Washington Report on Middle East Affairs - January/February 2020 - Vol. XXXIX, No. 1

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DOES THE U.S. CARE ABOUT HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE MIDDLE EAST?

DISPLAY UNTIL 2/29/2020

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TELLING THE TRUTH SINCE 1982

Volume XXXIX, No. 1

On Middle East Affairs

January/February 2020

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

Israeli Spyware Technology, Tested on Palestinians, Now Operating in a City Near You—Jonathan Cook

12 14 15

Cyber Bullies at Canary Mission Muzzle Free Speech —Dr. Alice Rothchild A Newlywed Nightmare: Another Gaza Tragedy —Mohammed Omer

17

30

34 36

U.N. Continues to Choose “Monitoring” Over Sanctioning Israel —Ian Williams

Partners in Corruption: The Virginia Israel Advisory Board and the Tobacco Commission —Grant F. Smith

20

28

Only 19.7 Percent of Americans Share State Department View that International Law Does Not Apply to Israeli Settlements —Grant F. Smith

The Unfinished ‘Coup’: The End of Netanyahu’s Era And the Political Earthquake Ahead —Ramzy Baroud

26 43 48 50

Britain’s Home Secretary: Priti Awful—John Gee

24

As Belgium Cracks Down, Gazan Palestinians Wonder: Who Will Welcome Them?

—Salah Omar

Congress Isn’t Focusing on Much Other than Impeachment Proceedings —Shirl McArthur

Alienation of American Jews From Israel Dramatically Affects U.S. Policy—Allan C. Brownfeld

J Street Offers a Big Tent But It’s Time for Action, Not Just Words—Iris Keltz

SPECIAL REPORTS

Kashmir Faces an Existential Threat: The Israel Model—Idrisa Pandit

What al-Baghdadi’s Death Means for Trump and the Future of ISIS—Giorgio Cafiero

32

22

What is Happening in Iraq Today and Why —Dr. Jafar Al Mudhafar

Older Lebanese Wary as Anti-government Protests at A Stalemate—Alex Lederman Does the U.S. Actually Care About Human Rights in The Middle East—Dale Sprusansky

38 40 46 52

Over-reacting to Russia: An American Obsession —Walter L. Hixson

Dr. Nuha Abudabbeh Leads Discussion on Juggling Two Worlds—Delinda C. Hanley Virginia Turned Blue—Thanks to Arab American Voters—Maher Massis

Imam Yahya Hendi Challenges Stereotypes in the Bible Belt—Marvine Howe

ON THE COVER: An Iraqi demonstrator gestures during a general strike and roadblocks in the southern city of Basra,

Nov. 26, 2019. Since October 1, Iraq’s capital and majority-Shi’a south have been swept by mass rallies against corruption, a lack of jobs and poor services that have escalated into calls for a complete overhaul of the ruling elite.

Photo by HUSSEIN FALEH/AFP via Getty Images

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Other Voices

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

Compiled by Janet McMahon

Palestinians Need Justice Before Peace, Mariam Barghouti, Al Jazeera Media Network OV-1

Only a Jew Can Be An Israeli, Gideon Levy, Haaretz

It Is Time to Stop Lecturing Palestinians and to Start Listening, Yara Hawari, Al Jazeera Media Network OV-2

U.S. Must Save Israel “Morally” So as to Save the U.S.—Liberal Zionists’ Circular Argument, Phillip Weiss, mondoweiss.net OV-9

New York Times Makes Up News About “A New Group of Arab Thinkers” Who Want to End the Israel Boycott, James North, mondoweiss.net OV-3 U.N. Publishes Database of Companies Profiting Off Human Rights Abuses—Not on Israel, but Myanmar, Allard De Rooi, mondoweiss.net OV-4 Puma Keeps Helping Israel Sports-Wash Its Human Rights Abuses, Aya Khattab, Al Jazeera Media Network OV-6 Nelson Mandela’s Church Joins Boycott, Divestment From Israel to Continue Anti-Apartheid Struggle, Asa Winstanley, www.middleeastmonitor.com OV-7

DEPARTMENTS

Looking Beyond “Women and Children” in Gaza’s Casualties, Nada Elia, mondoweiss.net

OV-10

Israel Is Falsifying Palestinian History and Stealing Its Heritage, Nabil Al-Sahl, www.middleeastmonitor.com

OV-10

This Israeli City Has 25 Percent Arab Residents, But Won’t Open a School for Them, Or Kashti, Haaretz OV-11 U.S. Militarism, Having Provoked ISIS Into Being, Kills Cult Leader al-Baghdadi, Juan Cole, www.juancole.com

OV-13

Don’t Make It About The Oil, Paul R. Pillar, www.lobelog.net

OV-14

Plundering Iraq, Eric S. Margolis, www.ericmargolis.com

OV-15

Palestinians participate in an exhibition to support local products in Gaza City, Nov. 5. The exhibition urges residents to consume locally produced goods—especially since the siege prevents most goods from entering or leaving Gaza.

5 Publishers’ Page

6 letters to the editor

54 MusliM aMerican activisM: Courageous Leaders Honored at CAIR-LA Annual Banquet 55 arab aMerican activisM: Dr. Rabab Abdulhadi Honored at ADC’s Alex Odeh Conference

64 Middle east books revieW 71 the World looks at the Middle east—CARtOOnS

72 other PeoPle’s Mail

74 2019 aet choir oF angels 23 indeX to advertisers

PHOTO BY RIZEK ABDELJAWAD/XINHUA VIA GETTY

56 Waging Peace: Dr. Marc Lamont Hill Slams U.S. Media Coverage of Middle East 62 huMan rights: Rep. McCollum States Case for Bill Protecting Palestinian Children

OV-8

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PHOTO BY LAUREL CHOR/GETTY IMAGES

As 2020 begins, it’s clear what citizens across the Middle East have atop their list of new year wishes: a government that respects their dignity, provides them with economic opportunity and places the common good over corruption and foreign influence. In this issue, we assess the mass protests taking place in Iraq (pp. 32-33) and Lebanon (pp. 34-35).

As was the case in Egypt, Tunisia, Syria, Bahrain and elsewhere in 2011, optimism is high among many protesters. Others look to the failure of many Arab Spring movements and wonder if these new protests will similarly collapse—or worse yet, open the gates to devastating civil unrest. The fate of these movements is unknown, but one thing is clear: from Iran, to Lebanon, to Gaza, the people of the Middle East are not prepared to acquiesce to repressive and unrepresentative governments.

Publishers’ Page Front-Page News

Police arrest an anti-government protester at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Nov. 18, 2019.

Ignored by the News ISSAM RIMAWI/ANADOLU AGENCY VIA GETTY IMAGES

Protests Continue

American Educational Trust

Israel Exporting Spyware, Cyber Bullying

U.S. support for Israel’s brutal military control over Palestinians does not only come at a moral price. As Jonathan Cook notes on pp. 8-11, Israeli spying software perfected on unwilling Palestinians is now being exported across the world and being used by all sorts of nefarious actors.

Alice Rothchild observes (pp. 12-13) that cyber bullying is yet another tactic pro-Israel groups are using to silence pro-Palestine voices, especially students. It’s time to ask: how much longer are we going to accept our tax dollars going to technology that perpetuates injustices wordwide?

2020 Conference Speakers Announced!

The new year is upon us, and that means that our May 28-29, 2020 conference on the Israel lobby is rapidly approaching! We are excited Double Standards to announce three keynote speakThe Middle East isn’t the only place ers: Haaretz journalist Gideon Levy, where protests are taking place Columbia University Professor right now. Hong Kong, Chile and Joseph Massad and Harvard UniverBolivia are among the many counsity Professor Stephen Walt. See the A Palestinian protester bloodied by U.S.-funded Israeli ad on p. 21 for more information tries that have been rocked by troops near Beit El checkpoint in Ramallah, West Bank, demonstrations lately. While these about how to buy a ticket to both our Nov. 16. protests are new, one thing has reconference and the speakers gala mained the same: the U.S. contindinner. This annual conference— and demanded that the wall that separates ues to respond to global protests with with its unparalleled speakers and netthem from their homes, livelihoods and gross hypocrisy. Those fighting the influworking opportunities—is a must-attend freedom comes down. These protests ence of communist China over Hong event for everyone who wants to fight the have been met with deadly force and endKong, resisting the Islamic Republic of power of the pro-Israel lobby! less accusations of terrorism. The U.S.— Iran and challenging the legitimacy of BoWe Need Your Support the alleged champion of global freedom— livia’s socialist president are hailed as By now we hope all of our subscribers and has stood firmly on the side of Israel and bold champions for human rights. But donors have received our annual donation sought to delegitimize the Gaza protestone can’t help but notice that one set of appeal. Your generosity ensures this magers. As noted on pp. 36-37, the U.S. brave protesters always seem to be igazine is able to continue to serve as a print hypocrisy on human rights is not isolated nored—or worse, vilified—by the U.S. and online resource for people around the to Israel, as Washington often overlooks government and mainstream media. country—and the world. It is only with your gross human rights violations by other We’re, of course, talking about the… grassroots support that we can persist in allied nations, such as Egypt and Saudi Freedom Fighters in Gaza. spreading the truth that will transform U.S. Arabia. It appears interest in human rights On a weekly basis for over a year, Gazans policy. has more to do with conniving realpolitik have taken to the “border” with Israel than it does with actual concern for univerMake A Difference Today!

(Israel has no legally established borders) sal human rights.

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

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

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

Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (ISSN 87554917) is published 7 times a year, monthly except Jan./Feb., March/April, June/July and Aug./Sept. combined, at 1902 18th St., NW, Washington, DC 20009-1707.

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The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs does not take partisan domestic political positions. As a solution to the Palestinian-Israeli dispute, it endorses U.N. Security Council Resolution 242’s land-for-peace formula, supported by nine successive U.S. presidents. In general, it supports Middle East solutions which it judges to be consistent with the charter of the United Nations and traditional American support for human rights, self-determination, and fair play.

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LetterstotheEditor

SETTLEMENT ANNOUNCEMENT IS ANOTHER IMPEDIMENT TO PEACE

Abandoning all pretense of being an honest peace broker, and defying international law, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared that the U.S. now accepts the reality of Israel’s illegal settlements in the West Bank.

Using the same twisted logic, perhaps Pompeo should also accept the reality of Russia’s annexation of Crimea.

What the mendacious Pompeo omitted was the stark reality that billions in U.S. taxpayer money has been used for the demolition of Palestinian homes to build these illegal settlements on Palestinian land. The U.S. has now become a rogue state defying international law that declares as illegal Israeli settlements. Pompeo’s declaration also effectively overturns more than four decades of official U.S. policy, which supported the U.N.-backed position of condemning Israeli occupation in the Palestinian West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Since the 1967 Six-Day War, successive Israeli governments have pursued a relentless process of annexing Palestinian territory. Palestinian lands have shrunk and become increasingly fragmented with little hope of building a future Palestinian state.

The population of Jewish settlers is estimated to be more than 600,000.

President Trump has rewarded Israel and supported the disgraced Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in exchange for massive support from AIPAC and his billionaire Zionist campaign donor, Sheldon Adelson.

Israeli peace groups have observed a huge surge in Israeli expansion of settlements across the West Bank and East Jerusalem over the past three years of the Trump administration. Demolitions of Palestinian homes by Israeli bulldozers are at a record high. Jared Kushner has secretly funded illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank through his Charles and Seryl Kushner Foundation. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports that Jared Kushner's future wealth will be derived from apartments built on these illegal settlements. Israeli financial companies have also made huge investments in Jared

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

Kushner’s U.S. family real-estate business.

Meanwhile, Kushner has lauded his peace plan to be the “deal of the century”— such a cruel insult to the suffering Palestinians! Only Senator Bernie Sanders, a Jew, has spoken out about the need to treat Palestinians with respect and dignity.

Jagjit Singh, Los Altos, CA The U.S. has for years condemned Israel’s illegal settlements, but has done very little to hold the country accountable to international law. Professor Joseph Massad interestingly argues (see p. 57) that the Trump administration’s Israel policy is not an aberration from the long-standing U.S. position, but rather a natural ending place for the so-called “peace process.”

As you referenced, Sen. Bernie Sanders made news at this year’s J Street conference (see p. 50) when he called on the U.S. to condition its aid to Israel. Rep. Betty McCollum’s bill to protect Palestinian children from the Israeli military (see p. 62) seeks a similar goal. As bad as things are now, let’s hope the growing movement to hold Israel accountable prevails sooner rather than later.

CANADA'S U.N. VOTE FOR PALESTINIAN RIGHTS

Canada’s recent U.N. vote in favor of Palestinian self-determination scandalized “conservative” pundits who consider this minor gesture a massive betrayal of the Israeli state. Some have parsed Canada’s reference to international law on Israel’s settlement of conquered Palestinian territory by offering a flimsy Straw Man: the Trudeau government’s timid stance on China. This is like a trial lawyer offering the defense of listing worse crimes of other offenders to minimize his client’s guilt. Unfortunately, this sometimes works.

Such a stance is made possible only by ignoring the pre-1967 history of the Middle East. Certain historical facts undermine the stated remarks of widely-read columnists in Canada’s larger publications.

For example: The European Zionists who founded Israel began their planning in the 1880s and ignored the contradictory opinions and warnings of Jewish religious

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020

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scholars on the viability and wisdom Ron Johnson, Rochester, NY KEEP THOSE CARDS AND LETTERS of their secular scheme to eventually We are always happy to support COMING! dominate all of Palestine. Current events across the country. While we Send your letters to the editor to the Washington Report, P.O. Box 53062, Washington, DC 20009 plans to illegally annex the West hope this support expands our or e-mail <letters@wrmea.org>.

Bank thus obviously have a long hisreadership base, we are also deadtory. set on making sure that every As violent as Hamas might be, the conFinally, the current tensions were avoidAmerican knows the truth about what is ditions for founding the Israeli state were faable, since the 1967 Israeli cabinet was happening in the Middle East. We are cilitated by 1930s Jewish terrorism directed strongly advised by senior military officers always inspired and motivated by the at the British, Palestinian Arabs and any to deal fairly with the Palestinians and obey Americans across the country who mobilize Jews who were less than enthusiastic international law. Obviously, they chose a community workshops and rallies to eduabout Zionism. A number of leading terrorist different path and thousands have been cate their fellow citizens. We hope our magcommanders avoided prosecution and later needlessly killed and maimed since this azine is but one tool that helps to change became Israeli prime ministers. decision. minds—and ultimately policy!

The Israeli state as it exists is not a truly Morgan Duchesney, Ottawa, Canada THANKFUL FOR DONNA CURTISS independent nation but a protectorate of the Some in the U.S. and Canada depicted AND THE WASHINGTON REPORT colonial-era type. Only massive U.S. milithe U.N. vote in favor of fundamental PalesDear Delinda C. Hanley, tary and diplomatic support allows Israel to tinian human rights and in opposition of blaI just read the obituary you (obviously) behave with its current impunity. That said, tant Israeli violations of international law as so lovingly wrote about your wonderful American fears about Israel’s large nuclear controversial and a reflection of anti-Israel mother, Donna Curtiss. What an unsung arsenal remain a factor in its willingness to bias at the U.N. However, the rest of the hero! What a tenacious advocate for juscoddle the Middle East’s mini-super power. world found this vote rather uncontroversial. tice! What a loving human being! As I Only five countries opposed the read each sentence, I found myself nodresolution: the U.S., Israel, the ding emphatically: “Yes, that's what it Marshall Islands, Nauru and Miwould have taken for Dick Curtiss and cronesia—the latter three Pacific Andrew Killgore to have created this jewel island nations being heavily dethat is the Washington Report: their wives pendent on the U.S. for financial were citizen diplomats, love warriors and assistance. The Israel lobby has justice advocates. They raised their kids historically had significant influto be the same. They refused recognition. ence over the foreign policies of They blessed everyone around them.” the U.S. and Canada. It’s refreshYour mom sounds like the kind of ing to see a rare victory for Palesperson whose absence leaves a bigger tinian rights in Canada. gap than most when she leaves this life.

FILM FESTIVAL BRINGS She sounds like someone whose influPALESTINIAN ISSUE TO NY ence will be felt beyond the generations We gave away all of the back who knew her. May her soul rest in peace, issues of the Washington Report and may she continue to guide you that you sent to us at the Chrisalways. I can only imagine how much you tians Witnessing for Palestine film must miss her. showings and “Celebrate PalesWith a hug, tine” dinner (featuring Palestinian Vicki Tamoush, via e-mail OTHER VOICES is an optional 16-page supple storyteller Nadia N. Abuelezam), Thank fou for your kind words and your ment available only to subscribers of the Washingon Nov. 9 in Rochester, NY. We years of support, Vicki. Donna was indeed hope that some subscriptions will an unsung hero of the magazine. Unlike ton Report on Middle East Affairs. For an additional come to you. well-funded pro-Israel and pro-war groups, $15 per year (see postcard insert for Washington The events went very well.

Al this magazine, since its inception, has Report subscription rates), subscribers will receive Jazeera’s “The Lobby USA,” always relied on the passion and charity Other Voices inside each issue of their Washington Benny Brunner’s “The Great of volunteers and donors. Since the magReport on Middle East Affairs.

Book of Robery,” Ahlam Muhazine was founded in 1982, the movement Back issues of both publications are available. taseb and Andy Trimlett’s “1948: for justice and truth has made tremendous To subscribe telephone 1 (888) 881-5861, fax Creation and Catastrophe” and strides—but there are still many moun(714) 226-9733, e-mail circulation@wrmea. org>, Ciaran Gibbons’ “Firefighters tains to climb. As we continue to push Under Occupation” were among through and slowly improve U.S. policy, or write to P.O. Box 91056, Long Beach, CA 90809the films and documentaries we we need the help of our donors and vol1056. screened this year. unteers more than ever! ■ JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

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The Nakba Continues

Israeli Spyware Technology, Tested on Palestinians, Now Operating in a City Near You

By Jonathan Cook

PHOTO CREDIT AHMAD GHARABLI/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

not only new conventional weapons systems but also new tools for mass surveillance and control.

As a recent report in the Israeli Haaretz newspaper observed, Israel’s surveillance operation against Palestinians is “among the largest of its kind in the world. It includes monitoring the media, social media and the population as a whole.”

Tiny though it may be in size, Israel has long been a world leader in an extremely lucrative arms trade, selling to authoritarian regimes around the world its weapons systems as “battlefield-tested” on Palestinians.

But this trade in military “hardware” is increasingly being overshadowed by a market for belligerAn Israeli technician installs a surveillance camera on a street in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of ent software: tools for waging cyber Ras al-Amud, Jan. 24, 2019, with the al-Aqsa mosque compound and the Dome of the Rock within it warfare. seen in the background.

Israel can rightly claim to be a world authority on surveilling, controlling and oppressing populations DIGITAL-AGE WEAPONS developed by Israel to oppress Palesunder its rule. tinians are rapidly being repurposed for much wider application for Israeli army intelligence units like 8200 teach soldiers how to spy use against Western publics. on Palestinians through their phones, computers and social media Israel’s status as “Start-Up Nation” was established more than accounts. Many later go on to set up companies developing similar two decades ago. But its reputation for hi-tech innovation always software for more general application. depended on a dark side, as the Israeli analyst Jeff Halper warned While Israel has been keen to keep its fingerprints off much of this in his book War Against the People. new Big Brother technology by outsourcing additional development Israel, he argued, had achieved a pivotal role globally in merging to graduates of these units, critics note that it has implicitly sanctioned new digital technologies with the homeland security industry. The such activities by providing these firms with export licenses. danger, he said, was that gradually we would all become PalestiniApps using sophisticated surveillance technology originating in ans.

Israel are increasingly common in our digital lives. Some have been Critics like Halper have warned that Israel is treating the millions put to relatively benign use. Waze tracks traffic congestion and of Palestinians under its military rule effectively as guinea pigs in allows drivers to reach destinations faster, while Gett pairs cusopen-air laboratories. They have become the testbed for developing tomers up with nearby taxis through their phones.

But some of the more covert technology produced by Israeli deJonathan Cook is a journalist based in Nazareth and a winner of the velopers sticks much closer to its original military purpose.

Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. He is the author of As recent cases highlight, this offensive software has been sold Blood and Religion and Israel and the Clash of Civilisations (availboth to nations wishing to spy on their own citizens or rival states, able from AET’s Middle East Books and More).

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WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020

and to private corporations hoping to gain an edge on competitors or better commercially exploit and manipulate their customers.

Once incorporated into social media platforms with billions of users, such spyware offers state security agencies a potential near-global reach.

The potential for intrusion explains the sometimes fraught relationship between Israeli tech firms and Silicon Valley, as the latter struggles to take control of this malware. In a sign of the tensions, WhatsApp, a social media platform owned by Facebook, initiated the first lawsuit of its kind in a California court in October against NSO, Israel’s largest surveillance company.

WhatsApp accuses NSO of cyber attacks. In a two-week period in early May examined by WhatsApp, NSO is reported to have targeted the mobile phones of more than 1,400 users in 20 countries.

SPYWARE FOR REPRESSIVE REGIMES

NSO was founded in 2010 by Omri Lavie and Shalev Hulio, both reported to be graduates of Unit 8200. NSO’s spyware, known as Pegasus, has been used against human rights activists, lawyers, religious leaders, journalists and aid workers. According to Reuters, senior officials of U.S. allies have also been targeted by NSO. After taking charge of the user’s phone without their knowledge, Pegasus copies data and turns on the microphone for surveillance. Forbes magazine has described it as the “world’s most invasive mobile spy kit.”

NSO has licensed the software to dozens of governments, including regimes such as Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Kazakhstan, Mexico and Morocco, all of which possess long records of human rights abuses.

Amnesty International has complained that its staff are among those targeted by NSO spyware. It is currently suing the Israeli government for issuing the company with an export license.

Separately, NSO malware is suspected of having been used to target Omar Abdulaziz, a friend of the murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Abdulaziz’s phone was hacked while he was in regular contact JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020

JACK GUEZ/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

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A woman uses her iPhone in front of the Israeli NSO Group in Herzliya, near Tel Aviv, Aug. 28, 2016. Earlier that week, Apple iPhone owners were urged to install a quickly released security update after an NSO Group-made spyware called Pegasus attack on an Emirati dissident exposed vulnerabilities. with Khashoggi shortly before the latter was murdered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul last year.

In late November Ron Wyden (D-OR), the top Democrat on the U.S. Senate finance committee, said he had called on the Commerce Department to investigate the extent to which companies like NSO were hacking U.S. citizens.

In 2014 whistleblowers revealed that Unit 8200 routinely spied on Palestinians, trawling through their phones and computers for evidence of sexual improprieties, health problems or financial difficulties that could be used to pressure them into collaborating with Israel’s military authorities.

The soldiers wrote that Palestinians were “completely exposed to espionage and surveillance by Israeli intelligence. It is used for political persecution and to create divisions within Palestinian society by recruiting collaborators and driving parts of Palestinian society against itself.”

Despite officials issuing export licenses to NSO, Israeli government minister Zeev Elkin denied “Israeli government involvement” in the hacking of WhatsApp. He told Israeli radio: “Everyone understands that this is not about the state of Israel.”

In the same week that WhatsApp launched its legal action, U.S. television network NBC revealed that Silicon Valley is nonetheless keen to reach out to Israeli start-ups deeply implicated in abuses associated with the occupation.

Microsoft has invested heavily in AnyVision to further develop sophisticated facial recognition technology that already helps the Israeli military oppress Palestinians.

Israel’s security services’ ties to AnyVision are barely hidden. Its advisory board includes Tamir Pardo, the former head of Israel’s Mossad spy agency. The company’s president, Amir Kain, previously served as head of Malmab, the defense ministry’s security department.

Its main software, Better Tomorrow, has been nicknamed “Occupation Google” because the firm claims it can identify and track any Palestinian by searching footage from the Israeli army’s extensive network of surveillance cameras in the occupied territories.

The technology allows AnyVision to track Palestinians as they move between different live feeds, including security cameras at checkpoints and smartphones. It works similarly in tracking vehicle registration plates.

Last year AnyVision won the Israel Defense Prize, though the company was not identified in the accompanying press material—apparently because of the controversial nature of its work. NBC accessed a picture of AnyVision’s team receiving the award.

Despite obvious ethical problems, Microsoft’s investment suggests it aims to incorporate the software into its own programs. That prospect has caused grave concern among human rights groups.

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Shankar Narayan, of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), warned of a future all too familiar to Palestinians living under Israeli rule: “Face recognition is possibly the most perfect tool for complete government control in public spaces. The widespread use of face surveillance flips the premise of freedom on its head and you start becoming a society where everyone is tracked, no matter what they do, all the time.”

AnyVision’s software has already been sold internationally to casinos, sports stadiums, airports, theme parks and department stores. U.S. cities, including San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley, have banned the use of this kind of facial recognition technology by the police or other agencies, fearing it is too invasive and readily open to abuse.

Nicole Ozer, the technology and civil liberties director of the ACLU, wrote a letter earlier this year warning of the danger that “the next generation will have to fear being tracked by the government for attending a protest, going to their place of worship or simply living their lives.”

According to Yael Berda, a researcher at Harvard University, Israel maintains a list of some 200,000 Palestinians in the West Bank it wants surveilled round the clock— one in five of the male population there.

Technologies like AnyVision’s are seen as vital to keeping this vast group under constant monitoring.

A former AnyVision employee told NBC that the Palestinians were treated as a testing ground. “The technology was field-tested in one of the world’s most demanding security environments and we were now rolling it out to the rest of the market,” he said.

The Israeli government itself has had a growing interest in using these spying technologies in the U.S. and Europe as its occupation has become the focus of controversy and scrutiny in mainstream political discourse.

In the UK, the shift in the political climate has been highlighted by the election of Jeremy Corbyn, a long-time Palestinian rights activist, to head the opposition Labour party.

And in the U.S., a small group of lawmakers visibly supportive of the Palestinian 10

Thousands of Palestinians queue up to cross into Israel and begin their work day as the sun begins to rise, at Eyal border crossing, in the northwestern city of Qalqilya, West Bank, May 1, 2019. cause have recently entered Congress, including Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), a House representative of Palestinian heritage.

More generally, Israel fears the flourishing international solidarity movement BDS, which calls for a boycott of Israel—modeled on the one against apartheid South Africa— until it stops oppressing Palestinians. The BDS movement has grown strongly on many U.S. campuses.

As a result, Israeli cyber firms have been drawn ever more deeply into efforts to manipulate public discourse about Israel, apparently including by meddling in foreign elections.

In fact, one Israeli company, Psy-Group, was shut down last year after the FBI began investigating allegations that it had tried to interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election through Facebook. The New Yorker reported that the group had marketed itself as a “private Mossad for hire.”

Psy-Group boasted among its advisers Ram Ben-Barak, a former deputy directorgeneral of Mossad, and Yaakov Amidror, a former head of Israel’s National Security Council, which advises the prime minister.

Psy-Group was founded by a former military intelligence officer, Royi Burstien.

There are fears that Psy-Group and other firms are effectively front groups, allowing Israeli intelligence to spy and meddle in the U.S. without openly flouting U.S. laws.

Psy-Group’s activities also extended to

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

what Ben-Barak has described as a “war” on student activists. The firm gathered data, most of it online, to intimidate and threaten students on several campuses known for Palestinian solidarity activities.

According to The New Yorker, its “Project Butterfly,” launched in early 2016, aimed to “destabilize and disrupt anti-Israel movements from within.” It used fake IP addresses to gather information on BDS activists, and then waged psy-ops using false online identities and websites to damage the activists’ reputations.

PSY-GROUP APPEARS TO BE THE TIP OF AN ICEBERG

The Black Cube intelligence operation was exposed last year to have been carrying out hostile surveillance of leading members of the Barack Obama administration.

The aim of the spying operations appears to have included undermining the nuclear accord Obama signed in 2015 with Iran, which was vehemently opposed by the Israeli government of Binyamin Netanyahu. Obama’s successor, Donald Trump, unilaterally scrapped the deal last year.

Black Cube also worked on behalf of disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, collecting information on women who had accused him of sexual assault or rape.

One of Black Cube’s founders, Dan Zorella, is a veteran of the Israeli military’s JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020

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secret special operations unit. Staff are typically recruited from Mossad, the army or the Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency that spies on Palestinians. The late Meir Dagan, a former Mossad head, was at one point the company’s president.

Structured like Israel’s intelligence agencies, Black Cube is known to have worked closely in the past with the Israeli defense ministry, and was located for a time on a military base.

The various scandals it has been involved in, far from harming the company, have generated publicity helping it to expand rapidly as customers line up for its specialist services.

A raft of similar Israeli firms seeking to blur the distinction between private and public space has also started to make headlines—invariably for the wrong reasons.

Onavo, an Israeli data collection company established by two veterans of Unit 8200, was acquired by Facebook in 2013.

Apple banned its VPN app last year over revelations that it was providing “unlimited access” to users’ data.

Israel’s strategic affairs minister, Gilad Erdan, who heads a secretive campaign to demonize overseas BDS activists, had regular meetings last year with another firm, Concert, according to a Haaretz report.

This covert group, which is exempt from Israel’s Freedom of Information laws, has received $36 million in funding from the Israeli government. Its directors and shareholders are a Who’s Who of Israel’s security and intelligence elite.

Another leading Israeli firm, Candiru, is named for a small Amazonian fish that is reputed to secretly invade the human body, where it becomes a parasite.

Candiru sells its hacking tools mostly to Western governments, although its operations are shrouded in secrecy, according to Haaretz.

Its staff is drawn almost exclusively from Unit 8200. As an example of the linkages between public uses and covert application of technologies developed by Israeli firms, Candiru’s chief executive, Eitan Achlow, previously headed Gett, the taxi service app.

Israel’s security elite is cashing in on this new market for cyber warfare, exploiting—

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as it did with the trade in conventional arms—a readymade and captive Palestinian population on which it can test its technology.

At the same time, Israel is gradually normalizing in the West invasive and oppressive technologies long familiar to Palestinians.

Facial recognition software allows for ever more sophisticated racial and political profiling. Covert data gathering and surveillance smashes the traditional boundaries between private and public space. The resulting malicious internet searching for private information or doxxing campaigns make it easy to intimidate, threaten and undermine those who dissent or, like the human rights community, try to hold the powerful to account.

If this dystopian future continues to unfold, New York, London, Berlin and Paris may end up under cyber siege just like Nablus, Hebron, East Jerusalem and Gaza—and Western publics may come to understand what it means to live inside a surveillance state engaged in cyber warfare against those it seeks to control. ■

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WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

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Special Report

Cyber Bullies at Canary Mission Muzzle Free Speech

PHOTO BY KEITH BEATY/TORONTO STAR VIA GETTY IMAGES

By Dr. Alice Rothchild

Cyberstalkers from the Canary Mission target Palestinian rights advocates.

IN AN ERA of malicious social media campaigns, the Canary Mission stands out as a little known but highly effective organization that is a threat to free speech and political organizing in the U.S. Targeting graduate and undergraduate students, and professors, the website is designed to inhibit political speech regarding Israel on campuses, ruin reputations, and destroy professional careers through publishing malicious lies and unrelenting attacks.

The McCarthyite blacklist has become especially frightening because it’s being used by law enforcement in Israel and the U.S. Palestinian rights advocates have been interrogated and deported

Social-justice activist Dr. Alice Rothchild is a retired obstetriciangynecologist who worked in the health care reform and women’s movements for many years. Her documentary “Voices Across the Divide,” was the co-winner of the 2013 Audience Award at the Boston Palestine Film Festival. Her latest book, Condition Critical: Life and Death in Israel/Palestine, is available at Middle East Books and More.

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from Israel because of their Canary Mission profiles. Others have been grilled by the FBI or denied employment.

Recently, a graduate student with stellar qualifications contacted me when his/her education and future career were severely derailed by this shadowy website.(That graduate student asked to be absolutely anonymous since he/she is so traumatized and frightened by the experience.) As I researched his/her concerns, I discovered that I too was listed, portrayed as an anti-Israel conspiracy theorist and provocateur.

My personal page on the Canary Mission involves a long series of cherry-picked quotes from articles and tweets dating back to 2011, interspersed with erroneous interpretations designed to prove their point that I am a dangerous, lying, self-hating Jew. The Canary Mission is an anonymous site that identifies and compiles a dossier on Palestinian rights advocates in academia, and harasses them through web and Twitter postings, tagging stu-

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020

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dents, administrators, employers, and alerting the FBI to baseless, unvetted accusations.

The key qualifications for inclusion are public criticism of Israeli policies, support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, and sympathy for Palestinian causes. Those listed are accused of racism, anti-Semitism, support for terrorism and worse. The postings, selectively chosen and misinterpreted, are expansive and frequently updated. This constant surveillance and cyber-bullying leads students to feel anxious and paranoid as they find themselves the subjects of online death threats, and racial, homophobic and misogynist slurs. The website focuses disproportionately on students of color and Arabs.

With over 2,300 profiles to date, the Canary Mission is having a chilling impact on campus activism and this intimidation leads to students and professors self-censoring their own speech and community activities out of fear of time-consuming attacks and threats to funding.

Several years ago, that graduate student tweeted hostile comments toward Israel during attacks on Gaza which killed some of his/her relatives. After the Canary Mission contacted the student’s school he/she was called in for a “talk.” He/she expressed regret, explaining the tweets, since deleted, had voiced youthful anger and grief, some of which were also mistranslated. After being “cleared” of suspicion at school, he/she received a call from the FBI who mentioned the Canary Mission, and also “cleared” the student. Next defamatory rumors spread around the school, along with a mass email. The vice chancellor put the student on administrative leave, and removed and investigated all his/her electronic devices.

Advised to come to a meeting with parents present, he/she finally got a lawyer.

After mixed messages from the school, denials, promises, threats of expulsion, and disciplinary hearings, the graduate student was suspended for three months due to a violation of code of conduct, required to take cultural sensitivity training and to issue a public apology. So far judges have ruled in his/her favor, but post graduate school acceptance was retracted and his/her edJANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020

ucational and work opportunities are all in limbo.

WHO’S BEHIND THE CANARY PROJECT?

In 2018, the Grayzone Project identified the Canary Mission’s domain owner as Howard Davis Sterling, a lawyer and passionate Israel-right-or-wrong supporter.

Subsequently, a censored Al Jazeera film named an Israeli-American real estate investor, Adam Milstein, as the funder of the Canary Mission. Milstein denied involvement, but as a former employee of the recently defunct Israel Project, part of a network of groups that monitor and track Israel related campus events, he has certainly supported this kind of work in the past. The Forward recognized the Helen Diller Family Foundation, controlled by the Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco and the Jewish Community Foundation of Los Angeles, as major donors as well.

The Canary Mission is part of a multimillion dollar network of trolling and disinformation organizations including AMCHA, CAMERA, Campus Coalition, David Horowitz Freedom Center, Israel on Campus Coalition, Israellycool, Stand with Us, and Students Supporting Israel, that monitor social and printed media and webzines.

Their purported goal is to provide accurate information about Israel/Palestine and to fight anti-Semitism. Their actual goal is to muzzle and intimidate critics, suppress support for the BDS movement, and distract the general population from the serious human rights violations in Israel/Palestine. They effectively stifle dissent by equating criticism of Israeli policy with antiSemitism, by stating that Jewish students feel “unsafe” on campuses, and by pushing administrators to take disciplinary measures against those who criticize Israel.

Even more disturbing is the fact that the Israel Ministry of Strategic Affairs and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs work internationally with front groups and social media trolls in a largely secretive campaign against BDS, ostensibly to “improve” Israel’s image.

Using former members of Israeli security industries, the groups monitor and shape online discussions through strategic mes-

saging and black ops techniques. (See Jonathan Cook’s article, pp. 8-11.)

The personal attacks on my Twitter and Facebook pages (like: “I hope you are raped by 10,000 Arabs, but no, you would probably enjoy it”) and the disruptive behaviors in response to essays and during my public speaking, and the death threats on Facebook that originated from Israel, are not clearly from Canary Mission, but are certainly in the tone and behavior of the Canary Mission or one of its sister organizations.

I have had one visit from the FBI (clearly a fishing expedition) and I am not sure what triggered that. I have not been recently professionally attacked as I am retired from my academic and clinical appointments and I am not employed by anyone, although I have certainly been targeted by Israeli hasbara groups (for instance leafleting my lecture on health care in the occupied territories with rabid antiPalestinian literature for a Grand Rounds presentation), while I was working in clinical medicine.

In the U.S., while we worry about Russian influence, the president and rightwing groups are flooding Facebook and Twitter with deceptive, defaming messaging. At the same time, under the radar, there is an organized multimillion dollar influence campaign by the Israeli government seeking to impact public opinion and elections, hijacking public polls, directing social media messages with trolls that engage in well-organized digital astroturfing.

These practices threaten our free speech and destroy any semblance of civility in political discourse. Students and faculty who find themselves blacklisted have little recourse except to shed light on the organization and its destructive mission, (risking more vicious attacks), and to fight the consequences of blacklisting in our courts, (an expensive, slow process).

My graduate student’s case is now creeping through our legal system. The website has been denounced by many in and out of academia, by J Street, a powerful lobbying group that defines itself as “proIsrael, pro-peace,” and Jewish Voice for Peace, a national organization working for “peace, social justice, human rights [and] respect for international law.” ■

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Gaza on the Ground

A Newlywed Nightmare: Another Gaza Tragedy

Gazan newly-wed couple Mohammed and Marwa Abu Amrah look at the debris of their home, demolished by Israel’s attack at Al Karara district in Khan Younes, Gaza, Nov. 16, 2019.

AFTER AN EIGHT-month engagement Marwa and Mohammed Abu Amrah, two 23-year-olds in Gaza, decided to make their dream of marriage and a home together come true. Thanks to an Israeli airstrike, the dream turned into a nightmare.

“It has been three years of working hard to build our own home,” Mohammed sadly recounted, “now it is all in ruins.”

His father, Hamouda Abu Amrah, received a phone call from the Israeli military on Wednesday night, Nov. 13, giving him seven minutes to evacuate their four-story house, where he lives with his children and grandchildren, 20 people in total.

“I was told to tell my neighbors to evacuate also,” he said. Seven minutes later, the first missiles fired from Israeli F-16s hit the house— turning what used to be a house into a desperate, shattered, smoking ruin.

“Our furniture, personal possessions, and my wife’s wedding gold [dowry] is all gone,” he said. “We do not know where to begin to salvage what we can and how long we have until the next attack.”

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

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The present Israeli assault on Gaza started with Israel’s “targeted killing” of a top commander in Gaza based on the claim that he was planning attacks that posed an imminent threat. The Health Ministry in Gaza reported that the airstrikes by Israel on Wednesday caused 32 deaths, including women and children.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres consoled a Gaza family who lost eight members to an Israeli missile strike. “The secretarygeneral expresses his heartfelt condolences to the Al-Sawarkeh family, wishes a speedy recovery to the injured, and calls on Israel to move swiftly with the investigation,” said Farhan Haq, deputy spokesman for Guterres.

SOCIAL MEDIA GOES VIRAL

Attacks on Gaza are downplayed by Western mainstream news media, yet they generate massive numbers of social media messages across the globe. Photos of damage by Israeli missiles continue to be displayed on social media while global TV footage is minimal.

In the most recent attack, some 500 housing units were either partially, severely or totally damaged, including eight houses and 12 Continued on page 16

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JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020

PHOTO BY MUSTAFA HASSONA/ANADOLU AGENCY VIA GETTY IMAGES

By Mohammed Omer

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United Nations Report

PHOTO BY MAJDI FATHI/NURPHOTO VIA GETTY IMAGES

U.N. Continues to Choose “Monitoring” Over Sanctioning Israel

By Ian Williams

The U.N. General Assembly approved the extension of UNRWA’s mandate, a move supported by 170 countries, with only the U.S. and Israel voting against, and seven countries abstaining (Cameroon, Guatemala, Nauru, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Vanuatu and Canada).

Palestinians express their opinion at a rally in Gaza City, Nov. 27, 2019.

JOURNALISM CAN BE effective. It is 11 months since the UNRWA ethics office sent a report to U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres detailing how senior officials were abusing their power in the agency that provides health, education and housing for millions of Palestinians. In November, Guterres broke the news to Commissioner General Pierre Krähenbühl that his impunity had expired. Forced to step aside for an investigation, he promptly resigned, following three others who parted from UNRWA following Al Jazeera/Washington Report’s initial story.

To the bitter end Krähenbühl hung on and reports from inside the U.N. suggest that he would indeed have benefited from the customary indulgence the U.N. shows to senior officials had not several large donors let it be known that if he stayed in office, they would withhold their contributions.

As the Washington Report knows all too well, at times reporting on the region can be like playing hopscotch across a minefield. The

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

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020

coterie around the commissioner general put out the line that rather than impeding the work of the agency, he was being punished for the effectiveness of his fundraising, thereby attributing the allegations to a U.S.-Israeli plot. Regular readers of this magazine, or viewers of Al Jazeera can judge for themselves whether we are a likely vehicle for an Israeli plot! The UNRWA staff who provided us with materials for the story did so precisely to head off a “Gotcha” campaign emanating from representatives of Israel and the U.S. Now we can only hope that freed from the embarrassment of the senior officials concerned, the new acting Commissioner General Christian Saunders can refresh and revive the agency and secure the funding and assistance of member countries. It is, of course, too much to hope that the Trump administration would change its mind and renew its support of UNRWA, so one must hope that other countries will get involved.

While U.N. officials typically prefer a low profile on the Palestinian issue, the Trump administration has prompted an outbreak of forthrightness from others. At recent meetings of the Security Council on Middle East issues U.S. disdain for international law impelled country after country to affirm that the annexation of Jerusalem violates in-

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

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ternational law and U.N. decisions, as does Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s groveling agreement to accept the Israeli position on settlements in the Occupied Territories.

Of course, it does little to help the Palestinians (or Sahrawis, Kurds, Uyghurs, Syrians, Rohingyas, or any of the myriad other beleaguered peoples) when the U.N. is paralyzed by member states who will not allow it to act. SG Guterres recently put forward an action plan to protect Palestinians that shows what pipe dreams look like on twodimensional paper: “Options for enhanced international protection activities and mechanisms” include a more robust U.N. presence on the ground.

Additional human rights, coordination and political officers could be deployed to provide enhanced monitoring, reporting and situational analysis. These changes would allegedly strengthen the organization’s preventive capacities, increase its visibility and demonstrate the international community’s focus on and commitment to protecting Palestinian civilians under Israeli occupation.

Guterres’ suggestions included “a civilian observer mission” (deployed by the United Nations or a third party) “with a specific mandate to report on protection and wellbeing issues and to provide local mediation.

This would be particularly relevant in sensitive areas, such as checkpoints, the Gaza fence and areas near settlements.”

It is unlikely such modest changes could make a difference in occupiers who gleefully abuse and shoot civilian demonstrators in full view of the world with confidence that Washington will ensure that there are no repercussions. Successive U.N. human rights officers who have spoken out on the issue have been squeezed out of the organization for doing so, including most recently Andrew Gilmour, assistant secretarygeneral, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. Like his former boss Zeid Ra’ad Zeid al-Hussein, Gilmour has been a staunch supporter of human rights.

To be outspoken in such a position is not a career enhancing move in the U.N., but this did not deter these two from speaking out about Middle Eastern issues.

U.N. officials might not deny the resolutions about Israel and Palestine, but they 16

know that they publicize them at their peril.

And as we have seen with UNRWA, if the officials of an organization consistently fulfill their mandate then the organization itself is threatened with dissolution.

The other suggestion betrays an equally tenuous connection to reality. The U.N., if mandated to do so, could deploy armed military or police forces to act as a deterrent and, if necessary, to ensure the safety of the civilian populations, but this cannot be done in the face of U.S. opposition and enabling of Israel with its long history of stymieing and humiliating United Nations Interim Force In Lebanon efforts.

Xolisa Mfundiso Mabhongo of South Africa perhaps pointed the way when he told the General Assembly that the U.N.’s “failure to uphold its commitment to human dignity and the rights of the Palestinian people constitutes a normalization of the occupation, the violation of human rights and disdain for international law.” He recalled that South Africa liberated itself from apartheid “because the international community refused to accept the existence of an overtly racist government in modern times” and asked where the indignation was about the Palestinians’ plight.

The Israeli government shows its fear and contempt for such analogies in its response to the issue of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS), which it falsely and recklessly equates with outright anti-Semitism.

Israel deports even American advocates of BDS, like Omar Shakir, the Israel and Palestine director for Human Rights Watch. It coordinates smears of politicians in Washington and London who speak about BDS. That is a clue—they hate it so much because they saw how effective it was against their old allies and partners in crime, the Apartheid government in South Africa.

It was the General Assembly that bypassed the British, American (and occasionally French) vetoes in the Security Council to call sanctions down on the Apartheid South African government. There might well be sacrifices, like consolidating the admittedly tedious and repetitive (though righteous) Palestine resolutions into an effective and irrebuttable resolution that would call for sanctions on the country

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

that is occupying and oppressing the Palestinian territories. It might well be the time.

Even the slippery Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has just had Canada vote to reassert its own longstanding policy on the Territories after years of capitulating to Washington and the Israel lobby. ■

Gaza on the Ground Continued from page 14

housing units, with an estimated total value of $2 million. In addition, there were agricultural losses valued at than one million shekels (more than a quarter of a million dollars) as a result of damage to land, farms, irrigation systems and fishing boats.

Infrastructure losses from bombardments of the Gaza Strip during 2019 total about $3 million, the Gaza Ministry of Public Works reported. The latest destruction compounds already existing financial woes as Gaza faces donor fatigue. A new report

by Lebanon’s daily Al Akhbar suggests that Qatar may cease its provision of funding and aid to the Gaza Strip in 2020.

Poverty and unemployment rates in Gaza may be as high as 75 percent, according to the Ministry of Social Development in Gaza. UNRWA received an overwhelming vote to extend its mandate at the U.N. meeting in mid-November, but the agency remains largely cash strapped after the Trump administration cut off muchneeded humanitarian and development assistance covering health, education and food aid.

Neither U.N. condolences nor social media solidarity can bring Marwa and Mohammed Abu Amrah back on track. “My wife is sitting with me,” in the cold, says Mohammed, “our future is stolen from us.”

Neither Mohammed, nor his wife, nor the father know why the house was targeted.

But they know that the winter will be dreadful in Gaza with nowhere to sleep.

Digging out the remains of her wedding dress—as neighbors offer them clothes— Marwa says, “I still can’t believe we had the dream yesterday and a nightmare today.”

“I spend most of the day crying,” she says, “wondering what we ever did to deserve this.” ■ JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020

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Special Report

Partners in Corruption: The Virginia Israel Advisory Board and the Tobacco Commission

PHOTO CREDIT IRMEP, SEPT. 4, 2019

By Grant F. Smith

The mothballed industrial site of VIAB Chairman Charles Lessin’s “Appalachian Biofuels LLC” in St. Paul, Virginia.

THIS SUMMER Tobacco Region Revitalization Commission Executive Director Evan Feinman struck a corrupt deal with Virginia Israel Advisory Board (VIAB) Vice Chairman Charles Lessin. Virginians emerged with $210,000 less in funding for legitimate economic development initiatives, even as VIAB forges even bigger deals to benefit Israeli companies. Other Israeli recipients of VIAB-orchestrated state grants include Sabra Dipping Company, AquaMaof, Energix, Alony Hetz and military contractor Oran Safety Glass.

Virginia and other states settled lawsuits against major tobacco companies in 1998. The estimated revenue over the first 25 years of the settlement is $246 billion. Unfortunately, most states spend less than 3 percent of their settlement payouts on adult smoking cessation programs or preventing kids from smoking. These were

Grant F. Smith is the director of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy in Washington, DC. To view files received via the Virginia Freedom of Information Act to produce this report, visit the Israel Lobby Archive at https://IsraelLobby.org/biofuels. View videos and transcripts about the Virginia Israel Advisory Board presented by the Virginia Coalition for Human Rights at the National Press Club at https://www.wrmea.org/ycax (pp. 59-66 of the May 2019 issue of the Washington Report).Smith’s latest book, the israel lobby enters state government, is now on sale at Middle East Books and More. january/february 2020

the intended purposes of the damage settlement.

In Virginia, a large portion of the tobacco settlement funding is distributed by a 28-member body created in 1999 now called the Tobacco Region Revitalization Commission. The commission’s mission is economic and infrastructure development. TRRC has awarded more than 2,000 grants totaling over a billion dollars across Virginia’s tobacco region. Recipients have built university medical and health science centers, broadband telecommunications networks and funded many new business startups.

Private companies, in partnership with county economic development agencies, sign performance agreements that obligate them to create a guaranteed number of jobs within a fixed time period as a condition for receiving grants. Those who are successful (and others who are not) often return to the commission’s Tobacco Region Opportunity Fund, or TROF, for multiple payouts.

The Virginia Israel Advisory Board, or VIAB, is presently the only U.S. taxpayer-funded state government Israel export promotion council in the U.S. As detailed in the article about Sun Tribe Solar, on pp. 28-31 of the November/December 2019 Washington Report, VIAB board members often hold equity stakes and positions as corporate officers in Israeli companies or joint ventures seeking to start operations in Virginia.

Washington report on Middle east affairs

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VIAB’s alleged project pipeline submitted by VIAB Vice Chairman and Appalachian Biofuels LLC CEO Charles Lessin.

In 2014, just after the Israeli company AquaMaof teamed up with VIAB insiders to land a $1.5 million TROF grant to start a fish farm (see pp. 14-16 in the October 2019 Washington Report), VIAB Vice Chairman Charles Lessin suddenly decided to jump into the biofuels business.

Lessin, known locally as the “bingo maven” for his massive Pop’s Bingo World parlor on the outskirts of Richmond, had no experience in the energy industry. Nevertheless, with fuel prices topping $100 per barrel, in 2014 Lessin teamed up with the Israeli company TransBiodiesel to convert an empty former furniture plant in St. Paul into a biodiesel manufacturer. Trans-

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Biodiesel uses enzymes to convert waste feedstocks into fuel.

Like all VIAB projects, Lessin’s Appalachian Biofuels LLC sought massive state subsidies. Lessin was seeking $800,000 from the Virginia Coalfield Economic Development Authority and $300,000 from the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation to extend freight rail access to his plant. The Tobacco Commission provided a $565,000 grant for Lessin to work with Russell County economic development officials to bring the plant online.

There were strings attached to the TROF grant. In a detailed performance agreement, Lessin promised there would be a $3.5 million infusion of private equity into the deal, and that 40 people would be employed at an average annual wage of $37,000 within three years. Lessin transferred funds to TransBiodiesel for enzyme purchases and other aspects of the deal.

However, by 2016 petroleum prices had collapsed to under $30 per barrel. Lessin privately informed the Tobacco Commission that a “drastic decline in world oil prices” meant that the project could not move forward. But that didn’t mean Lessin was off the hook. Early in 2017, the Tobacco Commission notified Lessin that Appalachian Biofuels LLC now had to pay back the $565,000 grant. During a January 2018 Tobacco Commission Executive Committee meeting Lessin pled for a re-

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

duction in the “claw back” amount. Tobacco Commission Executive Director Evan Feinman joined in Lessin’s plea for leniency in opening statements: “…You know, business is not a guarantee. And often a company with all good intentions and all the right efforts just doesn’t get where they need to get. And that’s fine. And sometimes companies truly have a good story. And in the past this committee has—or commission has—released them of their obligations.”

But Tobacco Commission Executive Committee acting Chairman Frank Ruff, a Republican member of the Virginia Senate, was unconvinced, stating, “Certainly, in economic development sometimes things go right, sometimes things go wrong. If things had gone right, Chuck [Lessin] would have been financially better off.” During the hearing, Ruff appeared to resent what he saw as “leverage” being applied by Lessin against the Executive Committee.

In testimony, Lessin’s legal counsel informed the Executive Committee that when Appalachian Biofuels LLC’s viability was undermined by collapsing energy prices, Lessin had transferred $355,000 into a trust fund held by a law firm handling Russell County economic development funds. An examination of tax records reveals that these funds appear to have originated from a nonprofit tax-exempt charitable umbrella organization for Lessin’s gambling enterprises, The Jerusalem Connection. The Jerusalem Connection was founded to “help to combat the worldwide problem of [Jewish] assimilation” and raised funds for Birthright Israel. The owner of the law firm involved in the deal had ties to a Tobacco Commission scandal involving state Senator Phillip Puckett that was investigated by the FBI. (See the new book, The Israel Lobby Enters State Government: Rise of the Virginia Israel Advisory Board for details).

Chairman Ruff questioned Lessin’s attorney about the transaction. “What is the reason for the $355,000 staying in escrow and not coming back to the commission?”

Lessin’s lawyer told Ruff, “Well, I think we had to have a conversation around what does a final resolution look like.”

Ruff did not like this response, charging, JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020

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“You wanted some leverage, is that my understanding of what you just said?”

Ruff then issued the Executive Committee’s final ruling directly to Evan Feinman.

“If you can sit down...and figure out anything, that would be the best route to take.

Because I’ve heard no motion [to alter the full repayment], we can’t do anything.” The appeal for leniency formally denied, on Jan. 22, 2018, Lessin had $355,000 of the grant transferred from the law firm back to the Tobacco Commission.

But Lessin was in a bind. He still owed $210,000 and any withdrawal from The Jerusalem Connection would look suspicious. In February 2018 Lessin made an entirely new pitch to Evan Feinman and select staffers at the Tobacco Commission.

He asked the Tobacco Commission to forgive his $210,000 payment obligation because as Vice Chairman of the Virginia Israel Advisory Board, he was creating an enormous number of jobs and tax revenues within the Tobacco Commission “footprint.”

Feinman and staffers requested proof. After Lessin provided a list (pictured above), Feinman agreed to forgive the $210,000

claw back, telling Lessin in an Aug. 5, 2019 letter: In a February 2018 meeting with between (sic) TRCC staff and yourself, it was agreed that in your capacity as a member of the Virginia Israel Advisory Board, over a two-year period, you would work to meet the performance metrics promised as part of project 2941 (40 new jobs, capital investment of $3.5M) to the Commission’s footprint.

In July 2019, at the request of TRRC staff you provided a detailed confidential listing of the projects you have (and continue to be) involved with that are within the Commission footprint. After reviewing the locations, capital investment and jobs provided with these projects, TRRC staff can confirm that you have fully met the employment and capital investment obligations as agreed and the project can be closed. Thank you for your partnership with the Commission and please be in touch should you have any follow up questions.

It did not appear to bother Feinman that Lessin had no personal equity stake in any of the VIAB projects, most details about which the Tobacco Commission carefully (Advertisement)

redacted before releasing them under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act in September. The TROF performance agreement—like all such agreements—specifically forbade counting the job and tax metrics of other TROF grantees such as Oran Safety Glass, which appears on the list, against grantee Appalachian Biofuels LLC’s commitments. Other records also indicate neither Feinman nor staffers ever sought approval of or even disclosed the deal at five subsequent meetings of the Tobacco Commission Executive Committee.

Also, of no concern to Feinman were growing doubts about the Virginia Israel Advisory Board’s jobs and economic development claims. Former Virginia Secretary of Commerce Todd Patterson Haymore in 2018 characterized them in an internal email as “inflated without merit.”

Instead, the Virginia Israel Advisory Board continues to funnel millions of TROF and other state economic development funds into dubious Israeli projects with heavy VIAB insider involvement, confident that accountability will never loom on the horizon. ■

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WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

19

smith_poll_20.qxp_IRmep Polls. Telling Hard Truths Since 2014 12/5/19 1:32 PM Page 20

IRmep Polls, Telling Hard Truths Since 2014

Only 19.7 Percent of Americans Share State Department View that International Law Does Not Apply to Israeli Settlements

By Grant F. Smith

More than 80 percent of Americans seem unwilling to let Israel reinterpret international law to suit its colonialist agenda.

IRmep Poll: “International law SHOULD APPLY to Israel’s military occupation & colonization of the West Bank, Golan Heights, E. Jerusalem and displacement of their indigenous populations. Do you Disagree or Agree?”

MOST AMERICAN ADULTS of voting age don’t appear willing to reject the applicability of international law to Israel’s ongoing colo-

nization of occupied territories in East Jerusalem, the West Bank

Israel. On March 25, 2019, the administration recognized the Golan Heights as part of Israel through a presidential proclamation.

This most recent announcement is yet another blow to rule of law

and Golan Heights.

and international consensus. However, when polled, 53.6 percent

versed a 1978 State Department legal opinion stating that Israeli set-

on the matter. This may be due to the longstanding absence of se-

On Monday, Nov. 18, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo re-

tlements were “inconsistent with international law.” Citing President Ronald Reagan's 1981 assessment that the settlements were not “in-

herently illegal,” Pompeo stated that, “After carefully studying all sides

of the legal debate...the establishment of Israeli civilian settlements in the West Bank is not, per se, inconsistent with international law.”

The Trump administration relocated the U.S. Embassy from Tel

Aviv to Jerusalem in 2018 and recognized the city as the capital of

Grant F. Smith is the director of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy in Washington, DC. For more IRmep polls, visit https://IRmep.org/Polls.

20

of Americans don’t yet appear ready to register any concrete view rious U.S. mass media coverage of historical and legal issues. In

other countries, informed and ongoing international legal analysis

is the norm. Given that reality, it is surprising that 26.7 percent of Americans believe international law still applies, while only 19.7 percent believe it does not.

In a Nov. 21 letter sent to Pompeo, 107 House Democrats con-

demned the State Department’s recent decision on settlements. ■

Source: IRmep representative public opinion poll of 2,034 American adults through Google Surveys on November 20-22.

Answer order randomly reversed.

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020

conference_ad_21.qxp_Conference Ad 12/5/19 2:56 PM Page 21

(Advertisement)

baroud_22-23.qxp_From the Diaspora 12/5/19 8:39 PM Page 22

From the Diaspora

An Israeli air strike in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip killed eight members of the al-Swarka family, including five children by mistake.

Palestinian students place a rosette in memory of their classmate from the al-Swarka family, Nov. 16.

THIS TIME, nothing seems to work. Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has tried every trick in the book to save his political career and to avoid possible prison time. But for Israel’s longest-serving leader, the honeymoon is certainly almost over.

It is an “attempted coup,” is how Netanyahu described his indictment on charges of fraud, bribery and breach of trust by Israeli Attorney General, Avichai Mandelblit, on Nov. 21. Netanyahu’s loyalists agree. On Nov. 26, a few thousand Likud party supporters gathered

Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and editor of Palestine Chronicle. His latest book is The Last Earth: A Palestinian Story (available from AET’s Middle East Books and More). His forthcoming book is These Chains Will Be Broken: Palestinian Stories of Struggle and Defiance in Israeli Prisons. Baroud has a Ph.D. in Palestine Studies from the University of Exeter and is a non-resident scholar at the Orfalea Center for Global and International Studies, University of California. His website is <www.ramzybaroud.net>.

22

in Tel Aviv, under the title “Stop the coup,” to express their anger at what they see as a massive conspiracy involving Mandelblit, the media, various state institutions and “disloyal” Likud party members.

Netanyahu’s main Likud party rival, Gideon Sa’ar, received much of the verbal abuse. Sa’ar, who almost faded into oblivion after leaving the Knesset in 2014, emerged once more on Israel’s political scene following the April 2019 elections. Netanyahu’s failure to form a government then was compounded by a similar failure to cobble together a government coalition after the second general elections, held within a few months in September.

Since 2014, no one dared challenge Netanyahu’s reign over the Likud. “There was no need to do so,” wrote Yossi Verter in Haaretz on Nov. 29. Netanyahu “brought them to power, time after time. But few things happened since then.”

It is because of these “few things” that Sa’ar dared to challenge Netanyahu once more. What is significant about Sa’ar’s leadership

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020

PHOTO BY YOUSEF MASOUD/SOPA IMAGES/LIGHTROCKET VIA GETTY IMAGES

The Unfinished ‘Coup’: The End of Netanyahu’s Era and the Political Earthquake Ahead

By Ramzy Baroud

baroud_22-23.qxp_From the Diaspora 12/5/19 8:39 PM Page 23

challenge is not the possibility of him unseating Netanyahu, but the fact that the “king of Israel” no longer commands the type of fear and respect that he has painstakingly espoused over a decade of nearly uncontested rule.

As soon as Sa’ar called for new Likud primaries, Netanyahu’s political minions, such as Foreign Minister Yisrael Katz, and other heavyweight politicians—Nir Barkat, Miri Regev, among others—pounced on Sa’ar, describing him as “disloyal.” The Tel Aviv protesters had far more demeaning words for the rebel Likud member. However, despite the deafening screams and the namecalling, Netanyahu conceded, promising on Nov. 23 that he would set up and face a party leadership challenge within weeks.

Embattled Netanyahu has no other options. Although he may still come out in the lead should the primaries be held on time, he cannot afford deepening existing doubts within his party. If he fails to ensure his legitimacy within his own Likud party, he could hardly make the case of being able to lead all of Israel following a possible third general election in February or March 2020.

However, Sa’ar is not Netanyahu’s biggest problem.

The picture for Netanyahu—in fact, for all of Israel—is getting more complicated by the day. The Israeli leader has successfully managed to coalesce his own political and family interests within the collective interests of all Israelis. “I’m doing everything required to ensure the government’s and cabinet’s work is getting done in all the ways required to ensure the safety of Israel’s citizens,” he told a reporter on Nov. 23, insisting that he is still carrying out his duties as

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020

prime minister “in the best possible way, out of supreme devotion to Israel’s security.”

Desperate to hang on to power for as long as possible, Netanyahu still employs the same political discourse that helped him unify many sectors of Israeli society for over 10 years. But that ploy is no longer reaping the intended result. For one, Netanyahu’s main rival in the Blue and White (Kahol Lavan) Party, Benny Gantz, has neutralized the prime minister’s success in manipulating the term “security,” for he, too, is an advocate of war, whenever and wherever war is possible.

Netanyahu’s last war on Gaza on Nov. 12, where the Israeli army killed 34 Palestinians, including women and children, is a case in point. During the short-lived destructive war, Gantz was busy trying to form a government, as Netanyahu had already failed that task. Resorting to war, Netanyahu tried to send three messages, all intended for Israeli audiences: one to Mandelblit, to postpone the indictment; the second to Gantz, to reconsider his decision to block him from taking part in a future government; and the final one to the Israeli public, to remind them of his own supposed ability to reign-in “terror.”

But all has failed: Gantz announced his inability to form a government on Nov. 20, preferring failure over extending a lifeline to Netanyahu, whose indictment was imminent. Indeed, the attorney general’s decision arrived on Nov. 21, making it the first time in the history of the country that a prime minister is indicted while in office. Worse, Blue and White widened its lead significantly over the Likud, according to a public opinion poll commissioned by Israel’s Channel 12 television, which was published on Nov. 26.

But what other languages, aside from that of war—in the name of security—and haphazard accusations of political conspiracies, can Netanyahu possibly employ during this period? Such tactics often worked in the past. In fact, they worked so well that the entire Netanyahu political doctrine was designed around them. Now, the Israeli leader has run out of ideas, and is quickly running out of allies as well, not only from without, such as his former ally and the head of Yisrael Beiteinu party, Avigdor Lieberman, but

from within his own party as well.

The reason that Netanyahu is still in power after all the setbacks and outright failures is the fact that his rivals are yet to mobilize the necessary votes and public support to oust him for good. It will certainly take more than Gantz alone to dislodge stubborn Netanyahu from office, for the latter has consolidated and entrenched his rule through an intricate system of political patronage that runs deep through many facets of Israeli society.

With this in mind, it seems that the end of the Netanyahu era is finally upon us, but it is likely to be longer and uglier than expected. While it remains true that a fundamental change in Israel’s political system will neither deliver peace and justice to Palestinians—or stability to the region—it could potentially constitute the equivalent of a political earthquake within Israel itself, the consequences of which are yet to be seen. ■

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WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

23

omar_24-25.qxp_From the Diaspora 12/5/19 8:12 PM Page 24

From the Diaspora

As Belgium Cracks Down, Gazan Palestinians Wonder: Who Will Welcome Them?

Palestinian demonstrators gather in front of the immigration office at Victor Horta Square, demanding officials evaluate their applications for asylum in accordance with international law, in Brussels, Belgium, Nov. 12, 2019.

HUNDREDS OF ASYLUM seekers from the Gaza Strip have been protesting in front of the office of the Commissioner General for Refugees and Stateless Persons (CGRS) in Brussels, Belgium.

Their complaint: a growing discrimination against them, despite the dire state of the land they fled.

“I came to Belgium a year and half ago seeking a better life, hoping to achieve the dreams that were stolen from me in Gaza,” said Ahmad, a protester who asked that his last name not be used. “But now I think it’s just impossible for us Palestinians to dream at all.”

In the last few years, Belgium has earned the status of Europe’s most popular destination for Gazans seeking asylum. In 2018, nearly 2,500 Gazans applied for political asylum in the country—second only to Syrian asylum seekers. Nowhere else in Europe are Pales-

Salah Omar is a writer for WeAreNotNumbers.org. A Palestinian, he was born in Egypt but grew up in Gaza. He currently is living in Belgium.

24

tinians among the top five biggest groups seeking this status, according to Eurostat, which provides statistical information to EU institutions.

However, in December of last year, Belgian authorities stopped accepting Gazan asylum applications by default, considering them instead on a case-by-case basis. “The situation in Gaza is still precarious and problematic for many inhabitants but not for all. Hence the need to assess in depth every asylum application on its individual merits,” the CGRS asserted in a statement.

The CGRS has been challenged since then and has clarified that the determining element is seekers’ ability to return to Gaza via Egypt. Although the border crossing is open, Article 1D of the Refugee Convention requires the agency also to consider any associated risk.

Nevertheless, a “chilling” effect has been noted: Only about 30 percent of the Gaza Palestinian asylum applications processed during the first nine months of this year were successful. In October,

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020

PHOTO BY DURSUN AYDEMIR/ANADOLU AGENCY VIA GETTY IMAGES

By Salah Omar

omar_24-25.qxp_From the Diaspora 12/5/19 8:12 PM Page 25

Gazan asylum seekers called for demonstrations and “hunger strikes” (in which they symbolically rejected the meals served in the reception centers).

ONE STORY REFLECTS SO MANY OTHERS

Ahmad, 21, fled Gaza after a year studying Arabic at university for the same reasons so many other Palestinian youths have left the Strip: an Israeli blockade so complete it has triggered an unemployment rate hovering at 70 percent and poverty miring 80 percent of families in a rut from which it is almost impossible to overcome. A report issued by the World Bank last year warned that Gaza’s economy is in a “free fall” due to Israel’s 11-year blockade.

Ahmad first hatched his plan to escape when he talked on the phone with a friend now living in Belgium. When asked about life in Gaza, Ahmad shared his worries about his sick mother and his inability to find any kind of work.

“My friend told me Belgium offers Palestinians international protection and treats us better than other European countries,” Ahmad recalled. He decided to try his luck.

Ahmad began his journey in 2017 by traveling to Turkey via a tourist visa he bought from a travel agency in Gaza—at a cost of a $2,430 he had to beg and borrow (a $2,000 “coordination fee”—aka bribe— for permission to exit Gaza and the remainder for the visa). He stayed with a friend in Izmir, in southern Turkey, for four months while trying to find a smuggler to take him to Greece. That new leg of the journey cost yet another fee ($1,650). The smuggler ruled that the sea was too dangerous, opting instead for the forest.

“It was around 3 a.m. when a few other families and I started walking with the smuggler from a Turkish city called Edrine toward Greece,” he recalls. “The journey was very tiring and cold. We walked for six days through the forest encountering nothing but the scary sounds of animals. Finally, we reached a city in Greece; I was so tired I don’t even remember the name or much else. I turned myself in to the first cop I saw like the smuggler told me to do.”

Ahmad was detained in the police station JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020

for about three days until he was given a document allowing him to move around inside Greece, valid for 30 days. He travelled to Athens to meet a friend from Gaza, staying in his small studio apartment while looking for a safe way to get to western Europe. Three months later (after his Greek permit had expired), Ahmad hooked up with another smuggler through a Facebook group for refugees. For a fee of $1,500, the smuggler agreed to guide him to Bosnia, on foot. It took 15 days to hike through Macedonia and Serbia to arrive in Bosnia.

“I stayed in Bosnia for two months with two Palestinians (also located through Facebook) in a small studio, looking for another smuggler. When I found one, he charged $3,090 to help me trek to Italy.

Every time we started the long journey, we’d get caught at the border with Croatia,” grimaces Ahmad. “The first time, the border guards shot at us. When we stopped, they stole our money and phones, and we had to turn back. We tried again the next week and they caught us again but this time they beat up one of my fellow travelers, breaking his hand and ribs.”

The group was crowded into a small jail cell for one night and the following morning was forced to go back to Bosnia. On Ahmad’s third attempt, he managed to cross into Slovenia, sleeping in a small motel arranged by the smuggler. At dawn, they started out again. It took two weeks to get to Trieste, Italy.

“I was so tired, but that didn’t stop me from appreciating the beauty and the freedom. I cried like a baby while I walked to the police station,” says Ahmad. “I walked inside and gave them a piece of paper given to me by the smuggler, which I think explained that I was there to seek asylum.

The cops took my fingerprints and processed me and brought me food. After I was released, I bought a train ticket to Milan, and there I stayed for five days at a friend’s place planning for my last destination (Belgium), which I had heard was so welcoming to Palestinians.”

Ahmad’s friend bought him two bus tickets, one to Berlin, Germany, and one from Germany to Brussels. The bus trips would take 16 hours.

“I remember falling asleep at some point and waking up with a flashlight and a weapon pointed at me at the German border,” he recalls. “I didn’t know what they were saying; all I heard was shouting. Two cops dragged me off the bus, put me in handcuffs and drove me to jail. They beat me until I was black and blue, then gave me a document saying I must leave Germany within one week.”

Outside the police station, Ahmad met another Palestinian who had been detained at the same time. They both decided to try again to take a bus to Belgium. This time, they made it, arriving the next morning.

“I felt like I was finally going to get a break, but it turned out I’ve just been chasing a mirage all this time. It’s been a year and a half and I am still waiting for a decision on my case, which I think will not happen anytime soon.”

According to Ahmad, who now lives in a center for refugees assigned by the state, he has been called five times for an asylum interview, requiring him to travel to Brussels by train. Each time, he waits for six hours or more until called, only to be seen for two minutes to inform him his hearing has been delayed. Meanwhile, he has been granted permission to work by cleaning the center’s cafeteria, earning about $2 per hour—just 20 percent of what a Belgian citizen would receive for the same job.

“I had hoped to find a place where I could finally dream again with the hope of achieving a better life, a possibility stolen from me in Gaza. But now I think it’s just impossible for us Palestinians to dream. In Belgium today, I feel uncomfortable with the way the residents look at me, as if saying, ‘you don’t belong here.’” ■

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25

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Special Report

Britain’s Home Secretary: Priti Awful

Priti Patel, named Home Secretary in July 2019 by British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, leaves 10 Downing Street in central London after attending the weekly Cabinet meeting, Oct. 22, 2019. Patel was forced to resign as UK aid minister in 2017 over her unauthorized meetings with senior Israeli officials.

EVERY NOVEMBER, PRO-PALESTINIAN organizations in Britain hold a lobby of Parliament, in which members and supporters write and seek to meet their Members of Parliament (MPs) to ask them about their stand on the rights of the Palestinian people. This year’s lobby was cancelled after a general election was called for Dec. 12.

Instead, organizations including the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and the Council for Arab-British Understanding have called for members and supporters to raise Palestine with the various candidates where they live.

One constituency where expectations of the existing MP were low was Witham, in the county of Essex, near London. Priti Patel was first elected to Parliament in 2010, in what has been one of the safest Conservative seats in Britain. She comes from a family of Ugandan Indians, expelled from Uganda by the regime of Idi Amin.

Patel is a keen fan of Margaret Thatcher. She has a firmly right-

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

26

wing record, having voiced support for the privatization of prisons and a harsher regime inside them, backed tighter restrictions on immigration and expressed admiration for countries where labor rights are severely restricted. Only recently did she drop her support for the reintroduction of the death penalty. She has been a consistent opponent of Britain’s membership in the European Union (EU).

Patel’s attitude toward the politics of South Asia may be gauged by the fact that she made a complaint to the BBC in 2014 about alleged imbalance in its coverage of Narendra Modi in the Indian elections of that year. The present Indian prime minister, it may be recalled, was chief minister of Gujarat in 2002 when riots inflamed by his state government resulted in the deaths of perhaps 2,000 people (mostly Muslims) and the loss of homes for some 150,000 more.

When it comes to the Middle East, Patel is a strong supporter of Israel, which led to her career briefly stumbling in 2017. She joined the Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI) and became its vice-chair.

After serving as Minister of State for Employment under David Cameron, she became International Development Secretary in July

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020

PHOTO CREDIT WIKTOR SZYMANOWICZ/BARCROFT MEDIA VIA GETTY IMAGES

By John Gee

gee_26-27.qxp_Special Report 12/5/19 4:45 PM Page 27

2016, after playing a prominent part in the “Leave” campaign in the lead-up to Britain’s referendum on EU membership. In October of that year, she ordered a review of the Department for International Development’s support to the West Bank and Gaza Strip through UNRWA and the Palestinian Authority, supposedly over concerns that the aid might be directed to the support of terrorism. A third of aid to the 1967 occupied territories was suspended during the review. In December 2016 it was announced that funding for the PA would go solely to education and healthcare. The Zionist Federation of Britain and Ireland and CFI welcomed the move.

Patel then went a step too far for her government. While on a supposedly private holiday in Israel in August 2017, accompanied by Lord Stuart Polak, honorary president of CFI, she took part in up to a dozen meetings. In some, the work of her government department was discussed and, in a breach of normal protocol, the British embassy in Tel Aviv was not informed in advance of the meetings. She reportedly visited the Golan Heights, which Britain, like most of the rest of the world, recognizes as Israeli-occupied Syrian territory. In November 2017 the BBC’s diplomatic correspondent James Landale revealed Patel’s conduct.

A Jewish Chronicle report by Marcus Dysch (“Priti Patel: the ambitious politician whose reach exceeded her grasp,” Nov. 8, 2017) said that Patel had in the past told CFI supporters that her department would “play its part in investing in the right things, for the right people.” This seems to have included Israeli-approved projects for “IsraeliPalestinian co-existence,” no doubt of the kind that, for the past 50 years, have mouthed platitudes about understanding while the seizure of Palestinian land and repression of Palestinian resistance have proceeded apace.

The BBC reported that Patel had not informed the British Foreign Office about her visit, but she denied that, claiming in a Nov. 4, 2017 interview with The Guardian newspaper that Boris Johnson, who was then Foreign Secretary, knew of her plans. If so, the gallant Johnson did not ride to her JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020

rescue and she retracted her claim. She met Prime Minister Theresa May to explain her actions and offered an apology, but was subsequently obliged to resign after it emerged that, when she met May, she had not discussed two other meetings in September with Israeli officials, in London and New York.

She was not left without an appointment for long. After Conservative Party members elected Johnson to the premiership in July 2019, he selected a cabinet overwhelmingly made up of strong supporters of leaving the EU and among them was Patel, in the post of Home Secretary.

SINGAPORE RETHINKS ITS STORY

As the year 2019 drew near, plans were afoot to celebrate it as Singapore’s bicentenary, marking the date when Sir Stamford Raffles founded the modern city at the mouth of the Singapore River. Then critical voices were raised, and they resulted in debate and a gradual transformation of the commemoration. This complemented a relatively recent shift in how Singapore’s history is told.

The oldest stories about Singapore’s beginnings are Malay, and reflect a culture that was influenced by Hinduism and then Islam. The name of the city state comes from the Sanskrit, “Singa Pura,” meaning “Lion City.” The Sejarah Melayu (Malay Annals) say that Prince Sang Nila Utama, from Sumatra, landed on the island of Temasek, where he saw a lion, and gave the place its new name. This has provoked endless discussion, since there are no indigenous lions in Asia east of Rajasthan, in India.

The Sejarah Melayu was collected from six manuscripts that described the history of the rulers of the Malacca Sultanate, from 1400 to 1511, as well as other records.

Munsyi Abdullah worked as a scribe for Raffles, but was determined to preserve whatever he could of Malay written history.

His book was eventually printed in the 1840s, but only five copies survive—two of which are in the U.S. Library of Congress.

Archaeology has revealed evidence of a prosperous trading town at the mouth of the Singapore River, dating back to the 14th

century. Wood, paper and textiles fare badly in tropical conditions, but pottery, bricks and some metal tools and gold jewelry have been found that suggest what once existed there.

Much may have been lost after the arrival of the British, who built on top of the older site. A hill where a Malay palace once stood had its summit leveled for the building of Fort Canning. The traces of an old wall, shown to the north of the modern city center on early 19th century maps, were swept away without careful documentation, and the Singapore stone, which bore the remains of a 50-line inscription that might have provided valuable information on Singapore’s history, once interpreted, was blown to pieces in 1843 to widen access to the Singapore River and create a more convenient space for the fort. ■ (Advertisement)

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Professor Kortepeter spent decades traveling, studying and teaching about the Middle East.

This narrative, told in a very personal manner, borne of on-the-ground experience, presents a thoughtful study of the medieval and modern history of the central lands of Islam. The last chapters focus on American presidents and their inability to comprehend the complexities of the Middle East since World War II.

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

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Special Report

By Idrisa Pandit

Indian paramilitary troopers stand guard at a roadblock at Maisuma locality in Srinagar, in the disputed region of Kashmir, Aug. 4, 2019, just before the siege began.

ON NOV. 23, India’s consul general in New York, Sandeep Chakravorty, celebrated the achievements of the state of Israel in establishing hegemony over historic Palestine, and called for a replication of the “Israel model” in Kashmir.

It is outrageous that an Indian political representative would endorse an illegal settler-colonial project in Kashmir and look to an ethno-nationalist state for a step-by-step playbook on how to make it happen, but it's also not surprising.

Even the recent letter issued by India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressing support for Palestinian sovereignty cannot disguise the direction in which India has long been headed: that of becoming an ethno-nationalist state in its own right.

Since 2003, India and Israel, at times including the United States, have formed an ever-deepening alliance against terrorism and “fanatic” Muslims. Today, India is one of the top buyers of Israeli arms, participates in joint “counter-terrorism” military exercises, and trains Indian special forces in Israel, who are then deployed in India’s restive northern territories, including Kashmir.

But India and Israel are not just “friends with benefits.” Their common cause lies in their fight against the supposed existential threat posed by those “fanatic Muslims.” Both nations justify their militarization and disregard for the human rights of Palestinians and

Idrisa Pandit, a native of Kashmir, lives in Waterloo, Ontario, where she is director of studies in Islam at Renison University College, University of Waterloo. This article was first published in Middle East Eye. Reprinted with permission.

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Kashmiris as necessary to tame “barbaric,” “backward,” and “misogynist” Muslims. In these self-professed democratic states, Muslims, through the simple fact of their existence, undermine the supreme religious and cultural identity of the state.

Just as the Zionist movement claimed that Arabs have no attachment to the land of Palestine, despite it being their homeland, Hindutva—the predominant form of Hindu nationalism in India—deems Muslims as foreigners and invaders, as threats to the nation. They must either leave India, convert, or live as second-class citizens.

The consul general’s statement erases the existence of the majority Muslim population of Kashmir, their history as indigenous people, and the pluralistic nature of the Kashmiri society.

The alliance of Hindutva and Zionist forces is growing in India and abroad, especially after the Aug. 5 siege of Kashmir. At an event held recently at Mumbai University and hosted by the Indo Israel Friendship Association, the speakers espoused the virtues of ethnonationalist ideology and the apartheid regime that has been so successful in establishing Israeli domination over Palestinians.

The current government in India has unabashedly embraced the Hindu supremacist ideology first espoused by the founders of the ultraright wing RSS organization. Today, there is no room for non-Hindus in Hindustan. At an upcoming event in Toronto, the discourse of Muslim “terrorism” will bring Zionists and Hindu nationalists together to discuss, “same enemies, same ideology.”

In New York, India’s representative bulldozed over Kashmiri identity and culture, pronouncing Hindu faith and culture as supreme to raucous applause.

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

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TAUSEEF MUSTAFA/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

Kashmir Faces an Existential Threat: The Israel Model

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There was a strong resonance between the exclusionary and supremacist ideas propounded by the consul general and the views of M.S. Golwalkar and V.D. Savarkar, the ideological fountainheads of Hindutva, and supporters of Zionism. Both Savarkar and Golwalkar condemned the Indian vote at the 1948 United Nations General Assembly in favor of two equal states for Israelis and Palestinians.

Just as Hindutva followers blame Muslims for the loss of Hindu culture in Kashmir and the rest of India, Golwalkar, inaccurately, blamed the â&#x20AC;&#x153;intrusion of Islamâ&#x20AC;? for the loss of Jewish culture and traditions in Palestine, hence supporting the creation of an exclusive Jewish state at the expense of the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.

He held that the Jews had â&#x20AC;&#x153;maintained their race, religion, culture and languageâ&#x20AC;? in exile and all that was needed to complete their â&#x20AC;&#x153;nationalityâ&#x20AC;? was a â&#x20AC;&#x153;natural territory.â&#x20AC;?

A BIBLICAL EXODUS

Drawing parallels to Israel and comparing their departure from Kashmir to the Biblical

exodus, Chakravorty, the consul general, urged Kashmiri Hindus to maintain their faith, culture and language and return as per the government plan, as settlers. This is a notion that has been rejected by Kashmiri Hindus residing in Kashmir, as well as Kashmiri Hindu scholars.

Kashmiri Hindus are equal permanent residents of Jammu and Kashmir and the honorable return of those who wish to go back to their homeland is affirmed by the majority Muslim community, including the Kashmiri resistance leadership.

By capitalizing on the phenomenon of anti-Muslim hatred that has been cultivated with care around the globe, India and Israel have been able to convince their own populations to ignoreâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;or better yet, to supportâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;the dehumanization and exclusion of entire communities of indigenous peoples who do not conform to the supreme national identity of the state.

Both India and Israel have also managed, with overall success, to escape meaningful attention by powerful political actors, including inter-governmental organizations. India (Advertisement)

has successfully branded its decades-long military occupation of the Kashmir region as an â&#x20AC;&#x153;internal conflict,â&#x20AC;? clearly revoking any invitation the international community might have thought that it had to intervene in the well-documented human rights abuses perpetrated by the Indian army.

Israel paints itself as the â&#x20AC;&#x153;only democracy in the Middle East,â&#x20AC;? a haven of white civility surrounded by angry, if altogether impotent, Arabs. Israelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s belligerent position over millions of indigenous Palestinians is thus met with billions of dollars of military aid and support for the Israeli policy of settlements by the United States.

In reality, it is Kashmiris who are now facing an existential threat. Since India revoked the last vestige of semi-sovereign status that the territory held, Kashmiris are losing control over their land and resources.

With the promised influx of corporate conglomerates that put profit before people and the earth, the long tentacles of colonial rule have already begun to root themselves in the lush and fragile paradise of my familyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s home. â&#x2013;

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WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

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Special Report

What al-Baghdadi’s Death Means for Trump and the Future of ISIS

Syrian artist Aziz al-Asmar (c) posing with relatives on Oct. 28, near a mural he painted in the town of Binnish in the northwestern Idlib province, depicting U.S. President Donald Trump directing the “play" of killing Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in Syria on Oct. 26.

IN NORTHWESTERN SYRIA, a few miles south of the Turkish border, lies the impoverished village of Barisha. The majority of the village’s 7,000 inhabitants are displaced Syrians from elsewhere in the country who came to Barisha mainly due to its close proximity to Turkey and its relative calm compared to other parts of the lawless province of Idlib. Yet on Oct. 26, Barisha experienced violent clashes amid a U.S.-led military raid, which lasted for four hours and resulted in the death of the so-called Islamic State’s (ISIS or IS) 48-year-old leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

Soon after the caliph of ISIS died, President Donald Trump tweeted: “Something very big has just happened!” The following day, Trump delivered a 48-minute speech from the White House about the raid, saying that “capturing or killing al-Baghdadi has been the top national security priority of my administration.” Trump said

Giorgio Cafiero is the CEO and founder of Gulf State Analytics, a Washington, DC-based geopolitical risk consultancy. In addition to LobeLog, which published this article, Oct. 28, he also writes for The National Interest, Middle East Institute, and Al Monitor.

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the ISIS leader killed himself and three children with an explosivesladen vest. “He was a sick and depraved man and now he’s gone,” Trump said. “He died like a dog. He died like a coward. The world is a much safer place.”

Although the public has more to learn about the roles that various states and non-state actors played in this mission to kill or capture al-Baghdadi, Trump said, “I want to thank the nations of Russia, Syria, Turkey and Iraq, and I also want to thank the Syrian Kurds for certain support they were able to give us.”

A senior aide to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told Reuters: “Turkey was proud to help the United States, our NATO ally, bring a notorious terrorist to justice…We remember today Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s civilian victims and our military heroes, who lost their lives to protect the world from [ISIS] terrorists. Turkey, which has been a bulwark against terrorism, will continue to work closely with the United States and others to combat terrorism in all its forms and manifestations. It is time to join forces and defeat all terrorist groups operating in the region without further delay.”

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020

PHOTO BY MUHAMMAD HAJ KADOUR/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

By Giorgio Cafiero

cafiero_30-31.qxp_Special Report 12/5/19 4:26 PM Page 31

The Iraqi government released an official statement: “Following extensive work by a dedicated team for over a year, Iraq’s National Intelligence Service was able to accurately pinpoint the hideout of the terrorist Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in the Syrian province of Idlib…

Subsequently, U.S. forces, in coordination with Iraq’s National Intelligence Service, carried out an operation which led to the elimination of the terrorist al-Baghdadi.”

Russian officials disputed Trump’s claims that Moscow provided the U.S. with access to Russian-controlled Syrian airspace. Many Russian media outlets quickly dismissed Trump’s remarks about alBaghdadi’s death as merely propaganda aimed at helping the U.S. president secure a second term next year. Yet the following day, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov stated that al-Baghdadi’s death, if confirmed, would constitute a “serious contribution” by Trump.

In response to Trump’s tweet that “something very big” occurred, Iran’s Information Minister Mohammad Javad Azari-Jahromi tweeted: “Not a big deal. You just killed your creature.”

An individual who played a major role in this mission was Mohammed Ali Sajet, one of al-Baghdadi’s collaborators who joined ISIS in 2015. Detained by Iraqi authorities near Baghdad roughly two months ago, Sajet gave essential information concerning alBaghdadi’s whereabouts in Idlib and other details about those working with the erstwhile caliph of ISIS. Although al-Baghdadi’s death is extremely symbolic, it is not clear how it will impact ISIS’s operations and structure in the future. Given how many state and non-state actors were fighting ISIS and the extent to which many players sought to kill or capture al-Baghdadi, ISIS has likely been preparing for the caliph’s death for a considerable span of time. In August, Abdullah Qardash, an Iraqi Sunni with Turkmen roots who previously served as an officer in Saddam’s army, was Baghdadi’s first announced successor. Whether Qardash can command the loyalty of the group’s fighters—both in Iraq and Syria and in other countries from Burkina Faso to Afghanistan to Libya to Yemen—remains to be seen.

Some experts doubt that Qardash could fill his predecessor’s shoes given the extent to which al-Baghdadi previously appeared invincible and commanded high-levels of loyalty while enjoying a true cult of personality. Indeed, al-Baghdadi was a unique figure within the global community of Salafist-jihadist figures. His religious education and charisma coupled with the years he spent in Iraq’s Sunni-insurgency during the U.S. occupation of Iraq and the ISIS leader’s famous announcement declaring the birth of a 21st century caliphate encompassing swathes of Syrian and Iraqi land equivalent in size to Great Britain provided al-Baghdadi with a unique status.

Despite al-Baghdadi’s death and the challenges that the succession process represents to ISIS, the cyber caliphate has become a franchise that will continue even if both the physical caliphate existing and al-Baghdadi are toast. The spirit and ideology of ISIS remain.

Moreover, the existing ecosystem in Iraq and Syria, which created opportunities for the extremist group to initially rise, will continue providing ISIS with opportunities to re-emerge in both countries. Just like those who back in 2011 predicted that Osama bin Laden’s death JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020

would spell the defeat of al-Qaeda were wrong, the idea that alBaghdadi’s death will mark the demise of ISIS is naïve. ISIS, as an eschatological group with many supporters worldwide, will outlive al-Baghdadi.

AMERICA’S DOMESTIC POLITICS

Regardless of how the caliph’s death impacts ISIS’s operations and the movement of its fighters on the ground in Syria and Iraq, the outcome of this military raid in Barisha will play out favorably for Trump within the context of America’s domestic politics, even though reports have emerged that al-Baghdadi’s death “happened largely in spite of President Trump’s actions, not because of them, according to military, intelligence and counterterrorism officials.”

Trump-the-candidate vowed in 2015/2016 that his administration would defeat ISIS. Having spent much of his time in office taking credit for having been in the Oval Office during the physical caliphate’s collapse, the death of al-Baghdadi will strengthen Trump’s narratives about the fight against ISIS unless the group achieves major victories amid a campaign of resurgence between now and November 2020. Regardless, throughout the upcoming 12 months, Trump will be on the campaign trail emphasizing that under his watch the leader of ISIS was taken out.

The death of al-Baghdadi will probably distract from the bipartisan criticism that Trump has received for his decision to withdraw U.S. forces from an area within northern Syria in October—a move that led many in Washington and capitals worldwide to accuse the American president of abandoning U.S. allies. That the U.S. purportedly worked with Russia, Syria, Turkey, Iraq and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to make this military raid successful will help Trump counter criticism that he has been incompetent when it comes to leading U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East.

Doubtless, as “Ukrainegate” and incessant talk about impeachment developments consume much of the national media’s attention, al-Baghdadi’s death will give Trump at least some reprieve. But whether millions of destitute men, women and children in northwestern Syria can be much more optimistic about their futures because al-Baghdadi is no longer alive is debatable. ■

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Special Report

What is Happening in Iraq Today and Why

People in Baghdad celebrate after Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi said he would submit his resignation to parliament, Nov. 29, 2019. Iraq has been rocked by mass protests since early October against poor living conditions and corruption.

MORE THAN 400 IRAQIS have been killed since the start of antigovernment protests in October. Demonstrators chanted “Iran out of Iraq!” as they burned Iran’s consulates in Karbala and Najaf.

Amnesty International’s Middle East Research Director, Lynn Maalouf, accused Iraq’s security forces of committing “appalling violence against largely peaceful protesters.” On Thanksgiving Day alone, 40 protesters were killed, prompting Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi to say he would resign.

It is difficult to describe the state of deterioration that Iraqis are now living under—not that they were enjoying prosperity before 2003.

Saddam Hussain’s wars with Iran, his invasion of Kuwait in 1990, and his defeat by a U.S.-led coalition in 1991, shattered Iraq’s chances for stability and progress. But it was the George W. Bush administration’s 2003 invasion and subsequent U.S. occupation of Iraq that estab-

Dr. Jafar Al Mudhafar grew up in Basra and earned his bachelor’s degree from the Faculty of Dentistry, University of Baghdad, in 1969 and studied at the University of New York at Buffalo in 1976. He was a professor at the School of Dental Medicine, University of Baghdad, until 2006, when he retired and moved to Virginia.

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lished a sectarian and ethnicity-based system that erased any opportunity to overcome these crises. Instead of helping Iraqis establish a secular modern country based on legal institutions that do not distinguish between its citizens on the basis of their religion, race or ethnicity, the U.S. set up a structure that helped divide it.

Iraq was founded after World War I in the wake of the fall of the Ottoman Empire and once held a distinguished place in the international community. Iraq signed the United Nations Declaration in 1943 and was among the countries that contributed to the founding of the United Nations in 1945.

During the U.S. occupation, under the auspices of the Coalition Provisional Authority, the Interim President of Iraq Paul Bremer oversaw the drafting of an Iraqi constitution, written mainly by representatives of Shi’i and Sunni sectarian parties and Kurdish nationalist parties. It established an Iraqi authority composed of parties that are not vested in the Iraqi identity. Instead they had a clear and dangerous history of standing against the possibility of establishing a united, thriving Iraqi nation. The new Iraqi political system now confronts an extremely dangerous situation. It should not have been difficult to foresee that the new construct would drown in its own swamp.

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

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PHOTO BY MURTADHA SUDANI/ANADOLU AGENCY VIA GETTY IMAGES

By Dr. Jafar Al Mudhafar

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Rival factionsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;Shiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;i parties that are part of an Iranian effort to dominate the region, separatist Kurdish parties, and corrupt Sunni forcesâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;eagerly joined the new failed Iraqi state and devoured its remnants. Instead of strengthening one another to establish a country based on a secular, democratic, nationalist ideology, Iraqi factions were supported and strengthened by neighboring regional powers that had their own interests in the region. Iran eventually prevailed, gradually becoming the de facto ruler of Iraq.

General Qassim Soleimani, head of Iranâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s elite paramilitary Quds Force, fostered ties with both the Shiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;a-led Iraqi government and Iraqâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Shiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;a militia groups, and helped to defeat ISISâ&#x20AC;&#x2C6;in Iraq. But Iraq lost both its independence and its sovereignty after it became General Soleimaniâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s domain, as he sought to reach even further into Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and Bahrain. General Soleimaniâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s political system means to divide a country, not to build it. Shiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;i, Sunnis and Kurds along with the religious, sectarian and ethnic components of Iraqâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s constitution have created a fragmented Iraqi nation.

As a result of a quota system, the parties in power today engage in a heated race to win the loyalties of Iraqi citizens, many of whom have to join these parties in order to obtain the basic necessities of life. Any objective observer of Iraqâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s government can see how this structure cannot provide the most basic and fundamental needs for governance and society. Instead it has become an instrument to seize state institutions and distribute Iraqâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s spoils among its leaders.

Meanwhile, the majority of Iraqis are deprived of a legitimate livelihood and the opportunity to live a decent life.

The post-2003 Iraqi rulers have not had much success, so they continue to play the same broken record to remind everyone of the tragic regime of Saddam Hussain. ISIS spread rapidly in the absence of any new government achievements and with the escalation of corruption, all the while pushing a myth of the old state returning. In record time ISIS occupied one-third of Iraqâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s territory and threatened the fall of Baghdad itself.

Small wonder after all of this that a movement has emerged and a generation of young people who did not live under (Advertisement)

Saddam Hussain is protesting, and using the slogan, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Enough is Enough.â&#x20AC;?

The new Iraqi generation has exploded with anger and disgust for the rampant corruption, and theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re hungry for reform. They believe their homeland has been kidnapped by their Iranian neighbor. They also feel theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve lost their future in a political tragedy caused by a sectarian, rigged electoral system that ensures the same corrupt parties will return to power.

This is why the hungry, oppressed Iraqi professionals came out peacefully and unarmed to face General Soleimani, who they hold responsible for those 400 martyrs, in addition to more than 11,000 wounded Iraqis. The protesters know that the sectarian, social and economic corruption that has spread into all aspects of Iraqi life has to be destroyed to repair the structural imbalance of the foundation of this regime.

The United States, as well as the other nations that occupied Iraq and helped establish this moribund regime, have a moral responsibility to assist this peaceful Iraqi revolution in its quest to fend off the kidnappers and recover Iraq. â&#x2013;

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WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

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Special Report

Lebanese women in the predominantly Muslim Khandak el-Ghamik walk alongside others from mostly Christian Tabaris, two neighborhoods on either side of Beirut’s 1975-1990 civil war former demarcation line, during a rally against violence, Nov. 30, 2019.

IBRAHIM SROUR left Lebanon once before. In 1986, after a decade of war, he packed his bags for the United States. He finally returned home 20 years later. Born in 1948, five years after the country’s independence, Srour has experienced most of Lebanese history first-hand. Amid the youthful hope of the weeks-long uprising against Lebanon’s political elite, Srour says he is terrified.

“This country has been volatile for so many years, and these protests can go in all kinds of directions,” he said.

The 72-year-old believes Lebanon has to change. He supports the protests and admires those in the streets, who are demanding that politicians be held accountable for decades of economic mismanagement and alleged corruption, as well as an overhaul of the country’s political system, where power is apportioned between ethnic and religious groups. The protesters have also called for the appointment of a technocratic government of experts to tackle the country’s economic crisis and provide widespread access to basic services such as water and electricity.

Demonstrators across the country have blocked roads and prevented parliament from sitting, while schools and banks have closed amid strikes and walkouts. But more than one month into the demonstrations, Srour sees dangerous signs: a deteriorating economy, lack of organization among the protesters, and an entrenched elite that appears unwilling to cede power.

“Those corrupt people are very, very clever at creating divisions to keep control,” he said. “During the [1975-90] war, the people who wanted control fomented conflict. One day it was Muslim against Christian, the next day it was leftists against rightists, the next day it was Christian against Christian and Muslim against Muslim.”

“I am not religious, but I had to be Christian because otherwise I would be killed,” he added.

Srour said the situation today is very different from 1975. He sees more unity beyond sect and a greater idealism that political change can be achieved. But his life experience makes him more sensitive to the threat of destabilization.

Alex Lederman is a multimedia journalist whose work has been published by The Atlantic, The Washington Post, ABC News and PBS, among other outlets. He is currently a deputy news editor at Al Jazeera English in Doha, Qatar.

YOUTH-LED MOVEMENT

34

Young people, including students, have been hailed for leading the uprising, which first erupted on Oct. 17 over proposed tax increases.

With a youth unemployment rate of 37 percent, according to a 2017

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020

PHOTO BY ANWAR AMRO/AFP) (PHOTO BY ANWAR AMRO/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

Older Lebanese Wary as Anti-government Protests at a Stalemate

By Alex Lederman

lederman_34-35.qxp_Special Report 12/5/19 4:51 PM Page 35

Information International report, young people have both the time and the motivation to demonstrate. While many older people also support political change and have taken part in demonstrations, older generations appear to have become more cautious as the protests have continued.

Whether it is the newfound hurdles to daily life and businesses; the longer-term threats of bank, school and hospital closures; their criticisms of the protesters’ demands and organization; or the trauma of past life experience, a sense of dread has come to permeate the movement’s hope.

Lebanese American University political science professor Sami Baroudi, 58, sees a clear generational divide in terms of enthusiasm for the continuing demonstrations.

He told Al Jazeera the political system has failed everyone but that those below the age of 40 had been affected the most.

While he supports the aims of the protesters, he was skeptical about what they would achieve “I see more instability creeping into the system,” he said. “And I don’t see a civil, polite, way out of the economic impasse the country is facing.”

A month before the uprising, Lebanon the world’s third most indebted country with the highest debt-to-GDP ratio—faced shortages of dollars at ATMs and a devaluation of its currency. Bank employee strikes during the protests led to bank closures and a rush to withdraw and transfer money when they reopened.

The value of Lebanon’s currency has plunged since demonstrations began.

While the Lebanese pound is officially pegged at 1,507 to the U.S. dollar, its black market rate has risen to more than 1,900 pounds per dollar.

In recent weeks, the protests have also seen more clashes between demonstrators and security forces, as well as supporters of political factions. A protester was shot dead by a soldier on Nov. 12, while followers of Hezbollah and Amal Movement have attacked demonstrators and protest sites on multiple occasions, including on consecutive nights at the end of November.

Josette Nader, 64, visited her son Fadi at the hospital on November 14 after he was injured in clashes with police as they were unblocking roads.

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020

“The moment I saw him, I started sobbing,” she said. “I told him I want him to stop revolting. But he went back to the streets.”

Nader has not spoken to her son since.

She said she cannot bear to—she remembers protesters blocking roads in 1975.

She knows her son’s difficulties, that members of his generation cannot afford a decent apartment. Yet she is frustrated he does not take her memories seriously.

“Nobody’s understanding me,” Nader said. “But all I can think about these days is when we used to go back from one bunker to the other to hide.”

The young protesters have shorter memories, having grown up with the cast of militia leaders-turned-politicians entrenched in power since the civil war ended.

These rooted elites, despite their divisions, have not shaken easily. Since Prime Minister Saad Hariri resigned on Oct. 29, the ruling class has slowly deliberated a solution to the crisis, finding little consensus.

In short, the protests have reached a stalemate, which Baroudi says is cause for concern. “The longer the stalemate lingers,” he said, “the more pressure will be on the economy. The longer people stay in the street, the more the chances of friction emerging, the more chances of certain acts of rioting, especially if the current government remains.”

Before resigning, Hariri’s government presented a list of economic reform plans designed to improve state finances, appease the protesters and secure the release of pledged foreign aid. The plans included cuts to salaries of senior officials and the abolition of some state institutions. The plans also marked millions of dollars to be distributed to families living in poverty and tens of millions of dollars for housing loans.

Protesters rejected the proposals as too little, too late.

Baroudi is one of many analysts who sees contradictions in both Hariri’s proposals and in the demands of protesters, who are variously calling for government spending measures to boost social services and spending cuts to prevent currency collapse.

Hasan Youness, a 35-year-old professor of international business at Notre Dame University, said these proposals are incompatible.

“There are totally different perspectives regarding the economic reforms,” he said.

“There is no consensus on a package of reforms which we can ask from the government.”

Srour said he thinks the youth have done a service highlighting all the country’s problems—yet he has not seen them present viable solutions, and does not think the leaderless movement has the proper organization to do so.

Baroudi said there are no quick fixes to Lebanon’s chronic maladies. But one positive he sees is the scale and resilience of these demonstrations. There is no going back to a time before Oct. 17, he said.

That is why 75-year-old Salwa Itani, despite having lived through all the tumults of Lebanon’s post-independence period, is still hopeful. She said she does not have any other choice: all 15 of her children currently live abroad because they lack opportunities in Lebanon.

“My son should not graduate from university and then have to work as a taxi driver,” she said. “People like him should be the ones ruling the country.”

Itani said she does not envisage the demonstrations devolving into wide-scale violence because she thinks the protesters are aware of Lebanon’s turbulent history and would not allow the movement to reach that point.

Baroudi’s memories lead him to a different conclusion, however. In 1975, he said, nobody expected the fighting to last as long as it did. He said they did not even call the conflict a war in the first few years—just “the events.”

“It was only later we realized that we had plunged ourselves into a civil war,” he said.

While Itani does not think any government could be as bad as the current one, Baroudi appreciates the relative stability provided by an elected government, compared with a potentially dangerous escalation.

“I have lived through a time when there was no state,” Baroudi said. “And despite all the failures of the state after 1990, even a bad state is better than no state.

“I fully understand that this generation lives under different kinds of pressures and pains, and I’m not saying that I’ve suffered more than them,” he continued. “But my memories have been shaped by the anarchic days of warlords.” ■

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Special Report

Does the U.S. Actually Care About Human Rights in the Middle East?

Egyptian-American Mohamed Soltan appearing in a Cairo court in October 2014, after being on hunger strike for 263 days. Charged with “misinforming the media,” Soltan was released in 2015 and has used his freedom to advocate on behalf of political prisoners across the world.

VICTIMS OF HUMAN rights abuses perpetrated by Middle Eastern governments, along with their advocates, gathered at the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill on Nov. 21 to implore the U.S. government to place greater value on human rights in its foreign policy. The National Interest Foundation sponsored the event.

Numerous speakers noted that the U.S. approach to human rights violations is steeped in hypocrisy. They pointed out that abuses committed by foes such as Iran and Syria are continually highlighted, while those perpetrated by countries that have an amicable relationship with the U.S., such as Egypt, Israel and Saudi Arabia, are overlooked or downplayed.

Dale Sprusansky is managing editor of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs magazine.

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Doug Bandow, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, challenged the notion that security and oil interests ought to be given higher priority than human rights. Given its status as a superpower, he finds it concerning and bizarre that fear of angering less powerful nations directs policy away from human rights. “The U.S. should disentangle itself from a number of these countries,” he said. “The admonition to first do no harm would be a very good starting point for American foreign policy.”

Mohamed Soltan, a U.S. citizen who spent 21 months in an Egyptian prison from 2013-2015, shared this sentiment. Washington ought to “recognize how much these authoritarian regimes really depend on the legitimacy they get from the United States government,” he said. “I sit here before you today as living testament of that leverage.

We do have leverage that we simply choose not to use.”

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020

PHOTO BY STRINGER/ANADOLU AGENCY/GETTY IMAGES

By Dale Sprusansky

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Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and North Africa Division, offered a more cynical take on the U.S. projecting power. Unless Washington first acknowledges and corrects its own human rights violations in the region, its sanctimonious stand for human rights will have no credibility or impact, she asserted.

As one example, she noted the suffering inflicted on Palestinians as a result of U.S. military and diplomatic support for Israel.

“Let’s put aside the notion of democracy promotion and just stop aiding a government that continues to massacre protesters in Gaza and that continues to destroy Palestinian homes,” she implored.

Bandow said the U.S. placing devastating sanctions on Iran discredits the oft-repeated line that the U.S. supports the struggle for human rights in Iran. “To stand and scream about human rights when you’re doing your best to impoverish and starve the people in that country doesn’t give you much credibility,” he argued. “If you want to have any improvement in human rights in Iran, it would be useful to have some positive tools to use. It’s very hard to do that when you’ve sanctioned everything that exists on earth dealing with Iran.”

Soltan remarked that many in the Washington policymaking bubble simply don’t understand the suffering caused by their support for strongmen. As an example, he shared a conversation he had with thenSecretary of State John Kerry shortly after Soltan was released from prison. “I was absolutely baffled that for such a seasoned diplomat and someone who had been on the Senate Foreign Relations [Committee], he had not really seen the human side of things and did not see the nuance,” he said.

“I had to explain to Secretary Kerry that I had to hear him—literally from a smuggled radio inside of an Egyptian dungeon— saying that the Egyptian army is restoring democracy in Egypt.”

Soltan encouraged those “sitting up on the mountain in Washington looking down upon the Middle East as statistics, from a security lens” to step back and consider JANUARY/FEBRUARY2020

Other Voices is an optional 16-page supplement available only to subscribers of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.

For an additional $15 per year (see postcard insert for Washington Report subscription rates), subscribers will receive Other Voices inside each issue of their Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.

Back issues of both publications are available. To subscribe, telephone 1 (888) 881-5861, e-mail circulation@wrmea.org, or write to P.O. Box 91056, Long Beach, CA 90809-1056. “the conditions that these governments and these autocratic regimes and dictators put the people in.”

Areej Al Sadhan, a U.S.-Saudi dual national, shared the story of her brother, who was arrested at his office at the Red Crescent in Riyadh and is being held in an unknown location by Saudi authorities. Arrested for expressing concerns about human rights on social media, Al Sadhan believes her brother is a victim of the recently uncovered spying agreement be-

tween the Saudi government and former Twitter executives. She implored the U.S. to help her brother and other victims.

“These victims are counting on people like us who can talk and on the U.S. government to say something and take action,” she said. “The U.S. government does have the strength and power to say something and make a true change.”

Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA) spoke about the ongoing quest for justice for slain Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who resided in his northern Virginia congressional district.

He said the Washington Post journalist’s gruesome murder must be a red line and that the U.S.-Saudi relationship can’t continue uninterrupted. “There are some human rights values that ought to be preeminent, that ought to govern our affairs with other countries, and our government and our foreign policy,” he said.

Amel Ahmed, a journalist covering the Yemen war, emphasized that Jamal Khashoggi is representative of the struggle for freedom throughout the region. “At the moment there are millions of Khashoggis who cry out for freedom and dream of a better future,” she said. “Who will elevate their voices? You cannot obtain justice for Khashoggi without including the voices of other Arab reformers and dissidents who have been driven under ground and silenced.” ■

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History’s Shadows

Over-reacting to Russia: An American Obsession

By Walter L. Hixson

PHOTO BY MIKHAIL METZEL\TASS VIA GETTY IMAGES

Franklin Roosevelt renewed relations and opened an embassy in Moscow.

Normal relations came in handy during the Second World War in which 53 Russians died for every American who perished in the conflict (chew on that ratio for a moment—53 to 1!). I still remember my mother breaking into tears when she visited me in Leningrad/St. Petersburg in 1991 (I was on a Fulbright lectureship) when I explained to her that the row after row of massive burial mounds adorned with the simple stone hammer and sickle monument represented unknown Russians totaling in Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (l) and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin shake hands at a joint the hundreds of thousands news conference on Syria following their meeting in Sochi, Russia, Oct. 22. who perished in the Nazi siege of that great city.

After inviting the Russians to do the overwhelming bulk of the OVER-REACTING TO RUSSIA has been an American obsession dying by carrying the fight all the way to Berlin, the United States since at least 1917. thanked them by renewing the hostility that had prevailed before In April of that year, following the collapse of the tsarist regime, Roosevelt, who died near the end of the war in April 1945. The Cold the United States allied with Russia as well as Britain and France War, largely declared by the United States, ushered in decades of in the Great War (World War I). The Russian provisional government conflict: a nuclear arms race, peripheral wars all over the globe, and didn’t last long, however. In October the Bolsheviks swept into power intervention in other peoples’ societies to try to move them toward and changed everything. an embrace of Soviet-backed communism or U.S.-backed liberal Americans were so upset by the rise of godless Bolshevism that capitalism. they carried out a domestic Red Scare after the war, jailing immiThe brilliant 19th century French observer Alexis de Tocqueville’s grants and radicals and undermining supposedly constitutionally proprediction came true: in 1835 he prophesied that Russia and Amertected civil liberties—like freedom of speech and political affiliation. ica were rising powers that one day would each hold in their hands The United States adopted a foreign policy of non-recognition of the “the destinies of half the world.” new Soviet Russia, which lasted until 1933, at which time President Everyone lost the Cold War, an era of vast waste and senseless destruction across the globe, but only the Soviet Union collapsed History’s Shadows, a regular column by contributing editor Walter L. Hixson, seeks to place various aspects of Middle East politics and entirely. The United States became a militarized empire that squandiplomacy in historical perspective. Hixson is the author of Israel’s dered its wealth and the promise of a great society on battlefields Armor: The Israel Lobby and the First Generation of the Palestine like Indochina, Iraq and Afghanistan, but it remains politically intact, Conflict (available from Middle East Books and More), along with albeit highly dysfunctional. several other books and journal articles. He has been a professor of In 1991 Americans celebrated as Boris Yeltsin took over in history for 36 years, achieving the rank of distinguished professor.

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JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020

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Moscow. He guzzled vodka while oligarchs and insiders like Vladimir Putin plundered Russia’s assets to stuff their overseas bank accounts. In the 1990s the United States stupidly extended NATO—a military alliance with no enemy to defend against— into Russia’s backyard, thus resurrecting the much-needed enemy. With the rise of the age of Putin, the KGB was back in power in “democratic” Russia.

As the Americans strove to turn Ukraine into yet another hostile regime on the Russian border, Putin went to work, incorporating Crimea and its 65 percent Russian population into the federation. Since then a war has unfolded in areas of eastern Ukraine where majorities of the population are Russian or use Russian as their first language. Americans of course considered Russia’s entirely predictable great power policing of its borders as grave threats to world peace and revived the specter of the Big Bad Russian Bear that Ronald Reagan’s campaign had used so effectively in a television ad in 1980. Now we are supposed to be terrified that Russia will expand its influence across the Middle East—good luck with that project, Vlad.

While helping keep its Syrian ally afloat, Putin lashed back at the United States by intervening directly in American politics, especially in the 2016 election. The Mueller Report shows definitively that Russian interference was real and that Putin preferred the election of Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton, who had been secretary of state when President Obama’s “Russian reset” floundered.

Putin doesn’t decide who can be a member of Congress or not, but the Israel lobby does that in every election cycle. If you oppose them, you’re out—so guess what, only a few brave representatives will take on the lobby.

In 2015 it wasn’t Putin who was invited to address Congress in order embarrass the duly elected sitting American president and undermine an agreement he was about to enter into—along with all the other important countries of the world (including Russia)—that was Binyamin Netanyahu.

Yes, it’s terrible that Russia annexed majority-Russian Crimea, but it is peachy keen for Israel illegally to annex the Syrian Golan Heights, take over Jerusalem, strangle Gaza, and convert the West Bank into the mythic lands of Judea and Samaria, all in direct violation of international law.

So, if we are going to talk about the excessive influence of foreign nations in American politics then let’s talk about Israel—oh, I forgot, the subject is virtually taboo here in the land of the free. Israel may be the “largest cumulative recipient of U.S. foreign assistance since World War II,” according to the Congressional Research Service, August 2019, but rarely are these massive allocations seriously debated among the wise men and women of foreign affairs, nor by the Congress. The lobby doesn’t like it when a member of the

House—you know, the branch that controls the purse strings—actually raises questions about who gets the most Benjamins, and what they do with them.

THE REAL CRISIS OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY

The other major problem I have with all the Russian-bashing is not that Putin is a great man or that Russia is a wonderful country.

I spent a lot of time there and liked the people, but Russia today is an authoritarian regime, Putin is a petty dictator, and I do not write this piece to praise what Russia has become.

Even though Russia did interfere in the U.S. election, and of course we should do all we can to eliminate that, few countries are as sanctimonious as the United States, which for decades has interfered in the domestic politics of countless countries, including Russia. U.S. postwar intervention in Iran alone is far worse than anything Russia has done or tried to do to the United States.

Besides, Russia did not decide the 2016 election: Americans did that all by themselves. The real crisis of American democracy is not that Russia interferes with it, it’s that too many Americans are so naïve and ill-informed that they allow Internet Bots to make their most important political decisions for them. ■

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THE COUNTRY WITH THE MOST INFLUENCE IN WASHINGTON

Why am I writing about this, especially in a magazine that focuses on “Middle East Affairs”? A couple of reasons. One, the country that most influences American elections is not Russia, it is Israel.

But Israel doesn’t have to rely on dirty tricks, they have a powerful lobby of supporters who have been controlling the Congress and American Middle East policy since first getting involved in U.S. elections in 1944.

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020

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hanley_40-41.qxp_SPECIAL REPORT 12/5/19 9:04 PM Page 40

Special Report

Dr. Nuha Abudabbeh Leads Discussion on Juggling Two Worlds

Several NAAWA attendees, (l-r) Mona Sadeq-Omar, Delinda Hanley, Waheba Derouaze, Dr. Nuha Abudabbeh, Rula Khoury, Ghada Barakat, Zenna Kanann, Aroba Ghalayini and Dr. Najat Arafat, gather for a photo and to plan another event—how to empower each other and build their daughters’ self-confidence.

DR. NUHA ABUDABBEH led a discussion on the challenges Arab American women face living in this country and holding onto their heritage at a luncheon hosted by the National Arab American Women’s Association (NAAWA). In a private room at Brio Tuscan Grille in Tysons Corner, VA on Nov. 23, Dr. Abudabbeh skillfully guided attendees as they shared their personal challenges with the group.

Mona Sadeq-Omar, NAAWA’s president, opened the discussion by reminding attendees that their organization was founded to help educate, empower and inspire Arab American women. That’s why NAAWA asked Abudabbeh, a specialist in cross-cultural issues and forensic psychology, who hosted a live community call-in radio show on the Arab Network of America for 10 years, to share her expertise.

The psychiatrist deftly led conversations moving from the challenges

Delinda C. Hanley is executive editor of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. After growing up and working in the Middle East she sometimes feels like she’s juggling between two worlds and a visitor in her own land.

40

of raising teenagers in the United States or dealing with aging or mentally ill family members, far from the support extended families provide in their homelands.

Abudabbeh, who earned her degree from the University of Maryland in 1974, and continued training in psychiatry at Harvard University, said that Arab Americans are just like everybody else. They have to cope with anxiety, addiction, domestic violence, grief, relationship problems, depression and other mental health issues. “Our troubles are the same but ours is a secretive culture. We’re always worried about being judged in a community where everybody knows everybody else,” she said.

Our kids are growing up in a different culture, one woman commented. “America values an individualistic way of life while we come from an extended village culture, a collective group with shared values,” she added. “Back home we’re surrounded by family but they’re not here. Life here is busy, with so little time and most women work. Some of us stay in our own comfort zone and create our own ghetto,” she admitted.

Abudabbeh asked audience members to share their biggest chal-

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020

PHOTO COURTESY RULA KHOURY

By Delinda C. Hanley

hanley_40-41.qxp_SPECIAL REPORT 12/5/19 8:35 PM Page 41

lenges living in the U.S. A distinguished member of the Arab-American community recalled getting a call in the middle of the night saying her oldest child was in the hospital. “My husband was traveling and my youngest child was asleep in bed. I realized I had no one to call if I needed help. Back home I could rely on family.”

“It’s hard for us to make this switch and make close friends here whom we know we can depend on,” the psychiatrist noted.

“After the attacks on 9/11 we saw so many members of our local community—Jewish and Christian neighbors alike—support us and say, ‘you are not alone.’ We need to take that to heart.”

Another person said she faces a challenge every time she opens her mouth. “It’s my accent. In the grocery store, in the post office, people ask me where I’m from and I have to explain to everyone that I’m from Algeria. Some are curious and want to know more. After all these years living here I’m still an outsider.” Another woman suggested she keep in mind that she is educating Americans, even if it gets exhausting.

“It’s chilling,” another young woman added. “We always face a question, ‘How Arab are you?’ or ‘How American are you?’ I’m proud of my melded identity as an Arab American,” she said, but she admitted for decades her dating life suffered.

Arab men thought she was too American and American men thought she was too Arab. “I finally found someone who could accept me for who I am—he’s Irish!” she laughed.

Abudabbeh agreed that she, too, faced that search for identity and belonging. “In the end, I decided I’m just a human being.

I’m a Washingtonian with bits and pieces— a Quaker-educated Muslim from Palestine who grew up in Turkey.”

Most Arab Americans’ parents thought they’d go back “home” after the conflicts ended where they came from, another person observed. “I’m here because I’m homeless—and my family used to have two homes in Palestine!” Her parents came from Palestine and she said she’d read it takes three generations to become completely assimilated. “I don’t want to stay here. I want to go home. I want my kids to (Advertisement)

think of Palestine as home but they’re very American.”

A Christian woman married to a Muslim said her biggest challenge comes from her own Arab American community. In the old days in the Middle East, Muslims used to make Christian-style cookies and celebrate holidays together, she said. “Back in the day, they were also more tolerant here in America,” she recalled. “No one knew who was Muslim or Christian. There is rising polarization in our community here,” she warned.

There is growing division and even outright racism and Islamophobia in this country, agreed a woman who indicated her Muslim-American brother is raising kids in Florida. “He’s coaching football and trying to show that Muslims are good neighbors but he always feels a tension.”

That’s where Arab American organizations like NAAWA come in, the women concluded. “We need more outreach programs to educate teachers and even our neighbors.” Dr. Abudabbeh offered her home to people interested in continuing this conversation or starting a support group. ■

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WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

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mcarthur_43-45.qxp_Congress Watch 12/5/19 8:15 PM Page 43

Congress Watch

Congress Isn’t Focusing on Much Other Than Impeachment Proceedings

By Shirl McArthur

WITH THE IMPEACHMENT proceedings occupying center stage, Congress continues to pay little attention to much else. And since Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has cemented his position as a key ally of President Donald Trump by continuing to refuse to bring to a vote bills that Trump may not approve, most measures passed in the Democrat-controlled House remain blocked in the Senate. As reported in the Washington Report’s previous issue, to avoid a government shutdown, on Sept. 27 Trump signed a Continuing Resolution to keep federal departments and agencies funded through Nov. 21. But Congress failed to meet that deadline, too, so a new Continuing Resolution, H.R. 3055, was signed on Nov. 21 funding most departments and agencies at the FY ’19 level until Dec. 20.

Although most developments in the Middle East got little legislative attention, Trump’s ill-advised decision, taken after a phone call with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to halt U.S. efforts to prevent Turkish military operations against Kurdish forces in Syria did prompt several measures expressing concern over Trump’s action.

MEASURES INTRODUCED OPPOSING PULL-OUT FROM SYRIA

As reported in the previous issue, on Oct. 16 the House passed H.J. Res. 77, “Condemning the decision to end certain U.S. efforts to prevent Turkish military operations against Syrian Kurdish forces in Northeast Syria,” introduced in October by Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY), by a roll call vote of 354-60. Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY) then pressed McConnell to bring the measure to a vote in the Senate, but McConnell preferred instead to introduce, with 23 Republican cosponsors, his alternative, S.J.Res. 59, on Oct. 22. It doesn’t condemn Trump’s action, but would “express the sense of Congress” that the U.S. Government should pressure Turkey to “curtail its hostilities against U.S. partner forces in Syria.” But McConnell couldn’t bring himself to bring even his relatively mild measure to a vote, and it is stuck on the Senate calendar. Similarly, the Senate companion to H.J.Res. 77, S.J.Res. 57, introduced Oct. 15

by Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and three cosponsors, is buried in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (SFRC). Earlier, on Oct. 11, Engel and two cosponsors introduced the non-binding H.Res. 625, opposing Trump’s decision, but then decided to go with the stronger, binding H.J.Res. 77.

Three bills would impose sanctions on various Turkish officials and organizations. H.R. 4695, introduced by Engel on Oct. 16,

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

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020

would, in addition to imposing sanctions, designate certain Syrians, including Syrian Kurds, “as priority 2 refugees of special humanitarian concern.” The House passed it, under “suspension of the rules,” on Oct. 29 by a vote of 403-16, prompting Erdogan to say his government “strongly condemns” the House action. Also on Oct. 16, Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), with 115 Republican and two Democratic cosponsors, introduced H.R. 4692 to impose sanctions on several persons. Its Senate counterpart, S. 2644, was introduced Oct. 17

by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and 15 bipartisan cosponsors.

Turkish actions against Syrian Kurds prompted other legislative measures. On Oct. 16 Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) and 18 cosponsors introduced H.R. 4694, to “require a review of U.S.-Turkey relations.” On Oct. 17 Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), with two cosponsors, introduced S. 2624 “to prohibit arms sales to Turkey.” On Oct. 28 Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC), with seven cosponsors, introduced H.R. 4868 “to certify that U.S. assistance to the U.N. for humanitarian programs in the Syrian Arab Republic is not misdirected.” On Nov. 6 Sen. Menendez and three cosponsors introduced S.Res. 409 “requesting information on Turkey’s human rights practices in Syria.” And on Oct. 31 Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) introduced H.Con.Res. 70 that would require the removal of U.S. Armed Forces from Syria that have not been authorized by Congress.

LIKELY UNCONSTITUTIONAL BILL TO “FIX” THE ATCA IS REPORTED TO THE FULL SENATE

The previously-described S. 2132, “to promote security and provide justice for U.S. victims of international terrorism,” introduced in July by Sen. James Lankford (R-OK), was reported out by the Senate Judiciary Committee Oct. 21 after being amended. Part of the bill is intended to fix the unintended consequences of last year’s “Anti-Terrorism Clarification Act” (ATCA). While one purpose of the ATCA was to cut off aid to the PA or PLO, its wording could also apply to any country accepting the described aid. S. 2132 would “fix” the ATCA by making it possible for the Palestinians to accept security funding and certain other aid without being subject to the jurisdiction of U.S. courts. But this would come at great cost. The bill would set new, impossible conditions on the PA which, if not met, would allow organizations to sue the PA in U.S. courts, and one of the committee amendments would effectively bar the PLO/PA from the U.S. However, some of the bill’s provisions would likely be ruled unconstitutional. It now has five cosponsors.

H.R. 1837, which is a wish list of goodies for Israel, was passed by the House in July, but is stuck in the SFRC. It includes a provision

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

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STATUS UPDATES

H.R. 2407, Promoting Human Rights for Palestinian Children.

Introduced in April by Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN), this bill still has 22 cosponsors. See also the Washington Report’s November/De-

cember issue, page 18, for an article by Ramzy Baroud and another ion p. 62 of this issue.

H.R. 4411, Cut Palestine Aid.

This bill to limit aid to the PA, introduced by Rep. Ted Budd (R-

NC) in September, still has no cosponsors.

H.R. 1441, H.R. 2118, H.Res. 390 and H.R. 361, Iran Sanctions.

H.R. 1441, introduced in February by Rep. David Kustoff (R-TN), still has 17 cosponsors; H.R. 2118, introduced by Rep. Michael Mc-

Caul (R-TX) in April, still has six cosponsors; H.Res. 390, introduced in May by Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI), still has 12 cosponsors, and

H.R. 361, introduced in January by Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC), has 10 cosponsors.

H.R. 2354 and H.R. 2829, No War with Iran Without Congres-

sional Approval. H.R. 2354, introduced in April by Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA) now has 83 cosponsors, and H.R. 2829, introduced in May by Rep. Andy Levin (D-MI), also has 83 cosponsors.

S.J.Res. 13 and H.J.Res. 66, Limit War Powers Authorization.

S.J.Res. 13, introduced in March by Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA), which would repeal the authorizations for use of military force against Iraq of 1991 and 2002, still has three cosponsors. H.J.Res. 66, introduced by Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR) in June, which would amend the existing War Powers Resolution to emphasize Congress’ role in introducing U.S. armed forces into hostilities, has five cosponsors.

H.R. 4156, Unlimited Aid to Israel. H.R. 4156 introduced in August by Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC), which is essentially the same as the provision in H.R. 1837 giving the president authority to give unlimited military aid to Israel, still has no cosponsors H.J.Res. 37, S.Con.Res.21, and H.Con.Res. 50, Yemen.

H.J.Res. 37, which would direct the removal of U.S. Armed Forces from Yemen, was passed by the House in February, but still has not been acted on in the Senate. The identical resolutions introduced in June condemning human rights violations and cooperation with Iran by the Houthi movement in Yemen, have gained some support.

S.Con.Res. 21, introduced by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), has eight cosponsors, and H.Con.Res. 50, introduced by Rep. Will Hurd (RTX), now has five cosponsors.

ation of territory in the West Bank would undermine peace and Israel’s future as a Jewish and democratic state,” has gained a cosponsor and now has 12. H.Res. 518, introduced in July by Reps. Lowenthal and Gerry Connolly (D-VA), which says that any two-state solution must enhance stability and security for MEASURES SUPPORTING TWO-STATE SOLUTION GET Israel, Palestinians and their neighbors, still has no additional SOME SUPPORT cosponsors.

The two measures proposing a “partnerH.Res. 326 and H.Res. 138, the two meaship fund for peace” to promote joint ecosures reported out by the House Foreign Afnomic development and finance ventures fairs Committee in July but not brought to a between Palestinian companies and those vote by the full House, continue to receive in Israel and the U.S., have gained no fursome support. H.Res. 326, introduced in We have multiple copies of ther support. H.R. 3104, introduced in June April by Rep. Alan Lowenthal (D-CA), which recent issues of the Washington

by Rep. Nita Lowey (D-NY), still has 25 notes that any U.S. proposal that “fails to exReport for use as promotional cosponsors, and its Senate companion, S. pressly endorse a two-state solution will material at meetings, confer1727, introduced in June by Sen. Chris likely put a peaceful end to the conflict furences or educational programs Coons (D-DE), still has only five cosponther out of reach,” still has 192 all-Democof appropriate organizations. If sors. ratic cosponsors. H.Res. 138, introduced by you would like to request magaRep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL) in February, zines to distribute at no charge which gives weak support to a two-state soATTACKS ON THE RIGHT TO FREE to your group or class, email lution but basically endorses Binyamin NeSPEECH SLOWLY GAIN SUPPORT street mailing information to tanyahu’s “regional” approach, now has 37 The previously-described “Anti-Semitism <multiplecopies@wrmea.org> cosponsors.

Awareness” bills in the House and Senate, or call (202) 939-6050 ext. 1105.

Also, S.Res. 234, introduced in June by which would implicitly include criticism of Number of copies is subject to availability. Please allow at least Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR), which would Israel in the “definition of anti-Semitism for two weeks for delivery via UPS. affirm “the U.S. commitment to the twothe enforcement of federal anti-discriminastate solution” and note that “Israeli annextion laws concerning educational programs that would “fix” the ATCA by simply deleting the offending provision.

It also includes a section authorizing the president in emergencies to provide unlimited defense articles and services to Israel with no congressional oversight.

UPCOMING CLASS OR EVENT?

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or activities,â&#x20AC;? have made some progress.

S. 852, introduced in March by Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), still has 16 cosponsors, but H.R. 4009, introduced in July by Rep. Doug Collins (R-GA), now has 20 cosponsors. Also, H.Res. 72, introduced in January by Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY), which would â&#x20AC;&#x153;reject anti-Israel and antiSemitic hatred in the U.S. and around the world,â&#x20AC;? has gained cosponsors and now has 107.

The two previously described bills that include a section opposing the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS) targeting Israel that not only equates â&#x20AC;&#x153;Israeli-controlled territoriesâ&#x20AC;? with Israel, but also is a blatant attack on free speech, have made no progress. S.1, introduced in January by Rubio and passed by the Senate in February, still rests with the House. H.R. 336, introduced in January

by Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX), still rests with various House committees, with 67 cosponsors.

S.Res. 120, opposing the BDS movement, introduced in March by Sen. Benjamin Cardin (D-MD), still rests with the

SFRC, with 69 cosponsors. While it does not equate Israelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s colonies with Israel, it clearly is an attack on the constitutional right to free speech.

H.Res. 496, introduced by Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) in July, would affirm â&#x20AC;&#x153;that all Americans have the right to participate in boycotts in pursuit of civil and human rights at home and abroad, as protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution.â&#x20AC;? The measureâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s text nowhere mentions Israel, yet members of Congress who are pushing for a definition of the First Amendment to exclude criticism of Israel immediately seized upon the measure as being anti-Israel and anti-Semitic.

It still has 18 cosponsors.

BILLS THAT WOULD SANCTION THOSE RESPONSIBLE FOR KHASHOGGIâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S MURDER STUCK IN SENATE

The bills that would impose sanctions on those responsible for murdering Saudi citizen and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi havenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t moved. S. 398, introduced in February by Menendez, S.

2066, introduced in July by SFRC Chairman Sen. James Risch (R-ID), and H.R. 2037, introduced in April by Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-NJ), which was passed in July by the full House, still have not been voted on by the full Senate. S. 398 and S. 2006 each have six cosponsors. In the House, H.R. 643, introduced in January

by Rep. James McGovern (D-MA), prohibiting arms sales to Saudi Arabia, now has 32 cosponsors.

POSITIVE BILLS REGARDING JORDAN, TUNISIA ADVANCE

On Oct. 28 Rep. Ted Deutch (D-FL), with 10 cosponsors, introduced H.R. 4862 â&#x20AC;&#x153;to reauthorize the U.S.-Jordan Defense Cooperation Act of 2015.â&#x20AC;? And on Oct. 29 the Senate passed S.Res. 236, introduced in June by Menendez, â&#x20AC;&#x153;reaffirming the strong partnership between Tunisia and the U.S. and supporting the people of Tunisia in their continued pursuit of democratic reforms.â&#x20AC;? When passed it had two cosponsors. Its House counterpart, H.Res. 458, introduced in June by Deutch, has five cosponsors. â&#x2013;

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Special Report

Nearly 40 percent of Virginia voters (up from 29 percent in 2015) cast their ballots for every seat in the House of Delegates and State Senate, including those at Robious Elementary School, Nov. 5, 2019 in Midlothian, VA. MANY VIRGINIANS recently celebrated as both houses of the Virginia legislature came under Democratic Party control. In the past 30 years, the state has shifted from being a conservative Republican state to a liberal Democratic stronghold, exemplified by the recent elections. Political analysts attribute this profound shift to demographic changes characterized by increased immigration, suburbanization, and higher paying jobs—all factors that favor Democrats.

For Arab Americans, both Christians and Muslims, the policies of the Trump administration had a significant impact on their political alignment. The administration’s Muslim travel ban and its strong support of a racist government in Israel solidified Arab American opposition to the Republican Party, which stood behind President Donald Trump’s divisive policies and rhetoric.

Maher Massis, Ph.D. is on the board of directors of NewDominionPAC, vice president of the Coalition of Palestinian American Organizations, co-chair of Palestinian Christian Alliance for Peace and the author/editor of Poems for Palestine, available at Middle East Books and More.

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In recent years, many Arab Americans have run for public office, including Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) and Ilhan Omar (D-MN), who won their party’s primaries in 2018 and assumed office in the House of Representatives in 2019. In addition, two candidates of Palestinian heritage are running for office in 2020, Ammar Campa-Najjar in California’s 50th Congressional District, and Rush Darwish in Illinois’ 3rd Congressional District.

In Virginia, Dr. Ibraheem Samirah (D-86), another Arab American, won a 2019 special primary election to fill a vacant seat in the House of Delegates. In the Nov. 5, 2019 general election, he ran unopposed. Sam Rasoul (D-11) and Hala Ayala (D-51) also won reelection. Abrar Omeish, an American of Libyan descent, was elected to the Fairfax County School Board. Omeish knocked on 16,000 doors and registered more than 1,500 new voters.

According to a study by the Arab American Institute in 2014, the population of Arab Americans in Virginia was estimated at 169,587.

This number is certainly higher today and is estimated to be at least 200,000. Although they constitute about two percent of the total Vir-

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

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PHOTO BY MATT MCCLAIN/THE WASHINGTON POST VIA GETTY IMAGES

Virginia Turned Blue—Thanks to Arab American Voters

By Maher Massis

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ginia population, their concentration in various areas such as Fairfax County and their ability to mobilize during elections have certainly made Arab Americans a force to be reckoned with.

As all of us learned in Government 101 classes, Americans can influence elections and the overall political process when they are organized into interest groups. One such group is New Dominion PAC (NDPAC) formed in 2001, which has emerged as the predominant political voice of the Arab American community in Virginia. At its most recent Candidates Night event, 39 candidates attended as they sought the Arab American vote and the support of NDPAC. (See November/December 2019 Washington Report p. 55.) As a measure of NDPAC’s political success, it endorsed 19 candidates in the latest election and all 19 were elected into office.

NDPAC has been successful in raising and dispensing funds to various campaigns. It has also provided additional political resources such as volunteers for

Published by SET TA T A Foundation

phone banking, door knocking and various social media tools to turn out the Arab American vote. Moreover, NDPAC has an extensive database of Arab American voters and can target these voters by state and federal electoral districts.

In addition to its success in recent elections, NDPAC was instrumental in defeating a 2016 attempt by certain members of the Virginia legislature to push through an antiBoycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) bill. This bill, if passed, would have penalized individuals and businesses for exercising their right to boycott, which is protected under the First Amendment right to freedom of speech. Because of the intense lobbying efforts of NDPAC, the bill failed in the Senate committee system after passing in the House of Delegates. One important condition that NDPAC requires from candidates in order to receive its endorsement is a specific commitment to oppose any anti-BDS legislation. Considering the recent election results, it is now unlikely that any such bill will be introduced in the Virginia legislature.

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At the federal level, NDPAC also lobbied against such bills and organized several face-to-face meetings with elected officials such as Virginia Democratic Senator Tim Kaine and U.S. Representatives Don Beyer and Jennifer Wexton, all of whom committed to oppose anti-BDS legislation despite intense pressure from AIPAC and other pro-Israel lobby groups. Next year Arab Americans in Virginia will be mobilized for the presidential elections—NDPAC board members have already positioned themselves in leadership roles in various Democratic presidential primary campaigns.

The political empowerment of Arab Americans in Virginia is truly a success story that can be a model for Arab American communities in other states. When organized into groups, such as NDPAC, with resources and a focused intelligent strategy, Arab American voters certainly can become a powerful voice to be heard and respected in the policy-making halls of state and federal government. For more information e-mail Maher@NDPAC.com. ■

Edited by Muhittin Ataaman

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An insightful refer e ence for o 20 years e

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Israel and Judaism

Alienation of American Jews From Israel Dramatically Affects U.S. Policy By Allan C. Brownfeld

PHOTO BY KATHERINE FREY/THE WASHINGTON POST VIA GETTY IMAGES

by nationality and Jews by religion, just as other Americans are Protestant, Catholic, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh or other.

Israel’s 52-year occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem and its retreat from democratic values has alienated many American Jews, including groups that once embraced Israel. In October, the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association (RRA) endorsed legislation sponsored by Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN) designed to protect the rights of Palestinian children imprisoned by the Israeli military. H.R. 2407 would prohibit U.S. funding “the military detention, interrogation, abuse or ill-treatment of children in violation of the international humanitarian law.”

Rep. McCullom thanked the RRA: “This is a tremendous boost of support...I thank these respected rabbis for helping to lead “Three Weddings and a Statement,” a political protest and a legally binding wedding on March the fight for human rights. Their endorse26, 2019, at Washington, DC’s Hebrew Congregation sheds light on Israeli rabbis’ strict control ment sends a strong signal to people of all over who can be married. Wedding couples clockwise from left, Sahar Malka-Rabkin, Ilia faiths that every child deserves to be Rabkin, Shmuel Carmel, Anat Carmel, Aviad Raz and Tsion Razy. treated with dignity and respect. Now it is time for the U.S. to send a clear signal that no U.S. tax dollars should enable the detention and mistreatment ISRAEL CLAIMS TO BE THE “HOMELAND” of all Jews and long of Palestinian children by the Israel Defense Forces.” declared that Jews in other countries were in the process of disapSince 2000, an estimated 10,000 Palestinian children have been pearing through assimilation and intermarriage. American Judaism detained, prosecuted, and incarcerated by the Israeli military in the has defied this Zionist mythology. occupied West Bank. Rabbi Alissa Wise, acting co-director of Jewish In the past seven years, the American Jewish population has Voice for Peace (JVP), points out, “A few years ago, the idea of leggrown 10 percent. “The cynicism about American Judaism, and this islation for Palestinian rights introduced in the U.S. Congress was belief that we are a shrinking population, we are a vanishing popuinconceivable, let alone that a leading association of rabbis would lation, is incorrect,” said Leonard Saxe, director of the Steinhardt endorse it. The RRA’s decision to endorse H.R. 2407 is the clearest Center at Brandeis University. “The prophecy of the vanishing Jew proof yet of the American Jewish community’s growing support for has not come to fruition.”

Palestinian rights.”

As of 2018, the Steinhardt Center estimates there are approxiIn Rabbi Wise’s view, “The RRA’s endorsement powerfully conmately 7.5 million Jews in the contiguous United States, home to tradicts previously held orthodoxies about American Jewish comthe largest Jewish community in the world. According to recent govmunities and advocating for Palestinians and is a bellwether of a ernment statistics, Israel has 6.7 million Jews. The “homeland” of seismic shift in what is possible. In this volatile and uncertain political American Jews, it is clear, is the United States. They are American moment it is a welcome and needed reminder of the dynamism in DC and the American Jewish community more broadly. I am deeply Allan C. Brownfeld is a syndicated columnist and associate editor of proud to be a Reconstructionist rabbi.” the Lincoln Review, a journal published by the Lincoln Institute for JVP Government Affairs manager Beth Miller said: “This bold Research and Education, and editor of Issues, the quarterly journal of the American Council for Judaism. and historic stance from the RRA clearly shows that the ground is 48

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remind ourselves that as American Jews about misalignment of values...People shifting. Progressive movements across that there are Israeli Jews, Israeli Arabs, who were deeply connected to Israel are the U.S., including progressive American who are working every day. They do not tired, they are constantly feeling a need Jews, demand concrete steps toward jushave the luxury of averting their eyes, it is to justify why they feel connected to this tice and equality for Palestinians...We are not an option. So, for us to be truly in relaplace, they’re constantly disappointed, exthrilled and grateful to the RRA for sending tionship, we have to look too and have to periencing a lot of shame about this a clear message to Capitol Hill that blind listen.” [For more information on the J place—always hoping that it will rise to the support for Israel is no longer the status Street Conference see p. 50.] occasion, be something it’s not.” quo and Congress needs to catch up.”

In the post-World War II years, many beRabbi Cohen urges American Jews to The concern American Jews are showlieved that Israel and American Jews listen to the voices of Israeli Jews and ing about Israeli policies are already having shared common values. Slowly, it has Arabs who challenge their government’s an important impact on the debate over become clear that this was not really the violation of human rights: “The best thing U.S. policy. Reporting on the J Street concase. American Jews, for example, believe we can do is connect with and hear from ference held in Washington, DC in October, in religious freedom and separation of Israeli activists (like those appearing at J The New York Times (Oct. 28, 2019) church and state. In Israel, there is a Street) who are deeply concerned with stated: “Pete Buttigieg compared Israel’s theocracy, with state-employed ultra-Orwhat’s going on. The best thing we can do relationship with the U.S. to that of a close thodox rabbis. Reform and Conservative is tell their stories, lift up their voices, friend—one who needed and should rabbis cannot perform wedaccept more guidance. Bernie (Advertisement) dings, funerals or conversions.

Sanders put it in starker terms, Jews and non-Jews who wish saying the U.S. should demand to marry but are forbidden to more from Israel. But whatever do so in an Orthodox cerethe language, one thing was mony must leave the country to clear: Democratic attitudes tie the knot. At the same time, toward Israel are shifting in the millions of Palestinians are highest echelons of the party.” without political rights, a chalAmong the speakers at the J lenge to the American Jewish Street conference, which atcommitment to equal rights for tracted thousands of Jewish acmen and women of every race, tivists, was Rabbi Ayelet Cohen faith and background. of the New Israel Fund. She A new generation of Amerisaid that American Jews are can Jews is rejecting nationallosing interest in Israel, are tired ism and seeking to restore the of fighting over Israel and that humane Jewish moral and ethrabbis are quietly dropping ical tradition. This transformaIsrael from Hebrew school curtion has already had an impact ricula and no one is noticing. upon how candidates for politiShe said: “When I think cal office view U.S. Middle East about the language of a rift, I Playgrounds for Palestine is a project to build playgrounds for our policy. With dissenting views inthink about active conflict, I children.

It is a minimal recognition of their right to childhood and creasingly being heard, Israeli think about moments that creative expression. It is an act of love. policies are undergoing inhave stood out as crisis points creasing scrutiny. There is no Playgrounds for Palestine (PfP) is a registered 501(c)3 non-profit between American and Israeli organization, established in 2001. We’re an all-volunteer organizadoubt that the growing alienJews—I’m sure [ B i n y a m i n ] tion (no paid staff) that raises money throughout the year to conation of American Jews from N e t a n y a h u ’ s speech to struct playgrounds and fund programs for Israel and its occupation will Congress, the whole issue children in Palestine. alter how American policyaround the Iran deal, the Selling Organic, Fair Trade Palestinian olive makers view Middle East policy Jerusalem Embassy. But I oil is PfP’s principle source of fundraising. in the future. A new era lies think on a daily basis...what is year, PfP launched AIDA, a private ahead, one which provides we are experiencing is a very label olive oil from Palestinian farmers. hope for a U.S. policy that emtroubling cooling of interest, of Please come by and taste it at our table. braces both American and curiosity, of engagement beWe hope you’ll love it and make it a staple in your pantry.

Jewish values of respect for the tween American Jews and Ishuman and political rights of raelis and vice versa. I think for For more information or to make a donation visit: men and women regardless of many of us it’s about despair, https://playgroundsforpalestine.org • P.O. Box 559 • Yardley, PA 19067 background. ■ it’s about averting our eyes, it’s JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020

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Israel and Judaism

Democratic presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders calls for leveraging aid to Israel during the J Street national conference at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, DC, Oct. 28, 2019.

J STREET’S national conference “Rise to the Moment,” at Washington, DC’s Convention Center from Oct. 26-29, spread a larger than expected tent. Speakers included members of the Shin Bet, Israel’s Internal Security Agency, Joint List chairman Ayman Odeh, and Palestinian and Israeli activists calling for U.S. tax dollars to be leveraged as a way to stop Israeli human rights abuses and violations of international law. These open and passionate conversations may have been in response to a rightward shift within Israel, which has resulted in the discriminatory Jewish nation-state law, unbridled (and now U.S.-endorsed) settlement expansion, and the horrendous conditions in Gaza.

J Street continues to advocate a “two-state solution” and a “secure and democratic Israel as the national home of the Jewish people alongside a Palestine state.” Questions, however, lay like roadblocks in the path of peace: How could Israel, a multi-ethnic and cultural society, home to Jews, Muslims and Christians, be a democracy when Jews are privileged above all others?

Well-known Israeli-American human rights activist Miko Peled offered a pointed rebuke in his critique of the conference in Mint Press News. “While the initial attempt to bring people together to hear one

Iris Keltz, educator, freelance journalist, and author of Unexpected Bride in the Promised Land: Journeys in Palestine and Israel, is an active member of Jewish Voice for Peace in New Mexico and nationally.

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another may have been sincere, it is clear today that the result was a miserable failure and a nightmare for Palestinians,” he wrote. “Although the goal, at least in part, is to improve the lives of both Palestinians and Israelis, at the end of these meetings Palestinians return to their endless nightmare and Israelis to their well-paved neighborhoods with limitless water, electricity and freedom.”

He was right. Without action, everything said at J Street’s conference was empty words. I certainly did not want my presence at this conference to be taken as “normalization” or unquestioning acceptance of J Street’s mission.

In spite of my reservations—I’m Jewish but I’m certainly not a Zionist and I support BDS as non-violent resistance to occupation— I attended the conference, only to discover that some of the Palestinians in attendance had similar misgivings. Saeb Erekat, a diplomat associated with the Palestine Liberation Organization and a negotiator at the Oslo Accords, admitted he’d been asked to boycott the conference. Although Erekat, a member of the Palestinian Parliament representing Jericho, spoke passionately about the need for the immediate creation of two-states, he also harkened back to Mandate Palestine where Muslims, Christians and Jews coexisted as neighbors. He warned, “every day, realities on the ground diminish the possibility of two-states” and affirmed that any solution must be rooted in justice.

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

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PHOTO CREDIT MANDEL NGAN/AFP VIA

J Street Offers a Big Tent But It’s Time for Action, Not Just Words

By Iris Keltz

The most moving part of his talk came when he spoke directly to fellow Palestinians. “Do not despair. Look at these people around you. The occupation will end. We will have our state. Do not give up!” The willingness of Palestinian individuals and groups to present alongside Zionists spoke to the urgency of their message. That thousands in the J Street audience cheered for Palestinian self-determination and an end to the occupation speaks to a major shift within the American Jewish population.

Five presidential hopefuls—Pete Buttigieg, Julian Castro, Amy Klobuchar, Michael Bennet and Bernie Sanders— spoke at the conference. Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden and others sent in video statements. But it was Sanders who was the rock star. Thunderous applause greeted Sanders, especially when he said U.S. military aid to Israel must be leveraged.

“What is going on in Gaza right now, for example, is absolutely inhumane, it is unacceptable, it is unsustainable,” Sanders said. “If [you Israelis] want military aid, you’re going to have to fundamentally change your relationship with the people of Gaza," he asserted. “In fact, I think it is fair to think that some of that $3.8 billion should go to humanitarian aid to Gaza.”

Sanders continued, “$3.8 billion is a lot of money…We have a right to say to the Israeli government, ‘Americans believe in human rights and democracy.’” He added that currently aid to Israel can be used with little stipulations.

Identifying himself as an American Jew who lost family in the Holocaust, Bernie asked the crowd, “Who will dare to call me anti-Semitic?”

Leveraging U.S. aid to affect Israeli policies is not a new idea. Peter Beinart, a professor, journalist and political commentator who also spoke at the conference, offered hard historical evidence. In 1956, President Dwight Eisenhower threatened to end all U.S. aid unless Israeli troops withdrew from Egyptian territory immediately. In 1977, during Israel’s invasion of Lebanon, President Jimmy Carter told Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin that Israel’s use of American armored personnel carriers violated the Arms Export Control Act of 1976, January/February 2020 June/July 2019

PHOTO COURTESY I. KELTZ

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In a photo exhibit at the J Street conference, former Israeli soldiers from Breaking the Silence describe what they were sent to do in the occupied territories.

which states that U.S. weaponry can only be used for legitimate self-defense. When Carter warned that “future arms sales will have to be terminated,” Israel left Lebanon.

In 1982, the Ronald Reagan administration determined that Israel’s use of cluster bombs in Lebanon was a violation of U.S. law and sales of those lethal bombs were banned for six years. In 1991, George Bush refused a $10 billion loan to Israel for the settlement of Soviet immigrants until settlement growth in the West Bank was frozen.

At an impressive photo exhibit three former Israeli soldiers from Breaking the Silence earnestly explained to attendees the significance of photos they took during their military service in the West Bank and Gaza.

Often vilified in their own country, these Jewish Israelis bear witness to the cost of occupation on the most human level.

As mentioned, all this information presented at the conference must be translated into action. Many J Street attendees, including this writer, took the opportunity of being in DC to visit their representatives.

H.R. 2407, Promoting Human Rights for Palestinian Children Living Under Israeli Military Occupation, which bars the U.S. government from providing funds to foreign forces where there is “credible information of a gross violation of human rights,” has 22 sponsors, but my Rep. Deb Haaland (DNM) is not one of them.

But Rep. Haaland is a signatory to H.R. 1945, the Berta Caceres Human Rights in Honduras Act, legislation that “suspends U.S. security assistance with Honduras until such time as human rights violations

by Honduran security forces cease and

their perpetrators are brought to justice.”

Haaland’s policy adviser in DC had difficulty explaining why protecting human rights in Honduras was acceptable while a bill protecting Palestinian children was complicated. Hopefully, having returned from Israel/Palestine with a J Street delegation, she will decide to sign, along with Rep. Andy Levin (D-MI) who traveled with the same delegation. While on the trip, he tweeted his outrage about an injustice he witnessed in the West Bank village of Susya. “Right before our eyes, we watched the Israeli government lay pipes across the village’s land to deliver tap water to an illegal Israeli outpost nearby.” That he just learned of water and land thefts in an occupation that has been going on for over 52 years is another outrage.

Hopefully the next generation of Jewish Americans will recommit to upholding international law, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a document written in response to the Nazi Holocaust. Unbridled settlement growth has all but destroyed the possibility of two states. Can a bridge or tunnel between Gaza and the West Bank really create a viable country when all borders are controlled by Israel?

Can Palestinians live in non-contiguous bantustans without freedom of movement?

That Palestinians deserve to be citizens of the country in which they live is indisputable. No people will endure subjugation indefinitely. Some of us remember the struggle for civil rights in the United States.

Before any shift happens, a new narrative must be co-created. Perhaps that was the heart of the conference. ■

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Personality

Imam Yahya Hendi Challenges Stereotypes in The Bible Belt

Imam Yahya Hendi speaks on “Judaism, Christianity and Islam: Confrontation or Cooperation?” at the Virginia Military Institute.

THE MUSLIM CHAPLAIN at Georgetown University ventured recently into Rockbridge County, VA, a largely conservative pocket of the Bible Belt, which includes the towns of Lexington and Buena Vista. In a series of talks in November, Palestinian-born Imam Yahya Hendi challenged the stereotypes of Islam—and pointed to paths of interfaith cooperation. These were the first Muslim-led series of interfaith, intercollegiate talks and prayer services ever held in Rockbridge County. It’s an area better known for competitions over Christmas decorations, rows over Confederate parades and its pro-gun rights movement.

Formerly a chaplain at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, MD, Georgetown’s first Muslim chaplain is also a Public Policy Conflict Resolution Fellow at the University of Maryland, and president of Clergy Beyond Borders. Imam Hendi’s visit was hosted by a community group, Rockbridge Interfaith, as well as local colleges and churches. The imam spoke to cadets, faculty and visitors at Virginia Military Institute (VMI), as well as students and faculty at Washington and Lee University in Lexington and mostly Mormon

Marvine Howe, former new york times bureau chief in Ankara, is the author of al-andalus Rediscovered: iberia’s new Muslims and other Minorities.

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students and faculty at Southern Virginia University (SVU) at Buena Vista. He also spoke at interfaith prayer services at Lexington Presbyterian and Grace Episcopal churches.

“Yahya knows how to build bridges and plant seeds for the future,” said Rev. John Thomas, spokesman for the interfaith group, who recently retired from the Children’s Hospital in Washington, DC, where he came to know the chaplain well. A former Methodist clergyman, Rev. Thomas emphasized that Imam Hendi’s words of love and tolerance are more needed now than ever “as a kind of inoculation” against religious and ethnic prejudices.

In a subsequent interview with the Washington Report, the chaplain disclosed that several individuals had voiced opposition to his visit to the Rockbridge area but this had discouraged neither the organizers nor himself. Imam Hendi said he had come to America in 1990 because he believed there was more freedom here than elsewhere and he thought he could be more effective. He admitted that being the only Muslim in the Christian seminary at Hartford, CT, was difficult, “but it gave me the opportunity to grow.”

Asked to comment on President Trump’s Muslim Ban, the imam declared: “After nearly 20 years in the United States, I was surprised, shocked and horrified that Muslims were told they don’t belong and

Washington RepoRt on Middle east affaiRs

JanuaRy/febRuaRy 2020

PHOTO COURTESY ROCKBRIDGE INTERFAITH

By Marvine Howe

were not welcome in a country built on religious diversity. I just hope America does not lose its soul under Trump’s policy that flouts our history, Constitution and fabric, and goes against what distinguishes America as a country by and for all.”

Imam Hendi’s main message to VMI cadets was that there were more elements uniting Islam, Judaism and Christianity than there are divisions. “How can there be conflict when we read almost the same scriptures?” the cleric asked his listeners.

The imam acknowledged that many people believe Muslims are enemies. “I dare to disagree,” he declared, noting that he had spent 20 years studying the three Abrahamic religions. His conclusion is that there are real differences, namely that Muslims do not believe in the divinity of Jesus, “but we have much common ground with the other religions.”

The Muslim cleric proceeded to list in detail the shared beliefs of the three religions, which were each born in the Middle East. “Our origins and destiny can bring us together,” he said, pointing out that it is written in the Bible, the Torah and the Qur’an that humans came from dust and will become dust. All believe in one God and a Day of Judgment, he emphasized. And the three holy books contain the Ten Commandments, many of the same prophets, religious stories and miracles.

Anticipating his listeners’ questions about the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Imam Hendi declared that they had been directed against civilians and thus “a violation of Islam.” He went on to say, “I hate terrorists more than you do.” Asked about the common expression jihad, the imam declared that it has been widely misinterpreted to mean the killing of all non-Muslims. “The Arabic word jihad means to strive to do good in the Qur’an,” he said. He pointed out that the Islamic Prophet Muhammed was married to a Christian and he called Christians his brothers.

When a member of the VMI audience asked him about the Israel-Palestine question, Imam Hendi stressed that this was not a religious conflict but territorial. “Religion is used by the rival forces but God is not a real estate agent,” he quipped.

The Muslim cleric received the warmest JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020

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Imam Hendi speaks to Jewish and interfaith students from Washington and Lee University and Virginia Military Institute at a Shabbat dinner. applause for his defense of women’s rights from the SVU audience. He explained that he had undertaken the journey to become an imam “to give a voice for women in religion.” The imam stressed that while women could run for president in the United States, “they can’t even get an education in the Taliban’s Afghanistan.”

The main message Imam Hendi had for SVU was: “What matters is what you are doing, not how long you live.” He added that as a chaplain, he had sat down with kings and queens and presidents “but none of that means anything.” What he will remember are events like when he was asked to deliver $50,000 to rebuild a hospital for a charity in Ghana.

At SVU, the imam was also asked whether life was different in the U.S. before and after 9/11. “I am sorry to apologize to fellow Americans for what was done in the name of religion,” he responded, adding: “That was not Islam but crazy nuts, haters, who should be rejected.” He went on to point out both the dark and bright sides of the aftermath of 9/11. For one thing, Georgetown University held its largest interfaith rally against hatred with some 600 students. But then he was surprised by the many attacks on Muslims wearing veils and even Sikhs with turbans. “But also, so many churches and synagogues opened their doors to Muslims after 9/11, like never before,’’ he said.

While there are no mosques or synagogues in the Rockbridge area, Washington and Lee University has been striving for greater diversity in recent years. In 2010 the school opened Hillel House Center for

Jewish Life, which offers the use of its multipurpose room and sanctuary for special interfaith events. During his visit, Imam Hendi presided over a Muslim prayer service and Shabbat dinner at Hillel House. He also spoke at a roundtable on chaplaincy and held an interfaith prayer service at Lexington Presbyterian Church, and addressed Grace Episcopal church’s “education hour” followed by a “Mediterranean Food Festival and Community Meal.” ■ (Advertisement)

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MUSLIM AMERICAN ACTIVISM More than 2,000 people attended the 23rd Annual Banquet of the Council on American-Islamic Relations-Los Angeles (CAIRLA) on Nov. 2 at the Anaheim Hilton Hotel in Garden Grove, CA. The theme of the banquet was “Courage Under Fire,” and featured several speakers: Pennsylvania State Representative Movita Johnson-Harrell, Temple University Professor Marc Lamont Hill, CAIR-LA executive director Hussam Ayloush and comedian Amer Zahr.

Johnson-Harrell, the first Muslim woman elected to Pennsylvania’s House of Representatives, shared the tragic experiences that compelled her to run for office. As a child, she witnessed her father being shot to death, an experience that left her, her siblings and mother suffering from mental trauma and dependent on drugs and alcohol. Her brother—who was never properly treated for his trauma and went in and out of juvenile and adult detention facilities and became homeless—was later stabbed to death in front of his child.

Despite these catastrophic events, Johnson-Harrell pulled herself up, graduated from college, launched a successful career, became active in her community and raised four upstanding children. Disturbed by the level of deadly violence in their Philadelphia neighbored, she and her husband decided to move their family to a suburb where she “thought we were safe.”

One year after the move, Johnson-Harrell woke up to a devastating phone call: her son had been shot. She rushed to the hospital, only to be told her son Charles was dead. “Three years to the day that I left Philadelphia I wrapped my son in a white sheet,” she said. The tragedy inspired her to create the Charles Foundation in honor of her son. The nonprofit seeks to help atrisk children and prevent gun violence.

Despite her obvious credentials for holding public office, Johnson-Harrell has faced relentless anti-Muslim bigotry. “People know that I am the first hijabi elected to the 54

(L-r) Hussam Ayloush, Pennsylvania State Rep. Movita Johnson-Harrell and Dr. Marc Lamont Hill at the CAIR-LA banquet.

Pennsylvania legislature, but that comes with a price,” she said. “In the seven months that I have been in office, I get hate mail, I get death threats.”

“I understand, I shattered a glass ceiling, and when you shatter glass ceilings shards are going to come down,” she continued.

“But does that mean you don’t do it? No! What it means is you bring your true authentic self with you wherever you go. I am not ashamed to be in recovery, I am not ashamed to be a black woman, I am not ashamed to be a hijabi. I am who I am!”

Dr. Marc Lamont Hill gave an equally passionate speech in which he implored everyone to make a radical decision to fight for justice, especially when it is challenging or inconvenient. “Are we willing to stand up and tell the truth even when it is difficult?” he asked. “We have to be willing to stand up when something is on the line.”

“We can’t just speak out against Trump,” Hill continued. “We have to be critical of Democrats who continue to enforce and reinforce public policy that does harm to Muslims around the world. If you catching a drone in Yemen, if you catching a drone in Somalia, you catching a drone in Afghanistan, you don’t care whether it says Republican or Democrat on the drone.”

Hussam Ayloush praised Hill and Johnson-Harrell as exemplars of the Muslim American community. “If you wonder what

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the future of Muslims in this country is, you got a glimpse," he said.

Ayloush said CAIR is committed to justice globally. “When the Chinese government launched its campaign against the Uyghurs and put three million Muslims in concentration camps and when the Indian fascist government invaded Kashmir and arrested, shot, killed Muslims, CAIR was here for them," he commented. "If the people in Yemen, Syria, Palestine, Sudan, Algeria, Iraq, Lebanon, Kashmir, Chile and Hong Kong can revolt against corrupt rulers and occupiers, certainly we can do our job here," he concluded.

Words can not properly convey the passion with which Hill and Johnson-Harrell spoke. Accordingly, all are encouraged to watch their speeches at <YouTube.com /user/cairsocal/>.

—Samir Twair

Rep. Rashida Tlaib Highlights MPAC Convention

“This Is Our America” was the theme of the 19th annual Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) Convention, attended by more than 1,000 people at the Long Beach Convention Center on Nov. 23. The event featured three keynote speakers: Dr. Yusef Salaam, a writer and a member of the Central Park Five, Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) and Jose Antonio Vargas, a journalist, filmmaker and immigration advocate.

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Courageous Leaders Honored at CAIR-LA Annual Banquet

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in the month of February. This is the new Jim Crow being practiced in our prisons.”

—Samir Twair

ARAB AMERICAN ACTIVISM

STAFF PHOTO S. TWAIR

Dr. Rabab Abdulhadi Honored at ADC’s Alex Odeh Conference

Dr. Yusef Salaam (l) with Salam Al-Marayati.

immigrants in the U.S.” Condemning the practice of referring to immigrants as “illegals,” he encouraged the audience to continue to fight for the disadvantaged.

Salaam told his personal story of wrongful imprisonment. “In 1989 I was only 14 years old when I was arrested with four other teenagers in Central Park [on charges of rape] and sentenced wrongly for seven years from 1990-1997. When I was in prison, I was given a number and I didn't know what it meant. The number was 1113. The first digit meant my birthday month and the rest of the digits meant the number of inmates who entered the prison

The Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) held its Alex Odeh Conference Oct. 11-12 at the Sheraton Hotel in Cerritos, CA. The event featured talks on the 2020 Census, immigration and the future of Palestine.

Attendees also paid tribute to the life of Alex Odeh, ADC’s former West Coast regional director, who was killed by a pipe bomb that exploded when he opened the door to his Santa Ana, CA office in 1985.

The FBI never officially identified any suspects, although ample evidence suggests three members of the Jewish Defense League who fled to illegal Israeli settlements shortly after the assassination likely played a role in the killing. ADC continues to urge the Department of Justice to pursue the case and deliver justice for Odeh, his family and his community.

At the gala dinner on Oct. 12, Helena Odeh, Alex Odeh’s daughter, presented San Francisco State University (SFSU) professor Dr. Rabab Abdulhadi with ADC’s

PHOTO COURTESY ADC

MPAC president Salam Al-Marayati began by highlighting the work his organization has done to improve the portrayal of Muslims in popular culture. “We have utilized YouTube, Facebook, Google and we are in the Hollywood arena,” he explained.

“Our enemies are afraid of us getting into Hollywood and offering proposals to producers and directors. Our Young Leaders Program is gaining ground, providing young Muslims with the skills they need to run for office nationwide.”

Rep. Tlaib explained how her experience as a Palestinian-American shapes how she advocates for her constituents and approaches injustices. “I represent the third poorest congressional district in the country,” she explained. “I want them to see that the strength of me being a Palestinian American, a woman who is the child of immigrants, the eldest of 14, that I wasn’t going to back down, I wasn’t going to sell out, because I have seen the pain in my parents’ eyes every time they felt like they were being sold out.”

The congresswoman said she sees a deep connection between the Palestinian struggle and other fights for justice. “When I went to the border in El Paso, as soon as that 4-year-old boy came up to the glass door and he asked me in Spanish where his father was, I thought of Gaza,” she said.

“Every time I see some sort of economic oppression against my black brothers and sisters, the ‘othering’ and dehumanization of my immigrant neighbors, it reminds me of what my family continues to go through in Palestine.”

While xenophobic and anti-Muslim voices try to marginalize Muslim elected officials from the fabric of America, Tlaib said her constituents are proof that most Americans are disinterested in divisive identity politics. “Part of the American story that never gets told is that sister Ilhan Omar and myself got elected by fellow Americans who didn’t share our faith, or our ethnic background,” she pointed out.

“And that’s the part of the story that never gets told—ever.”

Vargas began his remarks by asking a pertinent question: “How do we define America? I became a journalist to report on

Dr. Rabab Abdulhadi (r) receives the Alex Odeh Award from Helena Odeh, the daughter of Alex Odeh. In 1985, Alex Odeh, then ADC’s West Coast regional director, was killed by a pipe bomb that exploded when he opened the door to his office in Santa Ana, CA. WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

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PHOTO COURTESY ARAB CENTER

our frames of reference foreclose on the distinguished Alex Odeh Award. In 2018, WAGING PEACE possibility that we can consider other outthe Lawfare Project, a pro-Israel legal comes, that we can even offer other analygroup with a penchant for targeting critics Dr. Marc Lamont Hill Slams U.S. ses, that we can even decide whether a of Israel, sued Abdulhadi and SFSU, allegMedia Coverage of Middle East story matters or not.” ing that Abdulhadi promoted anti-Semitism As an example, Hill cited CNN’s decion campus and created a hostile envision to fire him as an analyst in 2018 after ronment for Jewish students. After more he addressed the U.N. about Palestinian than a year of litigation, a federal judge human rights. “I didn’t expect it to be a found the case to be meritless. controversial matter, I certainly didn’t “After 18 months we defeated them,” expect to get fired the next day,” he said.

Abdulhadi noted. “The federal judge But CNN insisted that his call for a “free [William Orrick], who happens to be Palestine from the river to the sea” was Jewish, dismissed the case with preju“not in line with their values.” dice....He said just because she’s antiHill described CNN’s abrupt decision Zionist and supports Palestinian resisto terminate him as reflective of the news tance doesn’t make her anti-Semitic.” media’s inability to engage in nuance After fending off the frivolous legal and its reluctance to facilitate thinking challenge, Abdulhadi went on the ofthat challenges the status quo. The profensive, suing SFSU, claiming the fessor noted that using the phrase “from school has repeatedly discriminated the river to the sea” is not a call for the against her based on her pro-Palestine expulsion of Jews from Israel nor an emactivism. She claims the university has bracing of Hamas, as CNN apparently underfunded her Arab and Muslim Ethbelieved. Rather, he noted that Palestinnicities and Diasporas Studies proian and Israeli organizations across the gram, tried to prevent the establishDr. Marc Lamont Hill implores the U.S. media to ideological spectrum have used the ment of an Edward Said scholarship, provide context and nuance when discussing the phrase for decades. “‘River to the sea’ is fought against her efforts to form a re- Middle East. a conversation that has been existing in lationship with An-Najah University in historic Palestine for over a century,” he Palestine and worked to scuttle a study The Arab Center Washington DC devoted noted. “If you spend any time in the region, abroad program to Palestine. its annual conference on Oct. 31 to criyou will hear the words ‘river’ and ‘sea’ in Abdulhadi said she suspects SFSU has tiquing the impediments to a free and open that very context across the landscape.” succumbed to pressure and intimidation media in the Arab world. Panelists emphaJust as CNN failed to intellectually crifrom pro-Israel groups and donors. “Zionist sized the need for a free press in the region, tique his analysis, Hill noted that many outorganizations and the Israel lobby have and cited the brutal murder of Saudi jourlets fail to provide their audiences with histried to silence all of us, have attacked us nalist Jamal Khashoggi by his own governtorical information and context. They “don’t again and again,” she said. These groups, ment last year as an example of the extent talk about the deeper and fundamental she charged, engage in “the new Mcmany governments will go to in order to restructures that are in place that create the Carthyism—the attempt to silence, to isopress free speech. conditions for something to happen,” he late, to bully, to intimidate” pro-Palestine adTemple University Professor Dr. Marc noted. For instance, he said analysis of vocates.

Lamont Hill’s comprehensive keynote acGaza must note Israel’s blockade of the terMany Zionist organizations attack acknowledged the many impediments to free ritory and its historical dispossession of tivists for Palestine while overlooking the speech in the Middle East, but encouraged Palestinians—both of which dramatically inracism, anti-Semitism and white nationalAmericans to also consider troubling limits fluence the actions of groups such as ism of right-wing supporters of Israel, she placed on speech in the United States.

Hamas. noted. Abdulhadi said she is proud to work “Freedom isn’t just constrained through “There is considerable room within Amerwith a movement that advocates the prinrepressive state apparatuses,” he noted. ican media to talk about the reaction of the ciple of “never again for anyone”—Jew, “Sometimes we don’t speak truths because vulnerable, but there is very little room and Palestinian, and all others alike. of the consequences of speaking truths.” space to critique the actions of the power“We speak about the indivisibility of jusBeyond fear, he noted that institutionalized ful,” he observed. “We’ll talk about the tice,” she said. “We teach about Palestine societal norms also dictate which topics are Palestinian response, we’ll talk about the and everything else under the principle of discussed and how they are addressed. He Houthi response, but we must create room the indivisibility of justice.” encouraged vigilance in being aware of “the to have the initial analysis.”

—Dale Sprusansky ways in which our frames of knowledge and 56

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PHOTO COURTESY PALESTINE CENTER

media coverage, geopolitical realties The role of U.S. policy in normalizand the Palestinian peaceful resising structures of power in the region, tance movement. as well as the influence of lobbying Lara Friedman, president of the groups such as AIPAC, must also be Foundation for Middle East Peace, acknowledged, Hill said. “We would expressed concern about false acnever have a conversation in the cusations of anti-Semitism and spuAmerican news media about guns or rious charges of ties to terrorist orgagun control or about the Second nizations being used to silence the Amendment and not have a converPalestinian solidarity movement. Orsation about the NRA. It would be ganizations ranging from news outabsurd,” he observed. lets to civil society groups have been On a broader scale, Hill said the silenced by social media corporamedia’s portrayal of the Middle East tions and slammed with frivolous as a region that is intrinsically paralawsuits over such allegations, she lyzed by conflict reinforces the idea noted. “It’s an enormously powerful that the people of the region are weapon that I don’t think people are somehow incapable of establishing Dr. Joseph Massad argues that President Trump’s “deal of the modern and civilized societies. The century” is not an outrageous deviation from the status quo, effectively grappling with,” she cauregion, he noted, “continues to be but rather the logical end point of the biased “peace process.” tioned.

Yousef Munayyer, executive direcconstructed in ways that define it as tor of the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian tablished, it would have no army and no the moral, ethical, intellectual and civilizaRights, has first-hand experience with this sovereignty over water or borders, and no tional opposite of the West.” Meanwhile, the reality. Days after the conference, his orgasovereignty over Jewish settlements, etc.” media often fails to explain the role of the nization was sued by a pro-Israel lawfare Massad thus believes the “deal of the U.S. and Western colonial powers in faciligroup, alleging that they financed “environcentury” merely solidifies what Oslo set in tating many of the region’s ongoing troumental terrorism” along the Israel-Gaza motion. “Essentially what was being offered bles.

—Dale Sprusansky border. [by Trump] was exactly what the PA was Palestine Center Conference During his remarks, Munayyer argued able to obtain during and after Oslo— Examines “Deal of the Century” that the “deal of the century” has unmasked namely a Palestinian diplomatic and adminthe United States’ decades-long pro-Israel istrative staff to manage the population, and The Palestine Center held it’s annual conbias. The overtly one-sided deal, he said, a Palestinian coercive security force to ference in Washington, DC on Nov. 8, titled is “a dropping of the mask that has allowed assist the Israeli army in oppressing the “The Deal of the Century: A Plan to Liquiso many people to understand why it is that Palestinian people’s resistance to Israeli date the Palestine Question.”

Palestinians for so long have been saying colonialism,” he said. “The goal of the deal In his keynote address, Columbia Uni‘we need accountability, we need Israel to [of the century], like the Oslo Accords, of versity professor Joseph Massad argued be held accountable’….The people who which it is the final phase, is that all the that President Donald Trump’s “deal of the were hiding behind the pretense of evenPalestinian people need is businessmen century” is not a fanatical deviation from the handedness, behind the pretense of the and policemen and not the end of Israeli status quo, but rather the natural conclusion peace process, can no longer do so.” settler colonialism and occupation.” of the so-called “peace process” that began Grant F. Smith, director of the Institute for While Israel remains the more powerful with the 1993 Oslo Accords.

Research: Middle Eastern Policy, noted that party in the conflict, Massad believes the Massad surveyed the history of the conpolls conducted by Gallup and Pew about “deal of the century” is a sign of desperaflict since 1993, contending that the actions U.S. public opinion toward the conflict have tion. “It is the realization that the permaof the U.S., Israeli, Palestinian and Arab for years overstated the degree to which nence of Israeli settler colonialism is no governments have all facilitated the proAmericans sympathize with Israel. In March longer guaranteed that has propelled gressive solidification of the Israeli settler 2019, he noted, Gallup admitted its polls Trump’s ‘deal of the century,’” he said. “The state and the institutionalization of a subhave been biased and that their new interdeal’s failure, however, signals the permaservient and facile Palestinian government. nal polling shows a majority of Americans nent failure of the U.S. and its ability to guar“There were never any commitments to a do not sympathize with Israel. Smith beantee Israel’s future as the last settler Palestinian state by the Israelis or really the lieves this admission is important, as a colony in Asia and Africa.”

Americans,” Massad said. “Even when the whole host of organizations and governThe conference also featured eight panAmericans would speak of a two-state soment agencies, such as the Congressional elists who discussed a whole host of issues lution, all indications were that if a PA Research Service, have used these surrounding the deal, such as refugees, [Palestinian Authority] mini state were esJANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020

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MEI Conference Highlights Young Arabs Transforming the Region

The Middle East Institute held its annual conference at the JW Marriott in Washington, DC on Nov. 13, with the theme “The Middle East in 2020—What are the Pathways to Stability?” Speakers tackled some of the political, security and economic challenges facing the region. The conference ended with an upbeat panel featuring young entrepreneurs, activists and journalists from the Arab world.

Moderator Dina Sherif, the founder and CEO of Ahead of the Curve, an Egyptbased organization committed to “promoting economically viable, sustainable and scalable solutions to socio-economic challenges in emerging markets,” began by encouraging Arab governments to see their young people as resources, not burdens.

“We don’t see governments really partnering with the youth or really embracing them as an asset,” she said. “We continue to see this discourse of ‘youth are a problem.’”

Entrepreneur Sami Hourani discussed Diwanieh, a new debate platform he created to bridge the gap between citizens and those in power. The mobile platform encourages people of all backgrounds to come together in public spaces and engage in pertinent civic debates. In Jordan, he

said, these debates have attracted more than 1,000 people at a time, including government leaders such as the mayor of Amman. “We want to put focus on the concept of social accountability,” Hourani said.

“Without accountability, there is no change.”

Shady Khalil, managing partner of Greenish, an Egyptian NGO working to tackle Egypt’s waste crisis and promote upcycling, believes the energy of the decadeold Arab Spring still remains alive in the hearts and minds of Arabs. “Now the possibilities are so open and it feels as though we can do so many things,” he said. Despite many dismissing the Arab Spring as a failure, he said Arab youth still believe “change is possible.” As an example, he noted that his organization has attracted 20,000 volunteers in Cairo seeking to regularly remove plastic waste from the Nile River.

Yasmeen Mjalli, the founder BabyFist, a Palestinian clothing company that seeks to empower women, described her business’ efforts to tackle both patriarchy and the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

Tired of feeling constrained in what she could wear due to sexual harassment, Mjalli said she started BabyFist to transform women’s bodies “from sites of oppression to sites of resistance.”

Based in the West Bank city of Ramallah, all of the company’s products are produced in the besieged Gaza Strip. This comes with challenges, as all products have to

(L-r) Yasmeen Mjalli, Joyce Karam, Sami Hourani, Shady Khalil and Dina Sherif highlight the innovations emerging from the Arab world.

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PHOTO JASON DIXSON , COURTESY MIDDLE EAST INSTITUTE

skewed polls to legitimize billions in taxpayer dollars being sent to Israel.

—Dale Sprusansky

pass through the Israeli border, but Mjalli said she is intent on supporting Gaza’s beleaguered economy and facilitating unity between the physically isolated Palestinian territories. “If I want to bring a new shipment of jackets that we have just made from Gaza to Ramallah—this is technically four hours away by car—it takes up to two weeks to arrive because of checkpoints, because Israeli settler colonial politics makes movement for us that difficult,” she noted.

Joyce Karam, a correspondent for The National, a newspaper based in the UAE, discussed the motivations behind ongoing youth-led protests in Lebanon and Iraq.

“They’re fed up with the system, they’re fed up with leaders who have been promising them the same thing for decade after decade after decade,” she said. “The common theme is, for now, economic [grievances].”

She cautioned the U.S. government against superimposing its own anti-Iran agenda on these protests. “We [the U.S.] want to make this against Iran or against someone else, when it’s not, it’s a very organic, it’s a very natural movement,” she said. “In Iraq you do hear anti-Iran chants.

In Lebanon, in certain areas, perhaps those that are considered Hezbollah strongholds, you do see a pushback against Hezbollah, but there is no anti-Iran narrative in Lebanon.”

Sherif concluded by noting that the innovators featured on the panel show that Arabs are not only using street protests to forge a better future. “Social entrepreneurship is also an extremely valid and important form of resistance to the dysfunctionalities that come from governments and society alike,” she said.

—Dale Sprusansky

The Syrian Refugee Crisis in Lebanon Remains

In the eight years since the civil war in Syria erupted, an estimated 1.5 million Syrians have fled the fighting to neighboring Lebanon, making this small country on the Mediterranean host to the highest number of refugees per capita in the world.

Washington, DC’s Middle East Institute, JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020

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foundational barrier to the Palestinian refugee issue,” Yacoubian said. “The Palestinian refugees would love the opportunity to return home. Right now that does not exist, nor is there much on the horizon that gives one hope.”

—Elaine Pasquini

STAFF PHOTO PHIL PASQUINI

NCUSAR Conference Explores “Peace Process,” U.S.-Saudi Relations

(L-r) Moderator Randa Slim, Serene Dardari, Dima Zayat and Mona Yacoubian discuss efforts to help refugees in Lebanon. together with American Near East Refugee Aid (Anera)—which has provided humanitarian assistance and sustainable development to refugees in Palestine, Jordan and Lebanon for 51 years—hosted an Oct. 16 program on the challenges facing refugees and their aid workers in Lebanon.

A Lebanese law restricting refugees from finding sustainable employment is a major obstacle, Serene Dardari, Anera’s communications and outreach manager in Lebanon, said. “Refugees are considered guests and do not have full legal rights,” she explained. “Syrians are only allowed to work in agriculture and construction, which is depressing for young people who go to university and then end up having a really hard time finding jobs.”

Dima Zayat, Anera’s deputy country director in Lebanon, noted the need for aid organizations to work with the private sector. The NGO “has reached over 300 small and medium size private sector enterprises that are helping us in the employment placement of young people,” she said.

Anera pays the overhead for these companies to hire youth for on-the-job training.

“This lets the private sector see what the youth offer and many have eventually been hired after their training,” Zayat explained.

“We are giving them a chance to prove their skills to the private sector.”

Housing for refugees remains a serious problem, which all of the speakers addressed.

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“Many houses are illegal homes the refugees have built themselves,” said Dardari. “There is no infrastructure or urban planning in the refugee camps.”

During the demolition of illegally built homes—or even tents, Anera provided hot meals for the children, Zayat noted.

Mona Yacoubian of the U.S. Institute of Peace stressed, “The Lebanese are sensitive to anything that smacks of permanence vis-à-vis refugees, even when it may be cost effective.”

Yacoubian criticized the failure of Arab countries to aid Lebanon in caring for the Syrian refugees. “Other than Kuwait, Arab countries have not really stepped up in the way that one would hope,” she said. “More should be done given the wealth of some Arab countries and the culpability of them in arming proxy armies. They are willing to put resources into war, but not into people or to addressing the vast humanitarian needs. I feel there is a real enormous gap there and I don’t see that dynamic changing.”

Compounding Lebanon’s already stressed economy is the large number of Palestinian refugees still living in the country. According to a 2018 Lebanese government census, 175,000 Palestinian refugees reside in Lebanon, while UNRWA places the number at between 400,000 and 500,000.

“The lack of a two-state solution with respect to Israel and Palestine clearly is the

The National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations (NCUSAR) drew about 1,000 attendees to its 28th annual Arab-U.S. Policymakers Conference at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in Washington, DC on Oct. 23-24.

Some 37 speakers addressed topics, including geopolitical concerns, business and investment dynamics of Arabia and the Gulf, and the future role of the United States in the region.

Keeping Palestine on the Radar

Dr. John Duke Anthony, founder and CEO of NCUSAR, began the Oct. 23 panel on “Future Prospects for Palestinians” by noting, “as long as the Israeli-Palestinian problem is unresolved and we [the U.S.] look pathetic in terms of empathy, in terms of various humiliating insults and controversial, provocative and antagonistic steps that the administration has made, this is food for al-Qaeda and does not help to diminish their challenge that they are on the right side of moral or ethical issues and America is on the wrong side.”

Looking at the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through a moral lens, Omar Baddar, deputy director of the Arab American Institute, said the problem fundamentally is that the Palestinian people are denied the basic right to freedom. “If they were to be granted that freedom the conflict would be over,” he asserted. “If you were to look at it from a legal perspective, international law is incredibly clear about what is unfolding on the ground. The acquisition of territory by force is a violation of international law.”

Baddar also pointed out the importance of trying to hold candidates running for president accountable for their rhetoric on Israel and Palestine. “For far too long we’ve allowed candidates to get away by simply

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paying lip service to the two-state solution,” he said. “Candidates ought to be pushed to say specifically what they are going to do to make it happen.”

Sean Carroll, president and CEO of the humanitarian organization Anera, lamented the lack of any peace plan or process and the cut in U.S. government funding to all Palestinian humanitarian programs. “When the funding was cut I decided to write a message to our community and I went to Palestine and I stood next to a stone wall in an olive grove and said ‘one state, two states, we’re just focused on the human state.’ No politics, no religion, just humanity,” he related. “And I tell you this because our staff in Palestine and in Lebanon is very proud that that is the focus. If we keep the focus on human development, the prospect for Palestinians, in fact, is not so bleak.”

Lastly, Jonathan Kuttab, a human rights attorney and co-founder of Nonviolence International, stressed the need to include Hamas—and, more broadly, the people of Gaza—in the negotiating process. “You cannot simply pretend that two million people, living under total siege with four hours of electricity a day, 95 percent undrinkable water and close to a 50 percent unemployment rate, do not exist. To deal with that reality you must deal with Hamas.”

Ending on an upbeat note, Kuttab concluded, “We have to keep our faith and hope alive and we have to be on the right 60

side of history. We cannot be fooled forever into thinking that the current status quo will prevail, because it won’t. In the end, justice and freedom will prevail.” —Elaine Pasquini

Prince Turki Accuses Saudi’s U.S. and Iranian Critics of Hypocrisy

In his Oct. 23 keynote address, Prince Turki Al Faisal Al-Saud, the former Saudi Ambassador to the U.S., accused Saudi Arabia’s U.S. critics of hypocrisy. The U.S., he suggested, should focus on its own internal problems before it complains about the Kingdom’s human rights record.

“The U.S. has its own issues which are different from the Kingdom’s, but fall along

similar lines,” he said. “Most prominently, issues of racism and racial inequality, especially with regard to racial minorities, that have led to often fatal—as we saw in Charlottesville—identity conflicts. In the United States, the government does not have central control of healthcare, and healthcare continues to be less accessible….The massive number of guns is now resulting in many mass shootings, without the apparent ability to reform gun ownership laws.”

These issues, he maintained, give U.S. officials little authority to loudly criticize Saudi Arabia’s internal political and social issues.

Al Faisal also accused the U.S. media and political class of focusing on the Kingdom’s missteps and ignoring its achievements. “There is a consistently blinkered view among most U.S. media outlets to present negative events about us as being the norm, whereas our positive accomplishments are ignored,” he said. He cited the war in Yemen as an example, maintaining that the U.S. media has incorrectly framed Saudi Arabia, and not the Houthi rebels, as the aggressor, and has ignored Riyadh’s efforts to limit civilian casualties and provide humanitarian relief.

“We do not portray ourselves as perfect specimens of humanity,” Al Faisal said.

“Nor do we declare our government as the best in the world. We recognize our shortcomings and have always striven to improve ourselves. We do not judge others

STAFF PHOTO PHIL PASQUINI

Sean Carroll, president and CEO of Anera, speaks on prospects for peace in Palestine at the

annual NCUSAR conference.

STAFF PHOTO PHIL PASQUINI

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Prince Turki Al Faisal Al-Saud argues that the United States’ domestic human rights issues ought to preclude the country from severly judging Saudi Arabia’s human rights record.

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JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020

only by their faults, but we try to see where their merits are as well.”

With that, he launched into a disparaging discourse about the Iranian government and U.S. policy toward Tehran. “Iran’s leadership is malevolent and deceitful,” Al Faisal said. “Their killing of thousands of Syrians is attested by all international organizations.

Their attacks on international shipping is confirmed by everybody, despite their hypocritical denials. Their attempts to assassinate opponents in Europe is confirmed by European countries such as Denmark, France, Belgium and Austria. Their brazen and cowardly attack on Saudi [oil] installations is attested to by Britain, France, Germany and the United States. And yet there are those in your Congress, in your media, and in your think tanks who turn a blind eye to all of that.”

Al Faisal framed Tehran’s thinking as primarily motivated by its Shi’i religious identity, not geopolitics. “They [the Iranian government] espouse a messianic belief that they must bring all of humanity to kowtow to their Mahdi, or messiah [who will usher in the day of judgment],” Al Faisal maintained. “With such an ideology can one ever believe their premises and pledges?”

Al Faisal concluded by again encouraging the U.S. to adopt a less adversarial approach toward Saudi Arabia. “Your leaders should not use us as a political punching bag. We are not giving up on our relationship with you,” he said.

—Dale Sprusansky

Speakers Analyze Gulf, Middle East Crises at GIF Conference

The Washington, DC-based Gulf International Forum (GIF) held its second annual international conference on “Complex Puzzle, Shifting Pieces: The Domestic, Regional and International Forces Reshaping the Gulf” on Oct. 17 at the National Press Club. Six panels offered independent analysis and opinions on women and gender issues, political Islam and the U.S.-Gulf relationship, among many other topics.

Following are brief samplings of the allday program: Former U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Chas Freeman warned of the danJANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020

STAFF PHOTO PHIL PASQUINI

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(L-r) Khalil Jahshan, Steven Simon, journalist Rachel Oswald and Kuwaiti academic Sheikh Abdulla al-Ali al-Sabah discuss U.S. policymaking in the Gulf.

gers of the continued disunity of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), which he said “is now vivisected and on life support.” If the Gulf Arabs wish to control their own destiny, they would do well to restore the GCC to health. “This is a prerequisite for collective defense, diplomacy and supporting common interests,” he said. “If the GCC can get its act together, there is a fair chance that it can continue to enlist American support. America is now a war-weary and reluctant global hegemon driven by constitutional crises and intent on reducing its overseas commitments. Without unity, the ability of the Gulf Arabs to court support for their security from outside the region is gravely impaired.”

U.S. career diplomat Ambassador Thomas Pickering observed, “The region is a crescendo of conflict, which is not in anyone’s interest.” The ambassador stressed that diplomacy is the means to resolve the conflicts since “the United States tried and failed on at least two major occasions to use military force to solve diplomatic problems of the region.”

Steven Simon, professor of international relations at Colby College, discussed the lobbying efforts of GCC countries in the United States. Saudi Arabia and the UAE, he explained, spend millions of dollars on lobbying firms in an effort to influence the U.S. Congress. “The issues in play are arms sales and support for the war in Yemen, against the backdrop of Jamal

Khashoggi’s murder,” Simon told the audience.

Former U.S. Ambassador to Qatar Patrick Theros weighed in on Turkey’s Oct. 9 foray into northeastern Syria and the quick withdrawal of U.S. troops from the region, which he termed “impetuous” and said “has had extreme adverse consequences to the United States.” The abrupt pullout of U.S. troops allowed Russia to fill the void, Theros maintained. “Putin is the biggest winner of what happened and it is not in America’s interest. Putin’s objectives are not consistent with those of the free world.”

Arab Center executive director Khalil Jahshan warned that domestic concerns are driving U.S. policy toward Syria, resulting in a narrow approach to the conflict. “I am not enthusiastic about the Syrian issue because it is not Syria that is motivating Congress, it is the Kurds,” he argued. “It’s minorities. It’s a new fad. It’s a new toy they have just picked up, and it is sad because it is lives that are at stake. The Kurds are becoming a new victim of a domestic game being played here.”

GIF presented awards to Maali S. Alasousi, Direct Aid’s country director for Yemen, and Hisham Al-Thahabi, manager of the Iraqi Home Foundation for Creativity.

Alasousi focuses on social development projects, especially education and health for women and youth. Al-Thahabi, helps provide shelter, education and emotional

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and psychological support to orphaned children, including assisting those over 18 with finding employment.

—Elaine Pasquini

HUMAN RIGHTS As the eyes of the mainstream media were fixated on impeachment hearings occurring on Capitol Hill, something even more distinct was taking place in Congress on Nov. 20: A hearing defending the human rights of Palestinian children.

The hearing, facilitated by Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN) at the Capitol Visitor Center, called attention to her bill, H.R. 2407, the Promoting Human Rights for Palestinian Children Living Under Israeli Military Occupation Act. Introduced in April 2019, the bill seeks to prohibit U.S. foreign military funding from supporting “the military detention, interrogation, abuse or ill-treatment of children in violation of international humanitarian law.”

Organized by the American Friends Service Committee and featuring an ecumenical panel of Christian leaders, the hearing was a rare instance of the policies of the State of Israel being openly questioned by a member of Congress. McCollum, a retired social studies teacher, addressed the “controversial” topic in a calm, matter-of-fact and genuine manner, lending credibility to her assertions.

“Today we’re gathered here to discuss a completely preventable, completely destructive and a completely immoral practice,” McCollum began. “It’s inflicting abuse, torture and trauma on children—and it is the Israeli state-sponsored system of military detention of Palestinian children—children who are already living every day of their lives under an oppressive military occupation.”

According to Defense for Children International-Palestine, the Israeli military arrests and prosecutes over 700 Palestinian children every year. Many of these children are dragged away from their families in night raids, blindfolded for hours, abused and detained for months at a time.

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Rep. Betty McCollum (r) joins Christian leaders in condemning Israel’s treatment of Palestinian children.

“Not a single dollar of U.S. taxpayer funds should be allowed to support what is an explicit violation of international humanitarian law,” McCollum continued. “The fact that our taxpayer dollars are helping to support the Israeli occupation and putting Palestinian children in military prisons is a disgrace and it undermines our most fundamental values as Americans.”

McCollum said her bill is not about singling out Israel; rather it is intended to subject the country to legitimate scrutiny. “Israel should not be immune from criticism while it imprisons Palestinian children, demolishes Palestinian homes and annexes Palestinian land,” she said. “I want justice, equality, peace, security and freedom for the Palestinian people, and I want the same things for the people of Israel.”

Israel, McCollum implored, must comply with the provisions of Article 37 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (which has been ratified by all U.N. member states, except the United States). The article, in part, states, “No child shall be subjected to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment….[or] deprived of his or her liberty unlawfully or arbitrarily....Every child deprived of his or her liberty shall have the right to prompt access to legal and other appropriate assistance, as well as the right to challenge

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the legality of the deprivation of his or her liberty before a court or other competent, independent and impartial authority, and to a prompt decision on any such action.”

Israel’s disregard for international law leaves the U.S. with a simple choice, McCollum said. “We can give a green light to U.S. security assistance to Israel being used to imprison and torture children, or we can ensure accountability and transparency with our tax dollars and condition our aid to Israel to include a prohibition on military detention of children.”

McCollum described her decision to advocate for Palestinian children as a moral one. “Once I leaned about the night raids, the arrests, the forced confessions, the trauma inflicted on thousands of Palestinian children, some as young as eight, nine, ten years old—once I knew about it I could not turn away,” she said. “I could not say ‘those children, they’re not my problem.’”

H.R. 2407 currently has 22 cosponsors.

Israel receives more than $3.8 billion in U.S. taxpayer-funded military assistance annually.

—Dale Sprusansky

Report: Iranians’ Health Suffers Under Sanctions

“The broad nature of the economic sanctions, coupled with aggressive rhetoric from U.S. officials, have drastically con-

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020

PHOTO COURTESY OFFICE OF REP. BETTY MCCOLLUM

Rep. McCollum States Case for Bill Protecting Palestinian Children

STAFF PHOTO E. PASQUINI

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(L-r) Moderator Barbara Slavin, Tara Sepehri Far, Payvand Seyedali, attorney Adam Smith and Ambassador Daniel Fried discuss the detrimental impact of sanctions on the Iranian people.

strained Iran’s ability to finance humanitarian imports, posing a serious threat to Iranians’ right to health and access to essential medicines,” Human Rights Watch said in a report released on Oct. 29.

Tara Sepehri Far, a researcher with the Middle East and North Africa division of Human Rights Watch, discussed these findings at an Atlantic Council program that same day in Washington, DC. “The existing exemptions for humanitarian trade on paper alone are not effective in protecting Iranians’ rights and their access to imported medicine and equipment,” she said. The main problem is with overly compliant banks and individuals who don’t want to engage in any way with Iran out of fear of making a misstep and being fined or arrested by U.S. authorities vigorously enforcing sanctions, she said.

One ongoing heartbreaking case is the inability of Iranians to obtain specialized bandages for patients suffering from EB (epidermolysis bullosa), a rare genetic disease that causes extremely painful blisters on the skin.

“If the situation doesn’t change, we expect the harm to be even greater,” Far warned. “We’ve had doctors telling us over and over that this is not stable. We are running out of time.”

Payvand Seyedali, strategy and government relations lead at the Child Foundation, discussed the organization’s struggles to renew their humanitarian license to work in Iran. “We have 6,000 children JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020

under our care and we are one of the few American NGOs that is providing services in Iran, and we are waiting for our license to continue doing that.” The group has 29 offices in Iran, where 25 percent of their young patients are in some of the country’s most vulnerable provinces. “When we are talking about sanctions and humanitarian issues, we are talking about a country that is 30 percent children,” she explained.

Debating the effectiveness of sanctions, Ambassador Daniel Fried, the Atlantic Council’s Weiser Family Distinguished Fellow, opined, “Sanctions work when the policy they are designed to advance makes sense, but I do not know what the goal of the Iran sanctions is at this point.”

Fried thought one suggestion in the report—that “Washington should immediately clarify at the highest level that U.S. and other banks and companies face no legal or financial risks in connection with exports of medicines or other exempted humanitarian goods to Iran”—goes too far because it provides space for Tehran to syphon off money from medical sales for “nefarious purposes.” On the other hand, he said the report’s suggestion that the U.S. should “encourage

other states to establish mechanisms for financing humanitarian exports to Iran” is “an interesting idea.”

But, he added, “Let’s be honest, sanctions will have a humanitarian impact and no matter how many times an administration says it doesn’t, it does.”

The Human Rights Watch report notes that Washington is ultimately responsible for ensuring its sanctions don’t have an adverse impact on innocent people.

“Under international human rights law, the U.S. should monitor the impact of its sanctions on Iranians’ rights and address any violations caused by its sanctions,” it notes.

—Elaine Pasquini

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Blind Spot: America and the Palestinians, From Balfour to Trump

By Khaled Elgindy, Brookings Institution Press, 2019, hardcover, 323 pp. MEB: $25

Reviewed by Walter L. Hixson

In a well-informed book characterized by clear prose and sound analysis, Khaled Elgindy argues that Americans are unable to understand Palestinian perspectives on the hundred-year-old conflict. This “blind spot” accounts for America’s failure to broker a viable Middle East peace accord.

The essential problem is that “the United States has consistently put its thumb on the scale in Israel’s favor while simultaneously discounting the importance of internal Palestinian political realities.” Rather than mediating the Palestine conflict, the United States focused its attention on reassuring Israel and forcing change upon the Palestinians.

Failing to comprehend Palestinian dynamics, the United States readily adopted Israeli perspectives. The Americans underwrote the illegal occupation and settlements in favor of Israel while choosing a “heavy reliance on sticks in its dealings with Palestinian leaders.” The U.S.-led peace process thus “effectively reversed the standard model of mediation,” as it “alleviated pres-

Contributing editor Walter L. Hixson is the author of Israel’s Armor: The Israel Lobby and the First Generation of the Palestine Conflict (available from Middle East Books and More) along with several other books and journal articles.

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sure on the stronger party and increasedpressure on the weaker party.”

Surveying the entire history, “from Balfour to Trump,” Elgindy identifies a series of missed opportunities and negotiations doomed by the American blind spot. Already ensconced by the time of the Oslo negotiations, the blind spot ensured the failure of the peace process that followed.

At the time of the Oslo Accords, the influence of PLO leader Yasser Arafat had been dramatically weakened because of his support for Saddam Hussain in the Persian Gulf War, which crippled the PLO via lost funding and support from the Arab states that had opposed Iraqi aggression in Kuwait. Arafat was fighting at Oslo to maintain relevancy, as he was under challenge from Hamas as well as the wider Arab world. Arafat was desperate to shore up his leadership by entering into an accord, even a bad one. The weak negotiating position produced that very result, as Israel, backed by the United States, did not even agree at

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Oslo to halt settlement activity in occupied Palestine. The vague and one-sided Oslo Accord compromised the quest for a viable peace from the outset. These realities underlay Prof. Edward Said’s famous condemnation of Oslo as an “instrument of Palestinian surrender,” as the PLO transformed itself from a liberation movement into an occupation-abetting “small-town government.”

Fatally flawed, the Oslo framework had virtually no chance of succeeding. The American blind spot continued to undermine progress, as the United States took a typically unbalanced approach to “the two issues that ultimately doomed the Oslo process in the eyes of ordinary Israelis and Palestinians—terrorism by Palestinians and continued Israeli settlement expansion.”

Washington continued to enable the expansion of settlements, granting exemptions for “natural growth” and generally bowing to Israeli intransigence. At the same time, the United States held Arafat and the PLO responsible for terror attacks, including those over which it had no control. Limited by the blind spot, the Americans failed to understand the limits on Arafat’s authority and other internal dynamics of Palestinian politics.

The Clinton administration’s decision to side with Prime Minister Ehud Barak and put the blame for the failure of the Camp David summit in 2000 entirely on the back of Arafat finished off the flawed Oslo process. The situation deteriorated under President George W. Bush and was little better under President Barack Obama, who “did not break any new ground politically or diplomatically between Israelis and Palestinians.” By the time of President Donald Trump’s arrival in the White House, the peace process was dead, and a new era of unapologetic U.S.-supported Israeli repression was under way.

Elgindy recognizes the powerful role of the Israel lobby, yet he misses an opportunity to explore it in greater depth (the book has only four page-references to AIPAC, which played a heavy hand in promoting and managing the American blind spot).

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The author is not the first to identify the American failure to act as an honest broker in the conflict, but his identification of a “fundamental paradox” advances the conversation. He argues that the United States is “uniquely suited” to serve as the primary broker of a peace agreement “but it is also uniquely hampered from doing so by its domestic politics and the nature of its relationship with Israel.”

As Elgindy concludes, “Until this paradox is resolved, the American-sponsored peace process holds little chance of success.” ■

American Evangelicals & Modern Israel: A Plea for Tough Love

By Frederic M. Martin, Deep River Books, 2016, paperback, 200 pp. MEB: $15

Reviewed by Dr. Jane G. Killgore

Unconditional support for the state of Israel remains steadfast and strong among Evangelical Protestants, who were one out of every five voters in the 2016 elections. This large group, numbering 90 to 100 million in the United States, bases much of their support for Israel on Old Testament biblical prophecy, including God’s promise to Abraham and his descendants in Genesis 12:3: “I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse.” That statement summarizes the reason why American Evangelicals feel they’re required to support the modern state of Israel. To do otherwise

Dr. Jane Killgore is a doctor in Minnesota and the daughter of the Washington Report’s co-founder Andrew I. Killgore.

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020

would be to bring God’s curse upon one’s own nation. Any attempt to discuss Evangelical’s unwavering support for Israel and its government’s policies is perceived as an attack on their fundamental religious beliefs.

In this book, Frederic Martin, a retired minister of the Evangelical Free Church in central Minnesota, provides a narrative founded on biblical Christian references, which asks Evangelical Christians and all of his readers to reassess their implacable support for the State of Israel. The biblical passages he quotes provide a framework for Christians and others that guide readers toward a more balanced point of view of the Israel/Palestine conflict.

This concise well-referenced book is divided into three simple parts. Part One is composed of three chapters: The first covers the Israeli narrative that most Americans, especially Evangelical Christians, know well. It describes a religious conflict with Israelies longing for peace and Arabs opposing Israel’s existence. The second chapter covers the Palestinian narrative, the Nakba that most Evangelical Christians are oblivious to, and the creation of a colonial state that gives rights only to the conquerors. The third chapter summarizes the current situation, unknown even to most Americans who go on tours of the Holy Land.

Part Two is composed of five chapters documenting Old Testament biblical passages, the misuse of prophecies as well as the importance of laws and justice. Martin asks his readers to take another look at their underlying assumptions. “If we are to bless Israel in the same way that the prophets did—that God himself did,” Dr. Martin writes, “we should challenge the policies of modern Israel that discriminate against Palestinians.”

Martin also looks at “the tragic and sinful reality of anti-Semitism in the history of the Christian faith” as well as “frivolous charges of anti-Semitism” that smear a person’s reputation. He argues that Christian Zionists who are infatuated with Bible prophecy and the End Times also create the potential for anti-Semitism in the church.

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

Part Three, aptly titled “Evangelicals and Injustice,” has one chapter devoted to “A Plea for Tough Love,” that suggests conditioning our financial aid to Israel on addressing Palestinian injustices. Dr. Martin urges, “It is time that our love becomes tough. For the good of Israel, Palestine and America, and for the honor of the God of justice and love, that is my plea.”

If you think that there are always two sides to every story, and have been confused by biblical predictions or prophecy about the State of Israel, this book is a must-read. If you’re studying the Holy Land in Sunday school, this is the book you’ve been waiting for—but you do not have to be a Christian to enjoy this elegant well-written book. ■

Reclaiming Judaism From Zionism: Stories of Personal Transformation

By Carolyn L. Karcher, Interlink, 2019, paperback, 373 pp. MEB: $17.

Reviewed by Allan C. Brownfeld

There is a major transformation in the thinking of American Jews currently under way. Reclaiming Judaism From Zionism: Stories of Personal Transformation, edited

by Carolyn L. Karcher, a professor emeritus at Temple University, is a powerful collection of personal narratives from 40 Jews. They represent diverse backgrounds and tell a wide range of stories about the roads they have traveled starting from a Zionist worldview to activism and solidarity with Palestinians and Israelis 65

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striving to build an inclusive society founded on justice and equality.

Zionism, Karcher points out, immediately brought opposition from Orthodox Jews as well as those Jews who rejected the idea of a separate Jewish nationalism. In America, Reform Jews rejected the Zionist idea. In 1897, the Central Conference of American Rabbis adopted a resolution disapproving any attempt to establish a Jewish state. The resolution declared, “Zion was a precious possession of the past...as such it is a holy memory, but it is not our hope of the future. America is our Zion.”

This tradition has been kept alive, Karcher notes, by the American Council for Judaism (ACJ), which remains com-

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.

mitted to the classical Reform belief in a religion of universal values free of nationalism. “The ACJ and its chief spokesmen of the 1940s—the Reform rabbis Elmer Berger and Morris Lazaron and the philanthropist Lessing Rosenwald, son of the better-known philanthropist and Sears Roebuck heir Julius Rosenwald—continued not only to warn against the dangers of creating a Jewish state in Palestine but to promulgate alternative solutions to the plight of the Holocaust survivors languishing in postwar displaced persons (DP) camps. Although they went down to defeat and subsequently were written out of history

by Zionist scholars, their ideas deserve renewed attention.”

Contributors to Karcher’s volume include rabbis, academics, students, writers and men and women from a wide variety of Jewish backgrounds.

Rabbi Linda Holtzman, one of the first women rabbis to preside over a syna-

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WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

gogue, describes her movement away from Zionism: “Golda Meir was my hero and when she said there was no Palestinian people, how could I not believe her? Israel really was, as I learned over and over again ‘a land without a people for a people without a land.’ I did not know the truth for a long time. I did not try to learn the truth...When signs proclaiming ‘Zionism is racism’ appeared at rallies that I went to or at protests that I marched in, I worried about the other causes I was supporting...I tackled the question of Zionism and racism myself...I can no longer call myself a Zionist because the memories of Palestine will never let me. I am deeply saddened by the loss of something I treasured...Now, as I serve on the board of Jewish Voice for Peace, or work for Palestinian rights in any way that I can, I feel a connection to the values that underline my Judaism.”

In an essay, “Moving Away From Zionism,” Yael Horowitz, a recent graduate of Wesleyan University, writes, “During my gap year in Israel there was very little explicit education on the occupation...In this narrative, the occupation was only a post-1967 issue and not a larger issue of settler colonialism....Two friends and I decided to take it upon ourselves to complete the part of our experience that seemed to be lacking.

We went on a trip to Hebron, Susya, and the South Hebron Hills with a group that included...a tour guide from the Israeli veterans’ organization Breaking the Silence, dedicated to informing the public about the violence that maintaining the occupation requires...we saw Shuhada Street and the settlement on top of the hills. The intentionally crafted and manipulated geography of settler colonialism became clear and I began to wonder why this was the first time I had been able to see it....we learned about the morally reprehensible occupation, but the movement’s belief system did not, and perhaps could not, entertain the idea that nationalism was inherently toxic.”

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Horowitz concludes: “I deeply understand that my Judaism is political and as Jews we have a responsibility to be in solidarity with Palestine—not because it proves expectations wrong but because Israel is a country that says it speaks for all of us. If we remain silent, then we are tacitly agreeing. We must be able to speak up powerfully, Jewishly and consistently to be able to say ‘Not in my name.’”

In a thoughtful afterward, Karcher writes: “In the wake of World War II, irresistible forces propelled the world toward the creation of Israel: the overwhelming ghastliness of the Holocaust, the guilt felt by both American Jews and Western nations for not having done enough to prevent the tragedy, the urgency of resettling the Holocaust’s surviving victims; the unwillingness of the United States and other Western nations to admit these victims in sufficient numbers coupled with the insistence of Zionist leaders that Palestine be the refuge offered them, and the colonialist mentality that led Europeans, Americans and Zionists alike to ignore the indigenous Palestinian population.”

Middle East Books and More hosted a book talk on Oct. 30, with Dr. Karcher and three contributors to the book: Dr. Emily Siegel, program director for Eyewitness Palestine, Charlie Wood, an activist and lawyer, and Chris Goodshall, from Georgetown University Law Center. They share their unforgettable stories on the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs YouTube channel. ■

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N E W A R R I VA L S A Concise History of Revolution, by Mehran Kamrava, Cambridge University Press, 2019, paperback, 192 pp.

MEB: $24. Presenting a new framework for the study of revolutions, this innovative exploration of French, Russian, Chinese, Vietnamese, Cuban, Iranian, South African, and more recent Arab revolutions, provides a theoretically grounded and empirically comprehensive demonstration of how revolutions mean more than mere state collapse and rebuilding. Through the examination of multiple case studies, and use of extensive historical examples to explore a range of revolutions, Kamrava reveals the range and depth of human emotion and motivations that are so prevalent and consequential in revolutions, from personal commitment to sacrifice, determination, leadership ability, charisma, opportunism and avarice.

The Israel Lobby Enters State Government: Rise of the Virginia Israel Advisory Board, by Grant F. Smith, Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy, 2019, paperback, 160 pp. MEB: $13. The Virginia Israel Advisory Board (VIAB) is presently the only state government entity in the U.S. focused entirely on bringing corporations in from a single foreign country. The book explores how millions in taxpayer and other state funds are quietly being diverted from multiple sources to establish profitable Israeli companies in Virginia.

The corporations are involved in military contracting, food and beverage manufacturing, energy generation, waste management and aquaculture. Smith analyzes how VIAB projects displace workers and put home-grown market leaders out of business. By unmasking Israeli businesses launching operations that VIAB protects under code-names and opaque shell companies to secretly transact business in Virginia, the book exposes the reason behind some of the secrecy— their extensive business dealings in territory illegally occupied by Israel.

The Management of Savagery: How America’s National Security State Fueled the Rise of al-Qaeda, ISIS, and Donald Trump, by Max Blumenthal, Verso, 2019, hardcover, 392 pp. MEB: $23. Max Blumenthal investigates the real story behind America’s dealings with the world and illustrates how the extremist forces that now threaten peace across the globe are part of America’s imperial designs.

Washington’s secret funding of the mujahedin provoked the Russian invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. With guns and money, the United States has continuously sustained extremists, including Osama bin Laden, who have later become its enemies. The Pentagon has trained and armed jihadists in Afghanistan, Syria and Libya and has launched military interventions to change regimes in the Middle East. As a result, it created a fertile ground for the Islamic State and brought foreign conflicts to American soil. Consequently, these failed wars abroad have made the U. S. more vulnerable to both terrorism as well as native ultra-nationalism.

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Stories My Father Told Me: Memories of a Childhood in Syria and Lebanon

By Helen Zughaib and Elia Zughaib, Cune Press, 2019, hardcover, 112 pp. MEB: $24

Reviewed by Eleni Zaras

“Someday, we ought to record your father telling his stories.”

What started as a modest plan between artist Helen Zughaib and her parents, blossomed into a full-fledged gallery exhibition and now publication that records and imaginatively illustrates stories from her father’s childhood in Syria and Lebanon up until his emigration in 1946 to the United States.

Stories My Father Told Me records 24 vignettes of life and traditions in the village through the words of her father, Elia, and complemented by Helen Zughaib’s visual interpretation. Familiar folktales and community rituals are laced with personal anecdotes and intimate family moments.

We’re transported to the lush gardens and olive groves of Elia’s teta (grandmother) and jiddu (grandfather), into the warmth of their living room for card games with sweet rewards, their protected courtyard for bustling Sunday brunch and into the heart of the village for communal festivals or life-

Eleni Zaras is the assistant bookstore director at Middle East Books and More. She has a BA in the History of Art from the University of Michigan and a masters degree in History at the Universite Paris Diderot. Her studies and research have focused on the historiography of Islamic art and late-Ottoman history.

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cycle rituals of the Greek Orthodox community.

Influenced by Jacob Lawrence’s Migration series (housed at the Phillip’s Collection in Washington, DC), and reminiscent of Matisse’s cut-outs, each painting layers elements of landscapes and cityscapes like a collage. The scenes burst with vibrant colors, bold patterns and vegetal motifs that are punctuated with carefully staged figures and expressive gestures.

And the warmth of the paintings reflect her father’s earnest storytelling.

While some stories are told with a child’s conviction of the permanence of traditions, others reveal clear-sighted awareness of changes that are brought on with the passing of time. For example, in the story, “The Hallab,” Elia Zughaib recalls, “The other peddlers could not compete with the hallab (milkman), his wonderful goats, and the pleasure of petting the gentle and loving animals. After powdered milk appeared on the grocery shelves, milk never tasted the same again.”

Without being overly nostalgic, the Zughaibs cherish each story’s temporality, the vitality of memories and people’s adaptability to change. In “A Walk to the Water Fountain,” the women may no longer have needed to walk to the fountain once they had running water in their homes, but “The young people in the village would take walks in the late afternoon whether they needed to go to the fountain or not. The sabaya (girls) and shabab (guys) would meet, admire each other and flirt from a safe distance.”

Initially shown in galleries around the country, the book format lends an added intimacy for us to quietly connect with these memories. At once familiar and personal, the book’s stories easily make us recollect stories from our own family histories. This format also allows us to use our own imagination; rather than placing the story and painting next to each other, the story is set on the recto of one page and its illustration on the recto of the next.

Only after we finish reading the story and

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

turn the page is Helen Zughaib’s rendition revealed.

Through art and storytelling, Helen and Elia Zughaib preserve important oral histories from a specific time and place that has since been dramatically transformed by the events of the past century as well as the ongoing events happening in the present.

But through this project and Helen’s paintings, the book gives these memories new forms. The book is a homage to this duality: guarding tradition with full acceptance of life’s mutability.

Helen Zughaib gave a book talk on Nov. 14 at Middle East Books and More, and shared her recollections of special moments that triggered new stories from her father. After Elia immigrated to America in 1946, he received a Ph.D. from Syracuse University, became a Fulbright Scholar and later joined the U.S. Foreign Service, serving in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Kuwait and France. Helen described her family’s frightening evacuation from Beirut, and leaving her father behind to continue to work in the U.S. Embassy. Her own paintings have adorned U.S. Embassies and State Department exhibitions abroad, including Brunei, Nicaragua, Mauritius, Iraq, Belgium, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia. Her paintings have also been gifted to heads of state by President Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

In this nation of immigrants, Helen and Elia’s remarkable book speaks to the refugee, the displaced person in each of us. Her art and the stories she illustrates work as a bridge between cultures. This book should be in every library and on every family’s bookshelf.■ JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020

booksection_64-69.qxp_Books and More Special Section 12/5/19 11:47 PM Page 69

N E W A R R I VA L S Rest in My Shade: A Poem About Roots, by Nora Lester Murad and Danna Masad, Olive Branch Press, 2019, hardcover, 46 pp. MEB: $20. Millions of people are being uprooted, separated from their families and risk losing their culture as a result of war, poverty, repression and climate injustice. Rest in My Shade is a tool for building understanding, compassion and dialog. It is a moving poem that echoes the love Palestinians have for their olive trees and their deep connection to their land. The authors present a poetic story about displacement, identity and loss recited by an ancient olive tree. Each page is illustrated with olive trees created in various media by 17 Palestinian artists living around the world.

Helen Zughaib.

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1983: Lebanon, U.S. Embassy bombed, 63 killed. Months later, Marine Barracks bombed, 241 killed. 1987: Cassie accepts a job teaching Shakespeare at a private academy to forget memories of her late husband killed at the barracks. First day, she meets Samir, a senior whose parents were killed in the embassy attack. As Cassie teaches the tragedies of Hamlet & Othello, Shakespeare’s timeless themes of trust, betrayal, love & hate become reality as the Palestinian-Israeli struggle destroys their lives.

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The Old Woman and the River, by Ismail Fahd Ismail and translated by Sophia Vasalou, Interlink Books, 2019, paperback, 176 pp. MEB: $15. Written by Kuwaiti author Ismail Fahd Ismail, The Old Woman and the River was shortlisted for the international prize for Arabic fiction in 2017. After the ceasefire in 1988, the devastation to the landscape of Iraq wrought by the longest war of the 20th century—the Iran-Iraq War—becomes visible. Eight years of fighting have turned nature upside down, with vast wastelands being left behind. In southeastern Iraq, along the shores of the Shatt al-Arab River, the groves of date palm trees have withered. No longer bearing fruit, their leaves have turned a bright yellow. There, Iraqi forces had blocked the entry points of the river’s tributaries and streams, preventing water from flowing to the trees and vegetation. Yet, surveying this destruction from the sky, a strip of land bursting with green can be seen. Beginning from the Shatt al-Arab River and reaching to the fringes of the western desert, several kilometers wide, it appears as a lush oasis of some kind. The secret of this fertility, sustaining villages and remaining soldiers, is unclear. But it is said that one old woman is responsible for this lifeline.

Olive Harvest in Palestine, by Wafa Shami, Gate Advertising, 2019, paperback, 31 pp. MEB: $10. A story about the harvest traditions that have been shared among Palestinian farmers for centuries. The story takes the reader on a journey, starting from how the olives are picked, through how they are pressed into oil, bottled and finally arrive in customers’ hands. Along the way, the reader shares in this festive working atmosphere filled with singing, eating, love and laughter portrayed from the eyes of a child.

Illustrations are painted by Palestinian artist Shaima Farouki. Recommended for ages 5 to 10, but to be enjoyed by people of all ages.

An endorsement by the first Arab-American author to be named the Young People’s Poet Laureate: “Wafa Shami writes a beautiful orchard story of devotion, labor and harvesting in which nothing terrible happens. Palestinians deserve more days in which nothing terrible happens. Here is life, shining, ripe and succulent, singing of a culture, history, tradition and the dinner table too.” —Naomi Shihab Nye WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

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opm_72-73.qxp_Other Peoples Mail 12/5/19 4:07 PM Page 72

Other People’s Mail Compiled by Dale Sprusansky BERNIE SANDERS’ OP-ED ON ANTISEMITISM

To Jewish Currents, Nov. 19, 2019 Re: Sen. Bernie Sanders’ op-ed titled “How to Fight Antisemitism.”

As I write this, we are witnessing yet another round of the Israeli military’s indiscriminate bombing of the people of Gaza—over 2 million people trapped in an open air prison, with nowhere to flee or to hide.

As I watch the news pour in, I am thinking about Bernie’s essay in your pages. It made me so proud. I heard in his words what I have dedicated my life to fighting for: the idea that Jewish safety will not be realized through destroying Gaza, but through letting Gaza live.

But the current Israeli attacks highlight exactly where Bernie fell short: he is still supporting a Jewish state, which is unrepentantly willing to murder captive Palestinians for political expediency. We can stop these endless attacks on Gaza. We can break the siege and let the people of Gaza live lives of dignity. And Bernie is likely the leader to get us there. But only when we stop prioritizing a state over people’s lives.

Rabbi Alissa Wise, Philadelphia, PA. The writer is the Acting Co-Executive Director of JVP Action.

CANDIDATE ACCUSED OF ANTISEMITISM

To The Athens Messenger, Nov. 2, 2019 On Friday, Nov. 1, an opinion piece appeared in The Athens Messenger accusing me and my City Council campaign of antiSemitism due to my support for Palestine and the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. BDS seeks to end apartheid in Israel through a campaign of public and financial pressure, similar to that which successfully ended apartheid in South Africa.

If the author of this letter was hoping to pressure me into a retraction of my support for a free Palestine and BDS, they will be disappointed. I will always stand on the side of the exploited and oppressed, whether 72

here in Athens or around the globe. In the apartheid state of Israel, it is clear that Zionist settler-colonists are the oppressors and the Palestinian people are the oppressed.

The West Bank and the Gaza Strip, to which much of the Palestinian population has been displaced and confined, essentially function as open-air prisons. And the borders of these prisons are ever-shrinking, as the Israeli state continues to blatantly defy international law through the destruction of Palestinian homes and the construction of new, Zionist settlements.

The logic of settler-colonialism, whether the European settlement of the Americas or the Zionist settlement of Palestine, is a logic of genocide. And we can expect that the genocide of Palestinians will not end until Israel ceases to function as an apartheid state (the aim of BDS), or until the Palestinian population has been entirely erased.

As an internationalist who believes that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere, I therefore continue to believe that a commitment to BDS should be a priority for our city.

There is nothing anti-Semitic about this stance. Zionism is a political ideology, not a “core tenet of Judaism” as the author of the letter attacking me has claimed. This is exemplified by the existence of robust, Jewish-led organizations such as Jewish Voice for Peace, which have endorsed and campaigned for BDS. I am proud to stand with them in supporting this growing global movement against the apartheid state of Israel, just as I am proud to support the struggle of Jewish people against antiSemitism in the United States and around the world.

Ellie Hamrick, Athens, OH. The writer was a candidate for Athens City Council in the Nov. 2019 election.

CHRISTIAN ZIONISM IS BASED ON DEBUNKED THEOLOGY

To the Warren Times Observer, Nov. 26, 2019 The Warren Times Observer carried an article by fundamentalist Christian Zionist

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

Cal Thomas on Friday in which he once again put forth the tired, thoroughly debunked argument that the Jewish people have some kind of divine right to land in the Middle East. Zionism is part of a greater eschatological worldview that sees the restoration of Israel as a sign of the endtimes (this is often called “dispensational pre-millennialism”). Christian Zionists believe that, once the geographic area in which the Israelites of the Bible lived is populated by modern day Jews, and its ancient borders are secured, Christ will come again.

These strange ideas are based on a farfetched interpretation of symbolic apocalyptic language in the Book of Revelation and have no support from most biblical scholars in the mainline churches.

Internationally acclaimed theology professor and Church historian Rosemary Radford Ruether says that “Christians in Western Europe and North America fall into two major lines of thought toward Israel… first a small but militant and influential group, associated with more fundamentalist forms of Protestant Christianity, are Christian Zionists...And a second, larger more diffuse group, whose main perspective is shaped by a desire to compensate for past Christian anti-Semitism, by affirming positive ecumenical relations with Jews.” She goes on to say the problem is that Christian guilt over the Holocaust and anti-Semitism has resulted in the silencing of Western Christians regarding the assault on the indigenous Palestinian population and the denial of their most basic human and civil rights. This is a view carefully nurtured by the Jewish establishment, especially in North America.

We, however, would do well to consider the comments of the Jewish social psychologist Erich Fromm, who years ago said: “If all nations would suddenly claim territory in which their forefathers had lived two thousand years ago, the world would be a madhouse.”

Neil Himber, Youngsville, PA

WHO HAS RIGHTS TO “ANCIENT LANDS”?

To The Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier, Dec. 2, 2019 Cal Thomas, in a recent totally hypocritical column (Nov. 26), lauded Trump and Pompeo for their position on Israel's settlements. The proposed U.S. policy would encourage more Israeli settlements in disJANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020

opm_72-73.qxp_Other Peoples Mail 12/5/19 4:07 PM Page 73

people in desperate need of food. Save the Children says PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP SECRETARY OF STATE MIKE POMPEO 85,000 Yemeni kids have VICE PRESIDENT MIKE PENCE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE died from hunger and dis1600 PENNSYLVANIA AVE. NW 2201 C ST. NW ease since the war began.

WASHINGTON, DC 20500 WASHINGTON, DC 20520 COMMENT LINE: (202) 456-1111 PHONE: (202) 647-6575 The civil war in Syria likewise WWW.WHITEHOUSE.GOV/CONTACT VISIT WWW.STATE.GOV TO E-MAIL has led to severe hunger for millions. Hunger could perANY REPRESENTATIVE ANY SENATOR sist for years in these nations U.S. HOUSE OF U.S. SENATE because of damage to agriREPRESENTATIVES WASHINGTON, DC WASHINGTON, DC 20510 culture and food production.

20515 (202) 225-3121 (202) 224-3121 THE U.N. AND ISRAEL In the Horn of Africa, repeated droughts, caused by To The Intelligencer, Nov. 4, climate change, are creating a major Frederick A. Lee, New York, NY 2019 hunger emergency. The Central African In “Another View” published Oct. 21, the U.S. NEEDS TO LEARN A LESSON Republic and the Sahel region are also editors accepted for publication a hit job on ABOUT MILITARY INTERVENTION facing extreme hunger. In southern Africa, the U.N. and the U.N. Human Rights Counthe World Food Program says a record 45 cil from the New York Daily News with the To the Los Angeles Times, Nov. 12, 2019 million people will be going hungry in the headline, “U.N.-believable assembly.”

Andrew Bacevich reminds us that the next six months because of drought. The In addition to just the four nations menthreat to the West posed by evangelical WFP is appealing for funding. “We’ve had tioned in the piece—Venezuela, Mauritania, communism was both real and imagined. the worst drought in 35 years in central and Libya and Sudan—the U.N. General AsThe United States confronted its real secuwestern areas during the growing season,” sembly selected 10 others not mentioned, rity interests by fashioning multilateral sesays Margaret Malu of WFP in southern namely: Namibia, Indonesia, Japan, Marcurity and economic alliances.

Africa. shall Islands, Republic of Korea, Armenia, Imagined threats, like Vietnam, led to unCloser to home a hunger crisis in Central Poland, Brazil, Germany and the Netherreasoned and unilateral power projections.

America is a root cause of migration to the lands.

The monolithic communist “bloc,” on which United States. President Donald Trump has In her speech to the 47 members of the our politicians were fixated for 30 years, sadly not paid any attention to hunger, and Council on Sept. 9, the U.N. High Commiswas actually highly differentiated. It was has even proposed cuts to global food aid sioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet simple only in a domestic political environin his budgets. So it’s vital that Congress did share grave human rights concerns that ment in which any weakness shown take action in a bipartisan fashion by passthe council has lifted up with respect to against a subversive force was unconing the global nutrition resolutions (House Israel’s treatment of Palestinians in Gaza scionable. As today, political elites could not Resolution 189 and Senate Resolution and in the occupied territory of the West then afford to think outside of a binary 260) and committing to fighting child malBank. framework that Bacevich artfully describes nutrition.

But she also provided similarly emphaas “everything good against everything Funding should be increased for the sized details on severe human rights conevil.”

Food For Peace and McGovern-Dole cerns in the following countries: After more than a decade of gratuitous global school lunch program. I partnered Afghanistan, Burundi, Cambodia, China, violence in Vietnam, both sides ultimately with WFP and Catholic Relief Services on Democratic Republic of the Congo, India, subordinated ideology to self-interest and a survey of global school feeding. When Kazakhstan, Myanmar, Nicaragua, Syria, today enjoy a constructive commercial and these programs are funded, they work. DeTanzania, Ukraine, Venezuela, Yemen and strategic relationship. mocrats and Republicans need to unite to Zimbabwe.

The global war on terror has invited the support hunger relief.

The complaint against the Human Rights same simplicity. “Democratizing” the Middle Like former Secretary of State George Council that it singles out Israel for human East with military force may well be beyond Marshall said after World War II, “hunger rights abuses and ignores abuses by others the comprehension of our political class and and insecurity are the worst enemies of is false. even beyond the bravery of men and peace.”

Andrew Mills, Lower Gwynedd, PA women in uniform. This too has been a Students at Mount St. Joseph University hard lesson learned.

HOUSE RESOLUTION RECOGNIZES in Ohio wrote letters to Congress supportDavid DiLeo, San Clemente, CA ARMENIAN GENOCIDE ing the global nutrition resolutions. They THE WORLD’S HUNGRY MUST NOT also created a FreeRice team to help WFP. To The New York Times, Nov. 1, 2019 BE FORGOTTEN Every school can do this. There is so much Thank you for publishing “A Belated political drama in DC; the danger is vital Recognition of [the Armenian] Genocide [by To The Chicago Tribune, Nov. 10, 2019 issues like hunger can get pushed aside. the U.S. House of Representatives].” It’s War and climate change are causing So many lives and the stability of nations worth noting the 1939 Obersalzberg speech starvation across the globe, and the media are at stake.

by Adolf Hitler about his genocidal plans, in and government are not giving enough atWilliam Lambers, Cincinnati, OH. The which he asked, “Who, after all, speaks tention to this crisis. writer is author of Ending World Hunger. ■ today of the annihilation of the Armenians?”

The civil war in Yemen has left 20 million puted areas. Thomas states Israel has a right to its ancient lands.

Using that logic the obvious question is why don't American Indians have the same rights to their ancient lands?

Dick Dewater, Evansdale, IA

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020

TELL YOUR ELECTED OFFICIALS WHAT YOU THINK

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

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angels_74.qxp_JANUARY FEBRUARY 2020 CHOIR OF ANGELS 12/5/19 5:10 PM Page 74

AET’s 2019 Choir of Angels

the following are individuals, organizations, companies and foundations whose help between Jan. 11, 2019 and nov. 18, 2019 is making possible activities of the tax-exempt aet library endowment (federal id #52-1460362) and the american educational trust, publisher of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. some angels are helping us co-sponsor the conference “the israel lobby and american policy.” others are donating to our “Capital building fund,” which will help us expand Middle east books and More. We are deeply honored by their confidence and profoundly grateful for their generosity.

HUMMERS ($100 or more)

Jeff Abood, Silver Lake, OH Rev. Fahed Abu-Akel, Atlanta, GA Rizek & Alice Abusharr, Claremont, CA Anonymous, Maplewood, NJ Dr. Robert Ashmore, Mequon, WI Mr. & Mrs. Sultan Aslam, Plainsboro, NJ Marwan Balaa, San Jose, CA Rev. Robert E. Barber, Cooper City, FL Stanton Barrett, Ipswich, MA Allen & Jerrie Bartlett, Philadelphia, PA Anna Bellisari, Yellow Springs, OH Nancy Bird & Karl Becker, Cordova, AK#### Prof. & Mrs. George Wesley Buchanan, Gaithersburg, MD Samer & Nora Burgan, Falls, Church, VA Prof. Mireya Camurati, Williamsville, NY Jeff Cooper, Los Angeles, CA Frank Cummings, Lancaster, PA## Bernie Eisenberg, Los Angeles, CA Kassem Elkhalil, Arlington, TX William Gefell, Tunbridge, VT Elizabeth Haas, Wilmington, DE Angelica Harter, N. Branford, CT Walter Hixson, Akron, OH

SEND A GIFT SUBSCRIPTION OR SAMPLE COPY Please help us market the Washington Report and Middle East and More Bookstore. Ask us to send a sample copy of the magazine to your coworker, relative, friend, teacher, favorite talkshow host or columnist. Or better yet, send a gift subscription!

To subscribe visit wrmea.org/subscribe, or email circulation@wrmea.org or call (888) 881-5861. To send a sample copy email the address to samplecopy@wrmea.org.

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Bilquis Jaweed, West Chester, OH Ghazala Kazi, Columbia, MD M. Jamil Khan, Bloomfield Hills, MI Eugene Khorey, Homestead, PA David & Renee Lent, Hanover, NH Edwin Lindgren, Overland Park, KS Mr. & Mrs. Hani Marar, Delmar, NY Gwendolyn McEwen, Bellingham, WA Bill McGrath, Northfield, MN John & Ruth Monson, La Crosse, WI Mu’mina Friends, Abiquiu, NM Stephen L. Naman, Dunwoody, GA Kamal Obeid, Fremont, CA Merrill O’Donnell, New Westminster, Canada A. Karim Pathan, Cary, NC Jeffrey Pekrul, San Francisco, CA Peggy Rafferty, Cedar Grove, NC Amb. William & Andrea Rugh, Hingham, MA Irmgard Scherer, Fairfax, VA Bernice Shaheen, Palm Desert, CA*** Yasir Shallal, McLean, VA Dr. Mostafa Hashem Sherif, Tinton Falls, NJ Sisters of St. Francis, Tiffin, OH Jean Snyder, Greenbelt, MD Thomas Trueblood, Chapel Hill, NC David Williams, Golden, CO Munir Zacharia, La Mirada, CA Dr. James Zogby, Washington, DC Fred Zuercher, Spring Grove, PA

ACCOMPANISTS ($250 or more)

Anonymous, Eatonton, GA Diane Adkin, Camas, WA Larry Cooper, Plymouth, M # Gregory DeSylva, Rhinebeck, NY Dr. William Fuller, Valdosta, GA Ken Galal, San Francisco, CA Delinda C. Hanley, Kensington, MD****,## Jenny Hartley, Northfielders for Justice, Northfield, MN Phil & Elaine Pasquini, Novato, CA**** Ramzy Salem, Monterey Park, CA

TENORS & CONTRALTOS ($500 or more)

Dr. & Mrs. Roger Bagshaw, Big Sur, CA Edward Briody, Jackson Heights, NY Drew & Krista Curtiss, Herndon, VA**** Raymond Gordon, Venice, FL Brigitte Jaensch, Carmichael, CA Tom & Tess McAndrew, Oro Valley, AZ****

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Congressman Jim Moran, McLean, VA Benjamin Wade, Saratoga, CA Robert Younes, Potomac, MD

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Americans for Middle East Understanding, New York, NY Drs. A.J. & M. T. Amirana, Las Vegas, NV Asha A. Anand, Bethesda, MD Karen Ray Bossmeyer, Louisville, KY G. Edward & Ruth Brooking, Jr., Wilmington, DE Gordon & Olivia Brown, Chevy Chase, MD Nancy Eddy, Chevy Chase, MD Gary Feulner, Dubai, UAE Ronald & Mary Forthofer, Longmont, CO Evan & Leman Fotos, Istanbul, Turkey Alfred R. Greve, Holmes, NY Hind Hamdan, Hagerstown, MD Judith A. Howard, Norwood, MA ### Ghazy M. Kader, Shoreline, WA William Lightfoot, Vienna, VA Jack Love, Kailua Kona, HI Nabeel Mansour, McMinnville, OR Roberta McInerney, Washington, DC * Robert & Sharon Norberg, Lake City, MN Mary Norton, Austin, TX Marjorie Ransom, Washington, DC M.F. Shoukfeh, Lubbock, TX Gretel Smith, Garrett, IN Dr. Imad Tabry, Fort Lauderdale, FL Donn Trautman, Evanstown, IL

CHOIRMASTERS ($5,000 or more)

James M. Crawford Trust, Miami, FL Donna B. Curtiss, Kensington, MD*, ** Estate of Dorothy Love Gerner, San Francisco, CA Dr. & Mrs. Clyde Farris, West Linn, OR*, ** John Gareeb, Atlanta, GA John & Henrietta Goelet, Washington, DC * In Memory of Andrew I. Killgore ** In Memory of Richard H. Curtiss *** In Memory of Dr. Jack Shaheen **** In Memory of Donna B.Curtiss # In Memory of Diane Cooper ## In Memory of Salman Hilmy ### In Memory of Paul Findley #### In Memory of Eugene Bird

JanuaRy/febRuaRy 2020

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January/February 2020 Vol. XXXIX, No. 1

Fireworks light the sky to mark the lighting of a Christmas tree, installed at Manger Square near the Church of the Nativity, revered as the site of Jesus Christ’s birth, in the occupied West Bank town of Bethlehem, Nov. 30, 2019. In past years Israeli rabbis launched “wars on Christmas trees” inside Israel.

(Photo by Issam RImawI /anadolu agency vIa getty Images)