, lower icy analyst at RAND Corporation, conthan official figures in previous elections. In curred, saying that the ayatollah has “conTehran, where election turnout tends to be solidated” power. President Ahmadinejad is low, Khajehpour said that 39 percent of cit- “slowly fading away,” he added, and should izens voted. More interestingly, according no longer be seen as a key decision maker. Regarding the nuclear issue, Nader said to Khajehpour, only 5 of Tehran’s 30 parliamentary seats were filled on March 2. The that the Iranian nuclear program is “motiremainder will be determined in a second vated by fear,” and U.S. military threats round of voting, as none of the candidates serve only to “feed the regime’s anxiety.” for those seats received at least 25 percent of The stalemate with Iran has caused a drathe votes in their constituency. Typically, matic increase in U.S. gas prices, he pointed Khajehpour said, only half of Tehran’s seats out, and Iran sees its ability to affect oil prices as a form of deterrence. require a second round of voting. Nader concluded by stating that AyatolWhile Iranians “usually vote according to [party] lists,” Khajehpour said, in this year’s lah Khamenei sees the nuclear standoff as election the popular vote was highly frag- just one element of a “deeper, broader mented. In his opinion, this break from tra- struggle with the U.S.,” and believes that if dition means either that voting results were the nuclear situation were to be resolved, engineered by the government or that Ira- Washington would simply find another excuse to undermine the Islamic Republic. nians voted for people instead of parties. —Dale Sprusansky Noting that the majority of winners in 66

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IFES Panel Discusses Post-Election Yemen The International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) hosted a March 6 panel discussion titled “After Elections: Next Steps in Yemen’s Transition” at its Washington, DC headquarters. Michael Svetlik, IFES vice president of programs, moderated the discussion. Grant Kippen, IFES chief of party in Yemen, began by discussing Yemen’s Feb. 21 presidential election. Despite that fact that Abd Rabbuh Mansur Al-Hadi, former vice president under President Ali Abdullah Saleh, was the only candidate on the ballot, more than 55 percent of Yemenis turned out to vote—a much higher than expected figure, Kippen said. While the election’s “open and inclusive manner” was a positive step in the country’s political development, he added, “the hard work is ahead” for Yemen. The country needs to build a reliable voter registry and be able to carry out successful competitive elections in the future, Kippen explained. Elobaid Ahmed Elobaid, head of the U.N. Human Rights Training and Documentation Center for South-West Asia and the Arab Region, commented on Yemen’s constitutional reform process. In Elobaid’s opinion, Yemen’s future constitution should establish “a clear notion of citizenship” and the “supremacy of the rule of law.” Establishing these two principles is essential, he argued, because Yemenis currently hold allegiances to many different groups and obey competing legal systems. Elobaid also stressed that Yemen needs to establish a “professional, neutral civil service” free of corruption. Citing the fact that nearly all political power is currently concentrated in Sana’a, Elobaid stated that “actual devolution of power” is necessary as well. Finally, Yemen must reinforce its authority over official business, he said, noting that some state powers are currently in the hands of tribal leaders. Regarding Yemen’s future system of government, Elobaid said that the common wisdom is that the country will adopt a federalist system in order to allow for wider participation in national affairs. “One of the most crucial elements in the current process” is making sure that the military knows it cannot interfere in civil affairs, he added. Ibrahim Sharqieh, deputy director of the Brookings Doha Center, concluded the discussion by stressing Yemen’s need for national unity and an inclusive political process. The GCC-brokered deal that proMAY 2012

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(L-r) Michael Svetlik, Elobaid Ahmed Elobaid and Grant Kippen describe Yemen’s efforts to reform its political process. nth degree,” Entelis warned that the country’s “overdependence on oil” makes it vulnerable to potential instability. In addition, he said, regional spillover and the availability of social media could motivate Algerians to take to the street. According to Entelis, the fact that 73year-old Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who has been in office since 1999, enjoys the full support of the country’s powerful military greatly decreases the likelihood that a revolutionary movement will emerge in the North African country. Furthermore, he noted, the president’s name, unlike those of other deposed Arab leaders, does not generate anger and hatred, making it harder for an opposition movement to mobilize. Also unlike other Arab countries, Entelis said, Algeria’s considerable oil wealth provides it with the financial wherewithal to meet the immediate economic discontent of protesters. Entelis concluded by noting that “land matters,” and that Algeria’s large size and cultural diversity makes organizing a cohesive opposition movement difficult for political dissenters. Alexis Arieff, analyst for African and Middle East affairs at the Congressional Research Service, discussed some of the Al-

vided former President Saleh immunity in exchange for his resignation left many segments of society, especially the youth and the northern Houthi rebels, feeling excluded from the national decision making process, he explained. The Yemeni government no longer can act as though the grievances of these groups do not exist, he said. Instead, Sharqieh suggested that it recognize the legitimacy of their grievances and work to invite them into the political process. —Dale Sprusansky

A group of North African experts gathered at the John Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies’ (SAIS) Center for Transatlantic Relations (CTR) in Washington, DC on Feb. 23 to discuss the “Arab Spring: What About Algeria?” The panelists addressed the question of why Algeria has not witnessed a sustained opposition movement, and analyzed the prospects of such a movement emerging in the future. Daniel Serwer, senior research professor in the SAIS Conflict Management Program, moderated the discussion. John Entelis, director of Fordham University’s Middle East Studies Program, opened the discussion by outlining the factors that both favor and hinder the emergence of a revolutionary movement in Algeria. He cited the “mass discontent” among Algeria’s “over-educated and under-employed” youth as one factor that could push the country toward political upheaval. Entelis also noted that the government’s lack of bureaucratic transparency, “opaque decision making process,” and widespread corruption has drawn the ire of many Algerians. Describing Algeria, which derives most of its revenue from renting its oil resources to external clients, as “a rentier state to the MAY 2012

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Panelists Discuss “Arab Spring” in Algeria

gerian government’s recent political reforms regarding the media, elections and political parties passed in an effort to appease disgruntled citizens. The country also is expected to amend its constitution later in the year, and is scheduled to hold parliamentary elections May 10. In Arieff’s opinion, the National Coordination for Democracy and Change (CNDC), an umbrella group of Algerian opposition movements, “never coalesced into a broad based movement” and is not viewed as a threat by the regime. Despite the fact that the government lifted Algeria’s state of emergency a year ago, Eric Goldstein, deputy director of the Middle East and North Africa Division at Human Rights Watch, stated that the country’s human rights situation has not dramatically improved. While individuals are generally free to speak their minds in private, he noted, the government, weary of “public manifestations of political dissent,” responds swiftly when protesters display their discontent in a public space. Authorities regularly show “disregard for the law” when dealing with individuals suspected of terrorism, he added, and the country’s staterun media, despite recent reforms, remains the “official word” within the country. Observing that mini-riots regarding issues ranging from public housing to the economy are ongoing throughout the country, Goldstein expressed skepticism that these riots will lead to something bigger—although he did describe them as “definitely something to watch.” CTR visiting scholar Daniele Moro discussed Algeria’s various security concerns. A growing security challenge, he said, is instability along the country’s border with Libya, where Algeria recently discovered around a dozen shoulder missiles. Algiers is also concerned about the 20,000 missiles that allegedly have vanished inside Libya since that country’s civil war. —Dale Sprusansky

(L-r) Eric Goldstein, John Entelis, CTR senior fellow Daniel Serwer, Alexis Arieff and Daniele Moro debate whether a revolutionary movement will emerge in Algeria. THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

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Challenges of Post-Arab Uprising Reconstruction

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Libya and Tunisia have been “eager” and ployment and transitional justice as the “receptive” toward international assistance. country’s greatest challenges going forward. She attributed these differ- The government needs to prosecute those ing responses to the fact who committed human rights abuses in the that Egypt, given its insti- past in order to create a sense of confidence tutionalized corruption and in the judicial system, she said. Tunisia’s bloated bureaucracy, is in media and civil society no longer fear voicneed of political “decon- ing their dissatisfaction with the governstruction,” while Tunisia ment, Khelifa said, adding, “If there is any and Libya are in need of violation, everybody knows what is hap“reconstruction” and “con- pening.” struction,” respectively. Mohamed Malouche, president of With regard to Libya, Tunisian American Young Professionals, deAmbassador Taylor noted scribed Tunisia’s economic situation as that, unlike Egypt, that “very delicate.” Tunisia experienced a 13country is not in need of 19 percent rise in unemployment in 2011, Ambassador William B. Taylor (l) and Ellen Laipson offer monetary assistance, as it is he said, and a 30 percent decrease in foreign beginning to receive direct investment. Malouche also called the thoughts on U.S. assistance to transitional governments. money from previously government’s prediction of 4.5 percent ecoThe United States Institute of Peace (USIP) frozen assets. More significantly, Taylor nomic growth in 2012 “overly optimistic.” While noting that both tourists and inheld a Feb. 16 conversation at the Reserve pointed out, Libya’s oil and gas production Officers Association’s Capitol Hill headquar- levels are expected to return to pre-uprising vestors currently are “in a wait-and-see ters to discuss “The Arab Uprisings and the levels this year, providing a significant eco- mode,” Malouche argued that Tunisia is —Dale Sprusansky “predictably stable” over the long-term. Challenges of Reconstruction.” Ambassador nomic boost. Tunisia’s well-regarded educational system, William B. Taylor, State Department special strong institutions, and robust infrastruccoordinator for Middle East Transitions, and POMED Panel Discusses Tunisia ture make it an attractive Ellen Laipson, president location for investors, he and CEO of The Stimson maintained, calling on the Center, offered their government to provide a thoughts on Tunisia, Egypt framework that allows and Libya. Steven HeydeTunisia’s “talented and brilmann, USIP’s senior adviser liant” entrepreneurs to sucfor Middle East Initiatives, ceed. moderated the discussion. Alexis Arieff, analyst for Referring to the recent African and Middle East afraid on Egypt’s civil society fairs at the Congressional organizations, Ambassador Research Service, briefly Taylor described the country as a “complicated (L-r) Stephen McInerney, Omezzine Khelifa, Mohamed Malouche and Alexis addressed Tunisia-U.S. relaplace” for those seeking to Arieff provide an update on the challenges and risks, as well as the successes, tions, saying they “look like they are about to assist Egypt through its pe- of Tunisia’s revolution. deepen.” The Obama adriod of transition. While the military council has largely scoffed at The Project on Middle East Democracy ministration sees Tunisia’s transition period U.S. assistance efforts, Taylor said that the (POMED) hosted a Feb. 29 panel discussion as an opportunity for the U.S. to create a Muslim Brotherhood, which won 47 per- titled “The Success Story of the Arab deeper bilateral relationship between the cent of the seats in Egypt’s recent parlia- Spring? An Update on Tunisia’s Transition” two countries, she said, noting that since mentary elections, is quietly pushing for at the Carnegie Endowment for Interna- Tunisia’s December 2010 uprising, Washgreater assistance from the U.S. According tional Peace in Washington, DC. POMED ington has diversified its aid to the country. to Taylor, the Brotherhood is “worried executive director Stephen McInerney While nearly all U.S. aid to Tunisia was previously allocated to the security sector, she about what happens when they are in a rul- moderated the discussion. ing position,” and the Brotherhood’s elecTunisian youth activist Omezzine Khelifa explained, the U.S. now provides funds for toral success has resulted in the group began by stating that there are still “high civil society and election training. —Dale Sprusansky adopting a pragmatic approach toward do- risks” involved with Tunisia’s transition mestic and international affairs. process. The U.S. and the international comLaipson called the NGO raids a “small munity need to continue to pay attention to U.S.-Egypt Relations piece of a larger story,” and expressed con- Tunisia, she said, and not assume that the In the midst of an uneasy period in U.S.cern that such actions by the military are country will continue its relatively smooth Egypt relations, The Brookings Institution’s “getting validated by the [Egyptian] pub- transition. Nonetheless, Khelifa expressed Saban Center for Middle East Policy hosted lic.” Egypt’s “defiance” and “populous na- optimism regarding her country’s future, a March 16 panel discussion titled “The tionalism” are not a “productive force” for describing Tunisia as “the future of the re- United States and Egypt: Where Do We Go the country, she said. gion.” from Here?” at its Washington, DC offices. As opposed to Egypt, Laipson continued, Khelifa identified security reform, unem- Daniel Byman, director of research at the 68

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The Middle East Institute (MEI) hosted a Feb. 29 discussion with Ambassador Riyad Mansour, Permanent Observer of Palestine to the United Nations, at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, DC. Throughout his remarks, Ambassador Mansour emphasized Palestine’s legitimate right to statehood, and criticized Israel for entering into peace talks with a disingenuous attitude. The PLO’s September 2011 U.N. statehood bid “was not a decision that was made on the spur of the moment,” Ambassador Mansour emphasized. Rather, he said, the PLO had “been working for that moment (L-r) Khaled Elgindy, Shadi Hamid, Tamara Cofman Wittes and Daniel Byman weigh in for several years.” Aware that receiving ofon the NGO crisis in Egypt. ficial recognition of Palestinian statehood from countries in the U.S. sphere of influcent years. ence would send a powerful message, ManSaban Center, moderated the discussion. Regarding Egypt’s policy toward Israel, sour explained that the PLO intentionally Shadi Hamid, director of research at Brookings Doha Center, addressed the ten- Elgindy stated that Egyptian parliamentari- began its statehood campaign in 2008 by sion surrounding the Egyptian govern- ans “want to see more reciprocity” and approaching countries in Latin America and ment’s decision to place U.S.-based NGO more “equity” in the terms of the Camp the Caribbean. The PLO first set its sights workers on trial. While Hamid said he be- David agreement, particularly concerning on the Dominican Republic and Costa Rica, lieves that Egypt’s military council (SCAF) limits on Egyptian troop levels in the Sinai rather than countries such as Nicaragua or Cuba, he said, due to the fact that both has targeted NGOs to “manufacture” anti- and discounted gas sales to Israel. While much has been made of the NGO countries maintain good relations with IsAmerican nationalism, he added that, in doing so, the SCAF has capitalized on some- crisis, Saban Center director Tamara Cofman rael and the U.S. While gaining recognition from the two thing already present in Egyptian society. Wittes cautioned that Washington must The vast majority of NGOs raided by the demonstrate “strategic patience” in its Latin American countries “took time” and government were based in Egypt, he Egyptian policy. Wittes, who returned to “was not an easy proposition,” Mansour pointed out, raising concerns “about the Brookings after serving as deputy assistant stated that winning their acceptance secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs “opened the door for us.” Following recogvery life of democracy” in the country. According to Hamid, Egyptian appre- from November of 2009 to January 2012, nition by the Dominican Republic and hension toward the U.S. can in part be at- pointed out that Egypt’s civilian govern- Costa Rica, he told his audience, countries tributed to the U.S. “privileging stability ment has yet to assume power. Thus, she ar- throughout Latin America quickly coaover democracy” in Egypt for many years. gued, the U.S. must not let present disagree- lesced in support of the Palestinian cause. Conspiracy theories regarding the U.S. have ments with the temporary military govern- According to the ambassador, Costa Rica reached a fever pitch in Egypt, he said, to ment leave a prolonged negative impact on took the initiative to first accept Palestinian the point where “even liberals…are accus- relations between the two countries. The statehood because the country’s foreign ing the Muslim Brotherhood of being U.S. must “preserve the possibility of a minister believed that the Central American broader relationship,” Wittes emphasized. nation had an obligation to complete the American stooges.” —Dale Sprusansky U.N. two-state solution it had voted for in Saban Center visiting fellow Khaled El1947. gindy stated that the controversy has “hurt The PLO next turned its attention to Egypt’s international standing.” Given PLO Ambassador to U.N. Western Europe. While most Western EuEgypt’s heavy reliance on tourism as a Discusses Statehood, Peace Talks ropean nations have declined to fully source of revenue, he added, Cairo has recognize Palestinian statehood, Manacted “irresponsibly” in allowing the sour noted that the PLO’s success in drama to escalate. Latin America did “create an atmos“Very little has changed” with rephere” that pressured countries such gard to Egypt’s broader foreign policy as France and Spain into establishing since January 2011, Elgindy said. missions in Palestine. In November Nonetheless, he added, “foreign pol2011 Iceland became the first Western icy is now a force in Egyptian politics European nation to accept Palestine as in a way that it has not been before.” an independent state. Following the In terms of regional policy, Elgindy PLO’s years of advocating, Mansour noted that Egypt “has not yet said, 132 countries currently recogemerged as the regional leader it once nize Palestine’s right to statehood. was,”noting that it has kept a low proTurning to the peace process, Manfile on Libya and Syria, and instead placed a priority on the Nile Basin re- Ambassador Riyad Mansour warns that any small inci- sour emphasized that Palestine is “willing and ready” to negotiate with gion, which has been neglected in re- dent could erupt in a Palestinian uprising. STAFF PHOTO D. SPRUSANSKY

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Israel on all six of the final status issues. He cited Israel’s continued construction of settlements on Palestinian land and its refusals “to accept the notion that they are occupiers” as factors that prevent negotiations from advancing. Dismissing the notion that Palestine should enter into peace negotiations while Israel continues to build illegal settlements, the ambassador explained that the PLO has made that “mistake” in the past. Calling Israel’s continued settlements a “provocation,” Mansour accused Israel of “making a bad situation worse.” While Palestine is willing to negotiate what to do with existing settlements, he explained, it will not tolerate further construction while negotiations are ongoing. Saying that it is easy to “make the contrast between who is acting legally and who is acting illegally,” Mansour noted that no country, including the U.S., acknowledges the legality of settlements. Israel’s occupation “is in complete contradiction with the global consensus,” he continued, charging the country with “inventing very creative forms of ethnic cleansing.” Discussing the three rounds of peace negotiations that took place in September 2010, Mansour stated that Israel “did not put on the table any meaningful ideas.” Saying that Israel “cannot have it both ways,” the ambassador added that Israeli leaders cannot call for negotiations without preconditions and then subsequently offer nothing of significance at the negotiation table. Looking ahead, Mansour warned that “any small incident could erupt” into a wide-scale Palestinian uprising. The ambassador concluded by saying he believed that Israel agreed to a deal that ended Khader Adnan’s hunger strike because it knew his death would have unleashed a wave of Palestinian anger matching the response of Tunisians to street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi’s revolution-initiating self-immolation. —Dale Sprusansky

Ruebner Releases Policy Brief on U.S. Military Aid to Israel As American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s annual conference attendees spent March 6 lobbying for Israel on Capitol Hill, Josh Ruebner, national advocacy director for the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, visited Washington, DC’s Palestine Center to describe the fruits of their labor. Most American taxpayers would be surprised by his talk, “Armed and Dangerous: U.S. Weapons Transfers to Israel.” Ruebner began by describing the death of 10-year-old Abir Aramin, shot in the back of her head by an Israeli soldier firing 70

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Josh Ruebner describes how Israel uses American weapons. a rubber-coated metal bullet after she had bought after-school sweets in East Jerusalem on Jan. 17, 2007. “Abir’s case represents everything that is so fundamentally wrong with this policy of providing U.S. weapons to Israel,” Ruebner said. In the U.S., he noted, we hear about how U.S. weapons to Israel are needed for the self-defense of this small country surrounded by hostile neighbors. However, as little Abir’s death demonstrates, and Ruebner’s policy paper emphasizes, these weapons are misused “to entrench Israel’s illegal military occupation of the Palestinian West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza Strip and to commit the systematic human rights abuses against Palestinians.” Ruebner also described Israel’s misuse of high-velocity tear gas canisters, which have killed at least five Palestinian civilians since 2009 and gravely injured two U.S. citizens, Tristan Anderson of Oakland, CA and Emily Henochowics of Potomac, MD. Between 2000-2009, Ruebner said, the State Department licensed the export of more than 595,000 tear gas canisters and “riot control equipment” to Israel, paid for with U.S. tax dollars. Not only is Israel using U.S. weapons in violation of U.S. law, he continued, but it is also a growing political, economic and strategic liability to this country. Ruebner used graphs and statistics to dispassionately show that despite Israel’s frequent use of drones, helicopters, tanks, fighter jets, house demolitions and armed personnel carriers, more Palestinians are killed by Israeli small arms gunfire than all these other expensive weapons systems combined. To put the number of Palestinian deaths in perspective, Ruebner compared the level of violence Palestinians have suffered over the THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

last decade as the same as 72 versions of Sept. 11—or one attack on that scale every six weeks. From 2000 to 2009, U.S. taxpayers have given more than $24 billion in weapons to Israel, or $3,175 to every single Israeli man, woman and child. During that same time Israel has killed at least 2,969 unarmed civilians. For transcripts or a video of Ruebner’s eye-opening talk, visit the Palestine Center’s Web site, <www.palestinecenter.org>, or visit <www.weaponstoisrael.org> to learn more about U.S. weapons transfers to Israel in the last decade, and the dramatic impact these weapons have on Palestinian lives. —Delinda C. Hanley

NYU Hosts Barghouti and Erakat An overflow crowd attended Feb. 27 presentations at New York University by attorney and activist Noura Erakat and Omar Barghouti, a founding member of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) and the Palestinian BDS Campaign. Sponsored by Students for Justice in Palestine, the event kicked off Israeli Apartheid Week 2012 in Manhattan. Erakat used PowerPoint to explain Israel’s legal framework and how it works to ensure a Jewish majority of the population. In 1950 and 1952, she said, the Israeli Knesset passed three laws that determine who qualifies for citizenship: the Law of Return, the Law on Citizenship, and the Absentee Property Law. The descendant-based Law of Return gave preference to Jewish immigrants and Jews born in Israel, excluding the indigenous Palestinian population. It deliberately created a distinction between civil rights for Jews and Arabs. The 1952 Law on Citizenship was equally discriminatory, requiring Palestinians who sought Israeli citizenship to prove continuous presence in the territory from 1948-52—a period when, in fact, they were under attack. In 1970 the Knesset amended the Law of Return to allow non-Jewish, third-generation descendants of Jews and their spouses to immigrate and become Israeli citizens. Today about 6.6 million Palestinian refugees live in exile, though their right of return is recognized by international law and in repeated U.N. resolutions. A ban on family reunification was the purpose of the 2003 Nationality and Entry into Israel Law, which prohibits Israelis who are married to, or in the future will marry, residents of the occupied territories from obtaining residency or citizenship for their Palestinian spouses. In 2007 and 2008 the MAY 2012

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if it will make a difference in the world, but it makes a difference to me. I have a moral duty to protest.” Responding to audience questions, Barghouti stressed that BDS targets any company that profits from the Israeli occupation, that it supports equal rights for all human beings, and rejects racism in all forms—antiSemitism as well as Islamophobia. Barghouti also referred to the presence outside Kimmel Building of students promoting “Israel Peace Week” with free Sabra hummus, face cream, pens, and buttons. Erik Blumberg, president of Violets for Israel, and Jordan Cohen, spokesman for Gesher: Israel Club, said their intention was to counter Barghouti’s BDS agenda. —Lisa Mullenneaux

Noura Erakat describes Israel’s Law of Return, Law on Citizenship and the Absentee Property Law.

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Barghouti Discusses Israeli Apartheid, BDS Campaign Omar Barghouti, co-founder of the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, discussed “BDS for Palestinian Rights: The Legacy of Mandela and Dr. King”at the Palestine Center in Washington, DC on Feb. 24. In addition to providing an update on the BDS campaign, he argued that Israel is an apartheid government. Freedom, justice and equality, the three slogans of the BDS campaign, are essential rights that are currently denied to the Palestinian people, Barghouti said. The activist pointed out that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights affirms that “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.” Yet the Palestinians have been reduced to “relative humans…not entitled to the full set of human rights” by the Israeli government, he charged. Barghouti also quoted former South African President

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ban was expanded to citizens of Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, the Gaza Strip and “anyone living in an area in which operations that constitute a threat to the state of Israel are carried out.” If the laws of return and citizenship set the terms for inclusion in the Jewish state, the Absentee Property Law set the terms for exclusion. It declared anyone not residing at their registered Israeli address, even for one day, since November 1947 to be “absentees,” and absentee property could be confiscated by the state. Today the state and Jewish National Fund own 93 percent of Israeli land, whereas in 1948 it owned about 7 percent. In 2009 the Knesset passed the New Land Reform Law, which allows land confiscated from Palestinian “absentees” to be sold or privatized. It revised absentee property’s status from temporary state property to permanent private property. All of these laws regulating immigration, citizenship and property ownership provide legal means to Judaization, Erekat said. But Israel’s apartheid state is maintained by practice as well as by laws. Erakat reminded the audience that in 2002 the International Criminal Court (ICC) declared apartheid a crime against humanity “committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime.” Reaction to Israel’s racist and discriminatory laws led Omar Barghouti to help organize the BDS Movement, led by the BDS National Committee (BNC), the largest coalition of Palestinian civil organizations. Recalling his student days at Columbia University, Barghouti said that when questioned about his activism, he told friends, “I don’t know

Nelson Mandela, who said, “Our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.” With regard to Israeli apartheid, Barghouti noted that last November the Russell Tribunal on Palestine concluded that “Israel’s rule over the Palestinian people, wherever they reside, collectively amounts to a single integrated regime of apartheid.” In 2009, he added, Amnesty International accused Israel of denying adequate water to Palestinians by restricting farmers from digging wells on their own land “as a means of expulsion.” Palestinian farmers have collected rain water in wells and cisterns for centuries, Barghouti said. Citing earlier examples of Israeli apartheid, Barghouti noted that, following the 1948 war, the Israelis desecrated several Palestinian places of worship, specifically citing a church in Ma’alul that was converted into a cattle shed, and a mosque in ‘Ayn Hawd that was turned into a bar. Tens of thousands of Palestinian books were removed from homes and “destroyed systematically” by the Israelis in 1948, he added. Comparing apartheid in South Africa and Israel, Barghouti pointed out that 93 percent of Israel’s non-occupied land is effectively for Jews only, while 86 percent of the land was off-limits to blacks in South Africa. Israeli apartheid has been “normalized” by the American media, Barghouti argued, decrying the fact that Palestinian “oppression has ‘made in the USA’ written all over it.” He went on to quote Bishop Desmond Tutu as saying: “People are scared in this country [the U.S.] to say wrong is wrong.” According to Barghouti, “silence is complicity…because [U.S.] tax money is what is funding our oppression.” The BDS campaign, which began in 2005,

Omar Barghouti, co-founder of the Palestinian BDS movement, stated that “no one can turn us around.” THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

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An Ethnic Conflict and a Continuing Conquest The American Task Force on Palestine, the Foundation for Middle East Peace and Churches for Middle East Peace co-hosted a talk entitled “Israel and Palestine: The Shift from Border Struggle to Ethnic Conflict, and Israel’s Continuing Conquest of East Jerusalem.” The March 23 event took place at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, DC. Menachem Klein, a political science professor at Israel’s Bar-Ilan University and author of The Shift, spoke about how the Palestinian and Israeli conflict has transformed from a border struggle to a “no-negotiating ethnic conflict.” The current situation “is working” for Israel, he emphasized. It has worked for 12 years, since the onset of the second intifada, and will continue to work because Israel is the de facto single power in the region. Klein’s list of grievances against the Israeli regime—“I cannot call it a state”—included everything from illegal settlements to “price tag gangs” of settlers. Israel’s separation barrier, he argued, “is not a border,” but a tool to control an ethnicity. Klein described the Palestinian Authority as a “security subcontractor” for Israel, providing another form of control without forcing Israel to grant “geographic concessions.” Lacking a similar sub-contractor in Hamas, Klein said, Israel found a way to contain it by blockading the Gaza Strip. Two more factors Klein cited as working in Israel’s favor are the passivity of both the Palestinians and the international community. He described both as tired, fatigued, and unsure of what to do next. With peace talks halted and no “plan B” in place, Klein called the two-state solution “the less worst situation for the Middle East”—even though many believe it is too late for that. “In my book,” he countered, a two-state solution “is not too late. The question is the 72

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is at a point “that no one can turn us around,” Barghouti told his audience. “Complicity is carrying a heavier price nowadays,” he said. Companies increasingly are losing contracts due to their participation in Israeli apartheid projects, such as Jerusalem Light Rail, he noted, and large trade unions across the world have started to join the BDS campaign. Dismissing skeptics who question the long-term viability of the BDS campaign, Barghouti pointed out that it was not until the second half of the 1980s that opposing South African apartheid became “fashionable” in the U.S. —Dale Sprusansky Prof. Menachem Klein (l) and Yehudith Oppenheimer. price. The price is higher…but at some point we will have to pay this price, which will create a trauma in Israel and, I assume, also in the Jewish world.” Yehudith Oppenheimer discussed the ethnic conflict in geographical terms. She is the executive director of Ir-Amim, a nonprofit that “focuses on Jerusalem within the context of the Israel-Palestinian conflict” and which is currently monitoring Israel’s aggressive re-districting of East Jerusalem. Israel plans to encircle the Old City with nine national parks, one of which would eat away at the borders of two Palestinian neighborhoods, resulting in the probable demolition of more than 100 homes. The “Mount Scopus Slopes Park Plan” affects Issawiye and A-Tur, two growing communities that previously have lost land to Israeli infrastructure and now see a national park being planned on the land that was promised to them for expansion purposes. Homes that were built in these areas out of necessity, and unfortunately without permits, are now being bulldozed, according to Oppenheimer, even though the park plan has yet to be approved. Oppenheimer sees this as a deliberate attempt to suffocate the Palestinian communities of East Jerusalem, and the Ir-Amim group believes it would jeopardize the hopes of a two-state solution. For more information on the “Mount Scopus Slopes Park Plan” visit the Ir-Amim Web site, <www.ir-amim.org.il>. —Alex Begley

Palestinian National Movement Cohesion Breeds Nonviolence The Washington, DC-based Palestine Center hosted Dr. Wendy Pearlman, Northwestern University’s Crown Junior Chair in Middle East Studies, on March 22 to discuss her latest book, Violence, Nonviolence, and the Palestinian National Movement. (Pearlman’s earlier book, Occupied Voices: Stories of THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

Everyday Life from the Second Intifada, is available from the AET Book Club.) According to Dr. Pearlman, her new book addresses a question she is asked over and over again: Why the violence? In response, she explores the following argument: “a movement must be cohesive to use nonviolent protest, and fragmented movements are more likely than cohesive ones to use violent protest.” She calls it the “Organizational Mediation Theory of Protest,” and to apply it to the Palestinian national movement, Pearlman outlines some 90 years of intifadas, protests, internal power struggles and conflict. Sometimes, she points out, Palestinians were united and cohesive, and carried out mass protests peacefully; at other times, however, internal divisions and external pressures led to divisiveness and violent reactions. While Pearlman acknowledged that unity is essential to nonviolent protests, she also acknowledged the difficulties in measuring something as abstract as cohesion, which she broke down into three parts: leadership, institutional structure for collective decision-making, and collective goals. Within the academic discussion of the Palestinian national movement she also cited two dueling narratives: that under Yasser Arafat the movement was so cohesive in the hands of one person that the actions of the people didn’t matter; and the current idea that the movement is totally fragmented, given the disunity of Fatah and Hamas. Both these views, Pearlman argued, neglect the degree to which the Palestinians have organized and held their movement together, despite the odds. Beginning with the British Mandate and the nonviolent General Strike, Pearlman walked her audience through each chapter of her book, briefly discussing the various waves of cohesion and disunity that have shaped the Palestinian struggle for self-deMAY 2012

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organized most of the week’s activities, dubbed “Occupy AIPAC.” Activists gathered on March 2 for an evening preview screening of “Roadmap to Apartheid” at the Busboys and Poets on 5th & K Sts. NW. The film explores in detail the apartheid comparison as it is used in the enduring Israel-Palestine conflict. The day-long Occupy AIPAC summit took place the next day at Mount Vernon Place United Methodist Church, across the street from the Washington Convention Center, site of the AIPAC conference. Rev. Grayland Hagler, pastor of Plymouth Congregational Church in Washington, DC, opened the Saturday summit with a fiery sermon calling on governments to recognize the common humanity of all peoples as a means of preventing war. He was followed by a panel on preventing war with Iran during which speakers impressed upon the audience the importance of pressuring and urging politicians to oppose any advances toward war. During an afternoon panel titled “Palestine, Israel and the U.S.—Changing Discourse, Challenging Policy,” Omar Baddar, new media coordinator at the Arab American Institute (AAI), pointed out that Washington’s “unprecedented military support” for Israel is illegal, as U.S. law forbids providing money to countries that deny human rights. Phyllis Bennis, a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, boasted that Palestinian activists are “no longer out on the fringe,” noting that media are increasingly reporting on Palestinian issues. Upon returning from a recent trip to Palestine, Bennis added, Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA) commented that “some people would call that

Dr. Wendy Pearlman discusses her latest book, Violence, Nonviolence, and the Palestinian National Movement.

“Occupy AIPAC” Provides CounterNarrative From March 2 through March 6, anti-war and pro-Palestine activists participated in demonstrations and activities throughout Washington, DC in an effort to counter the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)’s 2012 policy conference. CODEPINK, with support from over 100 sponsors, MAY 2012

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termination. The rise of the Palestinian Liberation Organization represented an “umbrella group” for fractured autonomous groups that were united in name only; the first intifada represented the height of cohesion, with people acting together in a semi-nationalistic fashion. The following chapter discusses the Oslo peace process which, Pearlman said, represents once again a fracture in the movement, with the creation of the Palestinian Authority and the rise of violence. The book details the quandaries presented by the second intifada— for example, why did protests endure despite enormous costs? Why did the violence defy repeated attempts to end it?—and concludes with the inevitable comparisons to the South African and Northern Ireland movements. In all, the book is a comprehensive guide to the long history of the Palestinian struggle for recognition. Pearlman concluded by saying that if unity breeds nonviolence and fragmentation breeds violence, then international players in the conflict, like the United States and Israel, should not continue to support internal divisions. Refusing peace talks with one group or condoning actions by another will only cause more violence. She also believes that Palestinians are currently fighting for unity. —Alex Begley

[the situation in Palestine] apartheid.” The Saturday summit concluded with an independent workshop on “AIPAC—What it is, Who its allies are, Why it’s dangerous and How to stop it.” Grant F. Smith, director of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy and Washington Report contributor, led off the discussion by explaining that AIPAC has an insatiable appetite for classified American intelligence “so that it can front run U.S. policy and shape it.” Washington Report managing editor Janet McMahon elaborated on AIPAC’s secrecy, noting that pro-Israel political action committees (PACs) associated with AIPAC often have “innocuous” and “misleading” names, and “list themselves as unaffiliated” in their FEC filings. Because these 30-some “unaffiliated” PACs all give to virtually the same pro-Israel candidates, she explained, they are able to circumvent the federal regulation setting $10,000 as the maximum amount of money a PAC is permitted to give a candidate each election cycle. McMahon cited as an example former South Dakota Sen. Tom Daschle (D), who in 1998 received a combined $260,000 from pro-Israel PACs. Because of their innocuous names—such as Desert Caucus and National PAC—McMahon lamented, “even the most conscientious voter” might not be aware that a candidate is receiving support from PACs which promote the interests of a foreign government. Alison Weir, president of the Council for the National Interest (CNI) and executive director of If Americans Knew, provided a sobering account of the American media’s failure to report accurately on the IsraelPalestine conflict. Weir pointed out that

Occupy AIPAC protesters greet AIPAC policy conference attendees on March 4. THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

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Iowans Call on Washington to Talk To Iran As pro-Israel neoconservatives beat their drums for war, dozens of Iowa antiwar activists gathered in Des Moines’ Nollen Plaza on the evening of Feb. 21 to urge Washington to “Talk to Iran” instead. “The time is now for diplomacy,” said Jeffrey Weiss, director of Catholic Peace Ministry and a rally organizer. “Iran has recently made a number of overtures. The time for talking is now, and we are here because we are concerned that a shooting war, a major catastrophe, could begin. It is time to talk to Iran.” 74

“I’m out here to send a message to politicians that we don’t need another war in the Middle East,” explained Ismael Hosseinzadeh, emeritus professor of economics at Drake University. The Iranian-born Kurd described the situation as “quite frightening, because the constellation of forces in the region, especially in the Persian Gulf, is such that a small mistake could lead to a big confrontation, with unpredictable consequences.” Furthermore, said Hossein-zadeh, author of The Political Economy of U.S. Militarism, economic sanctions can be acts of war under international law, and increasingly punitive sanctions may prompt Iran to defend its people by trying to blockade the Strait of Hormuz, which could lead to hostilities. A war against Iran would be much more destructive than the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and would have many more consequences, he warned. Israelis are the most influential and insistent proponents of an attack on Iran, Hossein-zadeh warned, while “as far as the United States is concerned, the signals are mixed. There are those who are supporters of Israel and who are supporters of aggression against Iran, but there are some hesitant and ambivalent forces like the president himself, who I am afraid is not leading here. When you don’t lead,” he concluded, “then you are going to be led.” Lewis and Winnie Pinch, who lived and worked at the American Presbyterian Hospital at Mashad from 1967 to 1970 and who visited Iran more recently, drove from Omaha to take part in the rally across from the Civic Center, where Arianna Huffington, editor-in-chief of the Huffington Post, was speaking. “An attack on Iran would be a serious problem, not just for Iran but for the United States and for Israel, where we hear that most of the war talk comes from,” said Lewis Pinch.

“We get a distorted picture of Iran from our media here in the United States. The Iranian people are lovely people by and large. Some of them agree with their government, some of them don’t, just like here in the U.S. The people are very friendly to the United States, in contradistinction to what you might hear, and I don’t think most people here realize that,” said Pinch. “They loved us when we went back in October a year ago,” recalled Winnie Pinch. “They’d come up to us and we were the people to be celebrated. They wanted to know where we came from and after they found out it was the United States they said, ‘Oh we’re so glad you’re here. We love you. We wish more of you came here.’” “There may be some people who wouldn’t like to hear this,” said Sherry Hutchison, a longtime antiwar activist and member of the Des Moines Valley Friends Meeting, “but I think Israel is permanently paranoid about Iran. I think it would be a good idea if our government would say, ‘If you bomb them, no more aid to Israel from the U.S.’” “We’ve had way too much war in the Middle East,” said Tony Salem of Des Moines. “I’m out here tonight because I don’t want to see more homeless veterans out under the bridges and having PTSD and TBI,” said James Marren, treasurer of the Veterans National Recovery Center and a member of the Des Moines Chapter of Veterans for Peace. “The money that is being wasted on war could be spent on social issues, helping out with healthcare, helping people get jobs, rebuilding our infrastructure here. It’s time to bring that money home and help our people. The people of Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Iran are victims of our war policy just as much as our veterans are. We see the neocons pushing for their agenda—permanent war—and there are victims on all sides. We don’t need more homeless veterans; they don’t need their families destroyed

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deaths of Israelis, particularly Israeli children, are disproportionally reported on by the media, while the deaths of Palestinian children receive little coverage, even though many more Palestinian children have been killed. Sunday, March 4 was Occupy AIPAC’s principal day of action. Throughout the day, Occupy AIPAC supporters congregated in front of the Washington Convention Center, making sure that their voices were heard by AIPAC’s 13,000 conference attendees. The boisterous demonstrators engaged in various chants, visual demonstrations, and conversations with AIPAC attendees, urging them to reconsider their unflinching support for the Israeli state. The Sunday protests provided an interesting contrast in messages. Outside the convention center, Occupy AIPAC demonstrators, some dressed in boxes to symbolize Zionist settlements, attempted to highlight the unjust human rights abuses occurring in Palestine. Inside the building, President Barack Obama told conference attendees that the U.S. and Israel share “a commitment to human dignity” and that both nations are working to build a world in which “peace is founded upon justice.” As protesters urged the U.S. to avoid being pressured into war with Iran by Israel, President Obama told AIPAC “that when it comes to preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, I will take no options off the table, and I mean what I say.” Seeking to dissuade President Obama from acting on this threat, Occupy AIPAC held a March 5 demonstration in front of the White House during Obama’s meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. Occupy AIPAC concluded its activities on March 6 with a day of lobbying on Capitol Hill. Photos and videos of the week’s events and can be found at <www.occupyaipac. org>. —Dale Sprusansky

Antiwar activists urging Washington to “Talk To Iran” rally in Nollen Plaza on Feb. 21. THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

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by our war machine. That’s why I’m here tonight,” said Marren. —Michael Gillespie

Veterans, Iranian Americans and interfaith groups challenged the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s (AIPAC) support for an attack on Iran at the National Press Club on March 5, hours before President Barack Obama met with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu at the White House. Veterans for Peace president Leah Bolger, a retired U.S. Navy commander, said, “Obama needs to talk sense to Netanyahu when he meets him....We need the president to announce that he will not allow the U.S. to be drawn into war if Israel attacks Iran or provokes hostilities in some other way....Israel must be told in no uncertain terms that the U.S. will not support any military act or provocation with Iran. “Although Israel receives an enormous amount of military aid from the U.S., we are not obligated by treaty to defend them,” Bolger explained. “With no treaty to trigger the supremacy clause in the U.S. Constitution there is no legal obligation for our country to defend Israel. If Israel is the side provoking hostilities, then there is no moral obligation either.” Former diplomat and retired U.S. Col. Ann Wright agreed that Americans shouldn’t let Israel force the United States into another war. “Iran has signed the non-proliferation treaty and has submitted its facilities to international inspection,” she pointed out, “while Israel has not signed the NPT, nor allowed international inspectors into its nuclear facilities, which have produced from 400 to 600 nuclear weapons.” Wright showed reporters a memorandum veterans were delivering to the White House calling for the president to listen to the U.S. intelligence community and the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency. Both say Iran has not yet decided to build a nuclear weapon. Colonel Wright also showed a copy of the ad CODEPINK and other organizations placed in the March 6 edition of The Hill in hopes that members of Congress would realize that AIPAC’s views on war in Iran do not reflect the values and interests of the majority of Americans. National Iranian American Council (NIAC) representative Jamal Adbi told reporters, “In the past three years, the Obama administration has had discussions with the Iranian government for only 45 minutes— that is hardly what one would call ‘diplomacy.’” —Delinda C. Hanley MAY 2012

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Veterans and Iranian Americans Call for Diplomacy, Not War

(L-r) Commander Leah Bolger (Ret.), Col. Ann Wright (Ret.) and Jamal Adbi call on the president to talk sense to Netanyahu.

Human Rights Afghan Women Must be Present in Peace Talks The United States Institute of Peace (USIP) cohosted a Feb. 16 event at the Finnish Embassy on “Women, Peace and Security in Afghanistan: Prospects on the Way Forward.” The panel featured ambassadors and activists committed to the National Action Plan for Women in Afghanistan (NAPWA) based on U.N. Security Council Resolution 1325, which calls for the participation of women in peace negotiations in hopes that women’s involvement will create a more sustainable resolution. The panelists emphasized the leaps in women’s rights that have been achieved in Afghanistan in the last 10 years and why it is important to ensure that those rights are not negotiated away in peace talks. Among the many accomplishments cited by Afghanistan’s Ambassador to the United States Eklil Ahmad Hakimi were the rise in the number of educated women. Life expectancy rates for women—once the lowest in the world—represented the most dramatic changes, he said. “Today, out of 8 million schoolchildren, 39 percent are girls,” the ambassador continued. “Eighty-five percent of Afghans support equal opportunity education for women. Life expectancy is now 64 years, when it was 45 10 years ago.” Ambassador Donald Steinberg, deputy administrator for USAID, pointed out that in a decade the number of women in school went from zero to three million. To illustrate the effect these numbers have on women, he noted, “Ten years ago twothirds of Afghan women had considered suicide; one out of seven had tried it.” Dr. Kathleen Kuehnast, director of USIP’s Gender and Peacebuilding Center, described the drawback of U.S. troops from THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

Afghanistan as a “military and civilian crossroads,” adding that it provides the opportunity to “reinforce positive efforts and investments explicitly incorporating women’s voices and participation.” Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues Melanne Verveer said she feared that if the peace talks in Afghanistan proceed without the participation of women, the foundation that has been built in the last decade will crumble. Identifying her own “red lines” for the peace talks, she stressed renewed commitment to the Afghanistan constitution, because, she explained, “women’s rights are chiseled into the Afghan constitution and it means the right to economic or political participation, it means being free from violence, it means being free to go to school.” “Amnesty too often means men with guns forgiving other men with guns for crimes committed against women,” said Ambassador Steinberg, citing the lack of female involvement in Angolan peace talks as the incentive for the focus on women’s political, economic and social empowerment at the 2002 Tokyo conference which set the groundwork for reconstruction in Afghanistan. In the last four years, he noted, USAID has invested $200 million in programs directly targeting the economic, political and social freedom of women. Dr. Erkki Tuomioja, Finland’s minister of foreign affairs, outlined some of the tenets of U.N. Resolution 1325: that women must have influence in the resolution of conflict, that men must promote gender equality around the world, and that success of the NAP in any country will prove that it can succeed in every country. Ambassador Hakimi agreed, saying that there are certain red lines that the Afghan government also will not waver on during peace talks, one of those being that the rights of women are firmly written into the constitution. 75

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(L-r) Dr. Kathleen Kuehnast, Ambassador Donald Steinberg (hidden), Samira Hamidi, Dr. Erkki Tuomioja, Ambassador Eklil Ahmad Hakimi, Ambassador Melanne Verveer and Eva Biaudet.

Bassam Haddad Reviews Syria’s Prospects

Concerned about worsening conditions in Syria, where 200,000 citizens opposed to President Bashar Assad have become internal refugees, Belal Dalati of Anaheim, CA organized a cross-country fund-raising convoy to benefit displaced victims. The convoy was named for American journalist Marie Colvin, who was killed in February in Homs by government shelling. Following its March 8 departure, Syrian Americans met the convoy and donated money in Phoenix and Tucson, AZ, El Paso, San Antonio, Houston and Dallas, TX, Oklahoma City, Kansas City, St. Louis and Chicago. When it arrived in Washington, DC on March 15, the convoy numbered 100 vehi-

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Bassam Haddad has produced an exhaustive study of Syria in his new book Business Networks in Syria: The Political Economy of Authoritarian Resilience. On Feb. 15 the George Mason University professor discussed some of his conclusions at the Levantine Cultural Center in Los Angeles. A structural problem in the Syrian econ-

Syrian-Americans Launch Aid Convoy

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omy is the neglect of the countryside over the past 25 years, Haddad noted. Even though Syria’s constitution says it is a socialist state, many economic policies developed in the 1990s tremendously enriched a few at the expense of the state. Individuals close to Bashar Assad held monopolies on the importation of automobiles and telecommunications, he said, adding that, with 40 percent of the Syrian population living beneath the poverty line, there is a large income difference between countryside versus the city dwellers. Haddad also noted the high urban profit generated by money brought in by Iraqi refugees fleeing the war and turmoil in their country. Haddad sees a stalemate between the regime and its opposition because, he said, blogs and social media are informing the world of citizen resistance to government crackdowns. The morale of bureaucrats is failing, Haddad said, and the state can’t punish every dissident. No matter what happens, stated Haddad, the Assad regime will never be the same again. He predicted that the outcome will be more costly than Libya, and cautioned that foreign military intervention would be catastrophic if it developed into a regional war. People living under bombs want interven-

Panelist Samira Hamidi, Afghanistan country director for the Afghan Women Network, spoke frankly about the situation of women in Afghanistan. Even with 10 years of progress, she said, there is still a vast difference in the mindset between people who live in Kabul and those who live in the country’s small provinces. Hamidi identified the main frustration going into peace talks as the lack of implementation of the well-meaning National Action Plans. Over the next 10 years, she said, the goals for women were “to see Afghanistan embrace an environment where men and women contribute and participate equally.” Women don’t want to have to negotiate for their rights, Hamidi concluded: they want them to be understood. —Alex Begley

tion, but this would only lead to more deaths. “Something will happen in the next few months that will interrupt the situation,“ he averred. “Who knows—Israel could strike Iran or the Syrian military could kill 2,000 people in a day, which could change Russia’s support.” During the question-and-answer period, Haddad allowed as how the Syrian people’s struggle for self-determination has led other dictators to start to pay attention to what the people want. When asked about the umbrella Syrian National Council opposition group, Haddad asked rhetorically, “Who’s bankrolling it? There’s no transparency and a lot of questions about the dominance of the Muslim Brotherhood.” While Syria’s minorities and business class have tended to consider the status quo is better than the unknown, the people are losing faith in the regime’s ability to restore order, he observed. Young men are fighting for their future and will never return to life under a dictatorship. —Pat McDonnell Twair

Bassam Haddad discusses Syria. 76

The cross-country Syrian American fund-raising convoy leaves Anaheim. THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

MAY 2012

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Dramatic Street Theater Brings Attention to Syrian Crisis

estimates put the death toll at over 8,000. Organizers held the rally to raise awareness of the conflict and to send a message to President Barack Obama that the U.S. government needs to support democracy and freedom in Syria. Following the rally, a dinner and presentation on the Syrian situation was held at City College of San Francisco. —Elaine Pasquini

Diplomatic Doings PLO Mission Honors Helen Thomas

PHOTO COURTESY PLO DELEGATION

cles. The 25 Californians in the convoy met with Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s chief-of-staff to voice their views of Syria’s revolution for democracy. They then were joined by the Rev. Jesse Jackson in a demonstration in front of the Russian Embassy to protest Moscow’s support of the Assad regime. On March 16, the convoy drove to Long Island to meet Colvin’s mother and sister and present them with a mosaic box from Syria, an award in the name of the convoy, and a huge card of appreciation signed by hundreds of Syrians along their cross-country tour. Returning to Washington, DC the next day, the contingent joined a demonstration of 3,000 Syrians in front of the White House calling for the fall of Bashar Assad. That night they attended a Syrian American Council banquet in the Renaissance Hotel that raised $1.1 million for Syrian humanitarian assistance. Returning home to California, the convoy stopped at CNN headquarters in Atlanta, GA on March 19 to give an award and express thanks to Anderson Cooper for his coverage of the Syrian military’s artillery bombardment of cities. —Samir Twair

U.S. Ambassadors Discuss the Arab Spring

STAFF PHOTO PHIL PASQUINI

(L-r) Helen Thomas is honored by Jumana Areikat and Ambassador Maen Areikat.

An activist holding a shovel prepares to symbolically bury another activist draped in the Syrian flag. The Syrian American Council held a lively rally March 18 in San Francisco’s Union Square in commemoration of the first anniversary of the Syrian uprising against the Al-Assad family’s more than 40-year rule. Dramatic street theater scenes recreated the civil war. Activists wearing helmets and carrying fake guns representing soldiers “killed” other activists lying on the ground, while in other tableaux activists dressed as medics or civilians tended to the wounded. Some rally participants waved the Syrian flag while others displayed signs reading “Free Syria” and “S.O.S. Syria is Bleeding.” Since the pro-democracy protests began in Syria on March 15, 2011, United Nations MAY 2012

her country as much as Thomas is admired in the U.S., presented Thomas with a medal from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Albert Mokhiber, lawyer and former president of American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), praised Thomas and recalled the pride he felt every time he saw an Arab-American woman in the front row at White House press conferences. He told the young people and parents in the audience that “it is extremely important to have more Arab Americans in the fields of diplomacy and journalism.” Thomas thanked Areikat and Ashrawi and also President Abbas for the wonderful tribute they had given her. “I hope and pray to see truth and justice prevail for Palestinians some day,” she said. She accepted the award, she added, “on behalf of suffering Palestinians who have laid down their lives for freedom and justice” and “on behalf of brave supporters of Palestinians who have taken an unpopular stand despite the personal and professional costs.” —Delinda C. Hanley

As thousands of demonstrators in Gaza, the Palestinian territories, Israel and neighboring countries commemorated Land Day, the annual protest to mark the 1976 killing of six Palestinians during a protest against Israeli occupation, Palestinians and their supporters in Washington, DC gathered on March 30 to honor a “defender of peace and justice,” former White House correspondent Helen Thomas. The chief representative of the PLO to the United States Ambassador Maen Rashid Areikat and his wife, Jumana, opened their Virginia home to thank Thomas for her “tireless efforts” to support peace. Ambassadors, diplomats, heads of NGOs, journalists, Palestinian Americans and many other supporters gathered to pay their respects. The 91-year-old Lebanese-American reporter has asked every president from Dwight Eisenhower to Barack Obama the hard questions other journalists refused to pose. She asked why President George W. Bush invaded Iraq, and she asked President Obama if any Middle Eastern country possessed nuclear weapons. Obama replied that he didn’t want to “speculate” on the matter. Hanan Ashrawi, the Palestinian legislator, scholar, author and activist who is revered in THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

The National U.S. Arab Chamber of Commerce (NUSACC) invited 12 U.S. ambassadors currently serving in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) to the Willard Hotel in Washington, DC on March 12 to discuss the impact of the Arab Spring on U.S.-Arab commercial relations. The audience included more than 300 business and government leaders, including current Arab ambassadors. Ambassador Thomas Pickering, a former under secretary of state, introduced the discussion of the Arab Spring by giving an overview of the region and admitting that no one knows how the story will end. Each ambassador on the first panel, “Economies in Transition,” summarized the economic challenges as well as the advantages of doing business at their post. U.S. Ambassador to Tunisia Gordon Gray noted, “Tunisia is not only the birthplace of the Arab Spring, but is also an excellent platform for U.S. businesses interested in expanding to markets in North Africa, Europe and sub-Saharan Africa.” Ambassador to Egypt Anne Patterson stated, “Our governments are committed to a strong partnership and to building solid foundations for public and private sector cooperation.” Patterson pointed out Egypt’s demonstrated ability to innovate and compete in global markets, and predicted that Egypt could be one of the leading emerging markets within a few years. Today, however, its economy is unsettled, she said. 77

STAFF PHOTO D. HANLEY

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(L-r) U.S. Ambassadors Gordon Gray (Tunisia), Samuel Kaplan (Morocco), Gene Gretz (Libya), James Jeffrey (Iraq), Anne Patterson (Egypt), Thomas Krajeski (Bahrain), and Henry Ensher (Algeria) and Ambassador Thomas Pickering.

munications and information technology. Ambassador Michael Corbin described the UAE as the largest market for American exports in the Middle East. Not only does it have a stable business environment, he said, but in areas such as developed infrastructure, taxation, and facilitating trade with the GCC and beyond, the UAE is particularly competitive. —Delinda C. Hanley

Pakistani Ambassador Addresses DC Policymakers Sherry Rehman, Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States, spoke at the United States Institute of Peace’s (USIP) headquarters on

STAFF PHOTO D.SPRUSANSKY

Ambassador to Libya Gene Cretz discussed the challenges facing the new government, including restarting the billions of dollars worth of infrastructure projects launched prior to the revolution. “We believe that there will be abundant opportunities for American companies to participate in the building of a new Libya,” he told the audience. U.S. Ambassador to Iraq James Jeffrey surprised listeners by saying that “U.S. exports to Iraq increased 48 percent last year, making it one of our most important and fastest growing markets in the Middle East. Clearly, Iraq is thirsty for American products as its economic growth outpaces even China’s and India’s. Doing business in Iraq can be challenging,” he acknowledged, “but potentially very rewarding.” Ambassador Thomas Krajeski admitted that Bahrain faces a range of challenges during this difficult period, but he opined that economic growth as well as reforms can help reinforce a transition to a more stable and prosperous future. The second panel focused on ”Diversifying Away from Hydrocarbons.” Introducing the panel, former Under Secretary of State for Economics Ambassador Alan Larson described how countries could avoid the “resource curse.” He advised countries to discourage excessive consumption, encourage productive investment in infrastructure and education, promote an entrepreneurial culture, and establish a pro-business regulatory regime. While hydrocarbons are at the core of U.S. commercial relations with Algeria, Ambassador Henry Ensher emphasized other opportunities in such areas as high technology, pharmaceuticals and agribusiness. Ambassador Matthew Tueller noted that U.S. firms could do a lot of business as Kuwait invests in education, health care, telecom-

The Ambassador of Pakistan to the United States Sherry Rehman tells USIP audience that her country is not just about “bombs and bullets.” Feb. 15, making her first address to a Washington, DC audience since her November 2011 appointment. Throughout her remarks, the Karachi-born, Smith College and University of Sussex-educated diplomat emphasized the success of Pakistan’s democraTHE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

tic system and affirmed her country’s commitment to combating terrorism. “Pakistan today is not just about bombs and bullets,” asserted Ambassador Rehman, a 20-year veteran journalist. Noting that her culturally diverse country is home to individuals of many different ethnicities, languages and religions, she dismissed the common perception that Pakistanis are hostile toward minorities. Instead, the ambassador emphasized, “tolerance and respect” is the norm among the vast majority of the population. As a sign of the strength of Pakistan’s democracy, Ambassador Rehman cited the fact that the country is expected to complete later this year its “first peaceful and constitutional transfer of power since the 1970s”—something she described as “no small achievement.” Pakistan also is making serious advances in women’s rights, she said, and enjoys “high rates of political participation and leadership for women.” Addressing U.S.-Pakistan relations, Ambassador Rehman decried the “trust deficit” which currently characterizes their relationship—which, she lamented, “has been burdened with too many expectations.” She called for the two countries to “reset” their relations, explaining that the U.S.-Pakistan relationship “is too important and too sensitive…to carry this volume and this scale of unregulated hyperbole.” In response to claims that Pakistan is not a committed U.S. ally, she stated that “Pakistan has no shortage of commitment on the effort against extremism, militancy or terrorism.” According to the ambassador, Washington’s tendency to disrespect Pakistan’s territorial sovereignty—an issue that she said “dominates [Pakistan’s] public space”—serves to complicate the two countries’ strategic relationship and perpetuates the false image that Pakistan is insincere in its battle against terrorism. “Terrorists represent as much a breach of our sovereignty as state-sponsored unilateralism of any kind,” Ambassador Rehman assured the audience. As an example of Pakistan’s commitment to combating extremism, Ambassador Rehman announced that the Pakistani Embassy will begin releasing weekly figures on the number of Pakistani casualties sustained in the country’s effort against terrorism. These figures, the ambassador explained, are intended to “reduce the knowledge gap” and “bring sobriety to the sometimes vitriolic narrative in certain political quarters” by demonstrating that terrorists have “shattered countless homes and families throughout Pakistan.” —Dale Sprusansky MAY 2012

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Upcoming Events & Obituaries —Compiled by Andrew Stimson

BulletinBoard

torium, Berkeley, CA. Tickets range from $20 to $80 depending on seating. For more information visit <www.arabculturalcenter.org>, or call Leena Barakat (415) 6642200, ext. 10.

to put aside as irrelevant any legitimate grounds for criticizing Israel.” The Holocaust in American Life was Norman G. Finkelstein’s starting point for his own work, The Holocaust Industry. Originally asked to write a review of Novick’s book, Finkelstein went further and explored how the United States government and, in particular, Jewish elites benefited from the promotion of the memory of the Holocaust. Novick became a critic of Finkelstein and famously called the book “a 21st century updating of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a piece of trash.” Despite this, he later distanced himself from Alan Dershowitz’s campaign to convince DePaul University to deny Finkelstein tenure.

Upcoming Events As part of Filmfest DC, director Emad Burnat will appear at two screenings of his award-winning documentary “5 Broken Cameras,” about his growing involvement in the village of Bil’in’s resistance to Israel’s theft of its land to build its illegal separation wall. Screenings are April 14 at 3:15 p.m. and April 16 at 8:45 p.m. at the Landmark E Street Cinema, 555 11th St. NW, Washington, DC 20004. Tickets are $11, and may be purchased in advance at <www.filmfestdc.org> or at the theater on the day of the screening. The Arab American Institute will host its 2012 Kahlil Gibran Spirit of Humanity Awards Gala on Wednesday, April 18 at the Renaissance Washington Hotel, 999 Ninth St. NW, Washington, DC. Join members of Congress and the administration, the Arab diplomatic corps, and hundreds of supporters from the media, business, and academic fields. The reception starts at 5:30 p.m. with the Gala beginning at 6:30 p.m. For more information visit <www.aaiusa. org/pages/kahlil-gibran-awards> or call Jane Kaddouri at (202) 429-9210. Friends of Sabeel-DC Metro invites lay and clergy alike to attend its Spring Workshop: How to Make Justice and Peace in the Holy Land Part of Your Church’s Faith Journey, on Saturday, April 21, 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., at the Wesley Seminary Refectory, 4500 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Washington, DC. The event will bring together DC-area church leaders from many denominations to focus on engaging congregations to respond to the social, political and spiritual crisis in the Holy Land. To register, visit <www.sabeeldc.org> or call (703) 751-5646. The Arab Cultural and Community Center and the Center for Middle Eastern Studies will present oud master Marcel Khalifé and Al Mayadine Ensemble, who will perform the prophetic poems of the Arab world’s most renowned and beloved poet, Mahmoud Darwish, in tribute to the Arab Spring. The concert will take place April 22, at 7 p.m., at UC Berkeley’s Zellerbach AudiMAY 2012

The City of Gaithersburg, Maryland’s Multicultural Affairs Committee along with Arab Americans of Montgomery County will host the Gaithersburg Arab American Heritage Festival: Caring & Advocacy, Arab Americans Making a Difference, April 23 from noon to 4 p.m. at the Activity Center at Bohrer Park, 506 South Frederick Ave. For more information, e-mail <arabheritagemonth@gmail.com> or contact the Gaithersburg Community Services Division at (301) 258-6395. The Tribeca Film Festival will present the world premier of “My Neighborhood,” a powerful film about a Palestinian family in East Jerusalem forced to give up a part of their home to Israeli settlers, only to be joined by local residents and Israeli supporters in peaceful protests. Screenings will be held April 21-29 at various locations in New York City. For more information visit <www.justvision.org/myneighborhood> or e-mail <info@justvision.org>.

Obituaries Peter Novick, 78, University of Chicago historian and author of the provocative book The Holocaust in American Life, died Feb. 17 in Chicago of lung cancer. In his 1999 book, Novick argued that Israeli leaders often use the memory of the Holocaust for political manipulation—to solidify American support for Israel as well as to strengthen the loyalty of American Jews for whom the Holocaust is the only common denominator. Born in Jersey City in 1934 and described by colleagues as a non-observant Jew, Novick received his bachelor’s degree and doctorate from Columbia University after serving in the Army. He joined the University of Chicago in 1966 and retired in 1999. Dr. Novick’s work exposed the tactic of using the Holocaust to neutralize American criticism of Israel’s refusal to return territory captured after the 1967 War, as well as its repeated invasions of Lebanon. “The Holocaust framework,” Novick argued, “allowed one THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

Simin Daneshvar, 90, groundbreaking Iranian author, academic and translator, died March 8 in Tehran. Among her literary firsts were The Quenched Fire, a 1948 collection of Persian short stories, the first of its kind by an Iranian woman; Savushun, the first novel by an Iranian woman, which became an influential bestseller; and Daneshvar’s Playhouse, the first volume of translated stories by an Iranian female. Born in Shiraz, Persia in 1921, Daneshvar attended an English-language school and in the 8th grade published her first article, “Winter Is Not Unlike Our Life,” in a local newspaper. She joined the department of Persian literature at the University of Tehran in 1938 and later began writing pieces for Radio Tehran to help support her studies as well as her family after her father’s death. Her skill in translating English led to a job at a Tehran newspaper writing for the foreign affairs section. In 1949 she earned a Ph.D. in Persian literature and, as a Fulbright Fellow in 1952, traveled to the United States, where she studied creative writing at Stanford University with Wallace Stegner. After returning to Iran she continued teaching at Tehran University, but the shah’s government viewed her as dangerous and barred her from attaining full professorship. Savushun, published in 1969, transformed Iranian literature and is credited with inspiring the generation of students who rose up to overthrow the shah during the country’s Islamic revolution a decade later. Dr. Daneshvar retired from teaching in 1981, but continued to write until shortly before her death. ❑ 79

book_review_80_Book Review 4/4/12 10:33 PM Page 80

Books Divert! NUMEC, Zalman Shapiro and the Diversion of U.S. Weapons Grade Uranium Into the Israeli Nuclear Weapons Program By Grant F. Smith, Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy, 2012, paperback, 310 pp. List: $19.95; AET: $15. Reviewed by Andrew I. Killgore In Divert! (the FBI code name for its investigation), Grant F. Smith describes how Zalman Shapiro and David Lowenthal stole American weapons grade uranium to help Israel develop nuclear weapons. Shapiro used a “front” company, NUMEC (Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation), started in the economically depressed borough of Apollo, Pennsylvania, as the cover for his operation. In the book’s introduction Smith poses a dark question: “Is there anything the Israeli government and its vast network of operatives and elite political contributors in the U.S. would not do to expand Israel’s power and influence, with the sound of war drums for Andrew I. Killgore is publisher of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.

America to attack Iran growing louder? Divert! provides the terrifying answer.” Divert! comprises 16 chapters in 207 pages, with another 100 pages of documents reluctantly released by the U.S. government. The last chapter is entitled “An Israeli Operation From the Beginning,” with overwhelming proof to support the charge. The longest chapter, at 52 pages, is consumed by a Dec. 21, 1978 questioning of Shapiro by Rep. Morris Udall, then-chairman of the House Committee of Interior and Insular Affairs. Udall explained to Shapiro and his counsel that the committee was mainly concerned with nuclear safeguards, and that it was investigating NUMEC because it had heard that a substantial amount of bomb grade uranium had been diverted from a processing plant run by NUMEC. Asked why he started NUMEC, Shapiro replied that he had simply wanted to own a business by himself. (The real reason was to steal weapons grade uranium for Israel.) Udall: “Was Israel involved in this?” Shapiro: “Absolutely not.” Udall: “You are certain of this.” Shapiro: “I am positive.” Udall: “Did you…use your plant to divert to Israel?” Shapiro: “No.” Udall: “…the [Atomic Energy] Commission suspected Dr. Shapiro of having helped divert bomb grade uranium to Israel. Do you remember having said that?” Shapiro: “I don’t recall it.” Shapiro was consistently evasive and misleading during the hearing. Chairman Udall kept getting back to Israel and wh e t h e r t h e missing uranium might have ended up there. Shapiro continued to deny that that was the case. To the many questions asked about NUMEC, Shapiro was remarkably unresponsive. After reading the transcript of Udall’s questions and Shapiro’s responses, one is left with the overwhelming impression THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

that where Shapiro felt he needed to cover up, he was lying. In short, the impression that Shapiro was guilty of diverting uranium to Israel is clear. On July 29, 2009, Deborah Shapiro, Zalman’s daughter, nominated her father for a National Medal of Technology and Innovation (NMTI), the highest honor given to America’s leading innovaters, personally awarded by the president of the United States. If Shapiro had indeed received the award, it would have been seen as definitively clearing his name of illegally smuggling American uranium to Israel. But Shapiro had a high hurdle to clear: he had to undergo an FBI security check, and all information it contained would be considered in the final NMTI selection process. The K Street law firm Arnold and Porter, a registered foreign agent for Israel, got involved in trying to secure a final redemption for Shapiro. Then-Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA) formally requested the Nuclear Regulatory Commission “to issue a formal public statement confirming that he [constituent Zalman Shapiro] was not involved in the diversion of uranium to Israel.” In the end, Shapiro did not win the NMTI medal. As author Smith concludes, Shapiro’s failed attempt made him and NUMEC look even more like a typical Israeli smuggling front. In condemning Shapiro and NUMEC, Divert! makes clear that the operation had plenty of support from those within the U.S. government who favored Israel. But Shapiro’s illegal acts for which he sought redemption in 2009 occurred mainly in the 1960s—50 years earlier. Divert!’s penultimate chapter, “NUMEC’s Toxic Legacy,” illustrates that Uncle Sam has paid, and continues to pay, a high price for Shapiro’s “sloppy” or hurried theft of bomb grade uranium. Shapiro’s carelessness at NUMEC’s site ultimately will cost the U.S. government between a quarterand a half-billion dollars for the ongoing cleanup alone. As Smith writes, “It remains to be seen whether the previously government classified spill in 1969 detected by the FBI due to improper waste storage practices ever results in direct civil or criminal action against Shapiro.” This book, which begins with a brief history of Israel’s 1940s conventional arms theft and smuggling network in the U.S., suggests that Atomic Age material and technology smugglers also mysteriously achieved immunity from criminal prosecution. ❑ MAY 2012

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AET Book Club Catalog Literature

Music

Film

Monographs

Spring 2012 Immoral Wars and Illegal Laws: History, Religion, Militarism and Peacemaking in the Human Rights Struggle for Palestinian Independence by William R. Durland, CreateSpace, 2011, 360 pp. List: $18.75; AET: $14. This interdisciplinary study of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict combines Durland’s personal experiences on the ground with an analysis of the historical, religious and political contexts that have long shaped the struggle. Complete with a comprehensive reference for relevant international laws, a review of partition and resolution plans, and compelling accounts of grassroots peacemaking, Immoral Wars passionately advocates for peace using experience and scholarship.

Hamas: From Resistance to Government by Paola Caridi and translated by Andrea Teti, Seven Stories Press, 2012, paperback, 414 pp. List: $24.95; AET: $16. Italian journalist and historian Caridi offers a clear-eyed account of the rise of Hamas and how the movement has navigated its determination to resist its oppressor while providing support for a refugee people. Informed by years of on-the-ground research and interviews with residents of Gaza and leaders of Hamas, this study deftly sidesteps the sensationalist journalism surrounding the group.

False Prophets of Peace: Liberal Zionism and the Struggle for Palestine by Tikva Honig-Parnass, Haymarket Books, 2011, paperback, 264 pp. List: $20; AET: $16. False Prophets of Peace examines the central role played by the Israeli Left in laying the foundation for the settlement movement and its campaign of dispossession. Honig-Parnass exposes the Zionist Left’s contributions to Israel’s exclusivist ideology and its participation in attempts to legitimize the apartheid treatment of Palestinians. Its fervent support of a Jewish-only state, Honig-Parnass argues, serves as a barrier to reaching a just peace that recognizes the national and human rights of the Palestinian people.

Funding the Enemy: How U.S. Taxpayers Bankroll the Taliban by Douglas A. Wissing, Prometheus Books, 2012, hardcover, 364 pp. List: $25; AET: $18. Drawing on interviews with hundreds of combat soldiers, ordinary Afghans, private contractors, aid workers, international consultants and government officials, Funding the Enemy reveals the mismanagement of the war in Afghanistan. Wissing follows the trail of U.S. taxpayer dollars flowing into Taliban coffers, courtesy of development and counterinsurgency programs, to calamitous military and social effect. This is the first book to detail the toxic embrace of American policymakers and careerists, Afghan kleptocrats and opportunistic Taliban.

East of the Sun: A Memoir by Noha Shaath Ismail, AuthorHouse, 2011, paperback, 196 pp. List: $16.95; AET: $14. A coming-of-age tale, international in scope and universal in outlook, Noha Shaath Ismail’s memoir describes her childhood as a Palestinian/Lebanese émigré in Egypt and the personal journey that led her to the United States in 1970. Set against the backdrop of political and social upheaval, East of the Sun is an immigrant’s tale with stories about Muslim traditions, courting habits, and a way of life that has since disappeared.

A Single Roll of the Dice: Obama’s Diplomacy with Iran by Trita Parsi, Yale University Press, 2012, hardcover, 304 pp. List: $27.50; AET: $18. Author of the AET Book Club bestseller Treacherous Alliance, Parsi’s latest book is an insightful exposé of the previously unknown story of American-Iranian negotiations during Obama’s early years as president. Based on interviews with highranking officials from the U.S., Iran, Europe, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Brazil, Parsi makes the case that diplomacy is far from exhausted, and that more can and must be done to avert an unnecessary war.

House of Stone: A Memoir of Home, Family, and a Lost Middle East by Anthony Shadid, Houghton Mifflin, 2012, hardcover, 336 pp. List: $26; AET: $18. Published shortly after his untimely death, Shadid’s memoir follows his efforts to reconstruct the house built by his great-grandfather and destroyed during Israel’s 2006 incursion into Lebanon. Shadid creates a mosaic of past and present, tracing the house’s renewal alongside his family’s flight from Lebanon and resettlement in America. In the process of restoring his ancestral home, Shadid memorializes a lost world, documents the shifting Middle East, and provides profound insights into this volatile landscape.

This is Where We Take Our Stand: The Iraq Veterans Against the War Who Risked Everything to Tell Their Story directed by Bestor Cram, Mike Majoros and David Zeiger, Take Our Stand LLC, 2011, DVD, 60 min. List: $15, AET: $13.50. This is Where We Take Our Stand skillfully documents the challenges faced by hundreds of veterans who risked everything to publicly tell their accounts of the horrors they witnessed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Focusing on the three-day Winter Soldier hearings, an event hosted by Iraq Veterans Against the War, this hard-hitting documentary provides a muchneeded antidote to the media whitewash of these unnecessary wars.

The General’s Son: Journey of an Israeli in Palestine by Miko Peled, Just World Books, 2012, paperback, 221 pp. List: $20; AET: $15. Born into a well-known Zionist family and grandson of a signer of Israel’s Declaration of Independence, Miko Peled experienced a transformation after his beloved niece was killed by a suicide bomber in Jerusalem. The tragedy propelled Peled to re-examine long-held beliefs, eventually leading him to become an activist in the struggle for human rights and a hopeful, lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Includes a powerful foreword by award-winning author Alice Walker.

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. MAY 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.

THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

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AET’s 2012 Choir of Angels Following are individuals, organizations, companies and foundations whose help between Jan. 1 and March 28, 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) Hamid & Kim Alwan, Milwaukee, WI Anace & Polly Aossey, Cedar Rapids, IA Fuad Baali, Bowling Green, KY Stanton Barrett, Ipswich, MA Richard Curtiss, Boynton Beach, FL M.R. Eucalyptus, Kansas City, MO Dr. Ibrahim Fawal, Birmingham, AL Paul Findley, Jacksonville, IL Sam Gousen, Arlington, VA Marilyn Grindley, Wheeling, WV Michael Habermann, Hackettstown, NJ Robert & Helen Harold, West Salem, WI Mr. & Mrs. John Hendrickson, Tulsa, OK Michael Keating, Olney, MD Susan Kerin, Gaithersburg, MD Dr. Mazen Khalidi, Grosse Point Farms, MI Paul Kirk, Baton Rouge, LA Fran Lilleness, Seattle, WA Anthony Mabarak, Grosse Pointe Park, MI Richard Makdisi & Lindsay Wheeler, Berkeley, CA John Malouf, Lubbock, TX Martha Martin, Paia, HI Gerald & Judith Merrill, Oakland, CA A.F. Nahas, Danbury, CT Alice Nashashibi,

Rassem El Massih… Continued from page 58

his family are parishioners, he has not heard Byzantine tonation (or music) of the quality he now hears on a regular basis. “Rassem’s voice is a natural gift of that music—a God-given talent,” he said. “He teaches others and he’s gracious about sharing his talent.” “He is one of the best cantors in the country,” said El Massih’s teacher, Grammenos Karanos, assistant professor of Byzantine Liturgical Music at 82

San Francisco, CA M.H. Quader, Harrisburg, PA Paul Richards, Salem, OR Neil Richardson, Randolph, VT Mr. & Mrs. Samuel Salem, Laurel, MD Norman Smith, Exton, PA Mae Stephen, Palo Alto, CA Mr. & Mrs. Peter Viering, Stonington, CT Paul Wagner, Bridgeville, PA John Zacharia, Vienna, VA

ACCOMPANISTS ($250 or more) Patricia Ann Abraham, Charleston, SC Richard Adamiak, Ph.D., Chicago, IL* Jean & Donald Clarke, Devon, PA Mr. & Mrs. John Crawford, Boulder, CO Robert & Tanis Diedrichs, Cedar Falls, IA Eugene Fitzpatrick, Wheat Ridge, CO Les Janka, Arlington, VA Paul Meyer, Iowa City, IA Sam Rahman, Lincoln, CA Gabrielle & Jalal Saad, Oakland, CA Fred Zuercher, Spring Grove, PA

TENORS & CONTRALTOS ($500 or more)

Graf Herman Bender, North Palm Beach, FL Shuja El-Asad, Amman, Jordan Brigitte Jaensch, Carmichael, CA Audrey Olson, Saint Paul, MN Ruth Ramsey, Blairsville, GA Linda Thain-Ali, Kesap, Turkey

BARITONES & MEZZO SOPRANOS ($1,000 or more) Asha Anand, Bethesda, MD Dr. & Mrs. Rod & Carole Driver, West Kingston, RI Dr. & Mrs. Clyde Farris, West Linn, OR Gary Richard Feulner, Dubai, United Arab Emirates Evan & Leman Fotos, Istanbul, Turkey Joan McConnell, Saltspring Island, Canada John McLaughlin, Gordonsville, VA Ralph Nader, Washington, DC Ingrid Van Buren, Honolulu, HI

CHOIRMASTERS ($5,000 or more) Richard & Donna Curtiss, Kensington, MD** John & Henrietta Goelet, Meru, France Andrew I. Killgore, Washington, DC

Michael Ameri, Calabasas, CA

* In memory of Rachel Corrie ** In memory of Anthony Shadid

the Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology. “He is also one of few people who can perform chant in three languages [Greek, Arabic and English], and may very well be the best at this in the United States.” In addition to school, work and teaching Byzantine chant, El Massih has produced CDs. He directed a choir of nine for “The Voice of the Lord,” a compilation of hymns from the Feast of Theophany chanted in English in traditional Byzantine melodies. “When you love something; you

want to give it all you can,” El Massih explained. “You have to practice so in the end you…focus not on ‘how am I going to read this musical piece,’ but ‘how am I going to pray? How will this piece help me pray, understand the words, live the words— and feel the words?’ “Maybe I’ll end up having a nice performance,” he reflected, “but when I chant on a piece, I am not anymore focusing on the music, I’m just singing from my heart—I’m contemplating on the words.…I’m living the words while I’m chanting.” ❑

THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

MAY 2012

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

May 2012 Vol. XXXI, No. 3

An Iranian couple picnics in a Tehran park on April 1, 2012 to mark “Sizdah Bedar,” the 13th day of Noruz, the Persian New Year, when Iranians spend all day outdoors enjoying family picnics. ATTA KENARE/AFP/Getty Images