Washington Report on Middle East Affairs - November/December 2020 - Vol. XXXIX, No. 7

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EIGHT SENATORS, 20 REPRESENTATIVES IN 116TH CONGRESS’ “HALL OF FAME”

DISPLAY UNTIL 12/26/2020

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TELLING THE TRUTH SINCE 1982

Volume XXXIX, No. 7

On Middle East Affairs

November/December 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

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How Do Democrats and Republicans Differ on Palestine and Israel?—Ramzy Baroud

Jewish Voters are Turning Away From Israel and AIPAC— Two Views—Allan C. Brownfeld, Chemi Shalev

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Americans of All Stripes Increasingly Reject the Israel Lobby’s Settler Colonial Propaganda—Dale Sprusansky

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No Sure Winners, but Definite Losers in Trump’s Peace Deals: Palestinians and Kosovars—Ian Williams

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Eight Senators, 20 Representatives in 116th Congress’ “Hall of Fame”—Shirl McArthur

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Sidestepping Palestinians Will Never Foster Real Peace—Rev. Alex Awad

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VOA Punished for Telling America’s, Instead of Trump’s, Story—Delinda C. Hanley

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Children of Gaza: The Poet, the Fashionista and the Footballer—Wafaa Aludaini and Ramzy Baroud

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44 48

Netanyahu Feigns Regret over Police Cover-Up in Killing of Teacher Abu al-Qiyan—Jonathan Cook

A Gaza Mother Mourns the Loss of Her Fishermen Sons—Asya Abdul-Hadi

Quarantine, Lockdown, and Blockade: COVID-19 in Gaza—Mohammed Omer

SPECIAL REPORTS

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The Art of the Weapons Deal in the Age of Trump —William D. Hartung

Palestine, Today: Decolonizing Palestine Through Open Maps—Eleni Zaras

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Blockade Encourages Food Self-Sufficiency Drive but Risks Remain for Qatar—Stasa Salacanin

ON THE COVER: A Palestinian girl wearing a protective mask due to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic car-

ries a bunch of dates during the annual harvest season in a palm grove in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on October 1, 2020. See article, pp. 46-47.

PHOTO BY MOHAMMED ABED/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

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

Other Voices

Compiled by Janet McMahon

Omar Barghouti Is a Threat to Israel’s “Universal

Stewart Ain, www.forward.com

OV-7

Security” Per Israel Lawmaker, Jonathan Ofir, http://mondoweiss.net

OV-1

“More Than a Team, It Is an Entire People”: 100 Years of Palestinian Football in Chile, Eman Abusidu, www.middleeastmonitor.com

Israelis Hate Netanyahu The Despot? Just Ask The Palestinians, Gideon Levy, Haaretz

OV-3

What U.S. Troops Are Really Doing in Syria, Michael Hall, www.nationalinterest.org

OV-9

OV-10

The Myth of Rabin the Peacemaker, Amjad Iraqi, www.972mag.com

OV-3

The Durand Line: The Elephant in the Room, Tanya Goudsouzian, Le Monde diplomatique OV-11

OV-5

Iran’s Delicate Balancing Act In the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict, Maziar Motamedi, www.aljazeera.com

OV-13

OV-6

Legacy of Iran-Iraq War Still Reverberates 40 Years Later, Sinan S. Mahmoud, www.aljazeera.com

OV-14

An Elegy to Baghdad, Nabil Salih, www.aljazeera.com

OV-15

Negotiating in Bad Faith, Mohamed Mohamed, http://mondoweiss.net Redefining Anti-Semitism On Facebook, Neve Gordon, www.aljazeera.com

Zoom, Facebook and YouTube Cancel Leila Khaled, Setting Precedent, Rob Eshman &

DEPARTMENTS 6 letters to the editor 52 huMaN rights:

East Turkistan Uyghurs Fear Annihilation by China

52 WagiNg PeaCe:

Kuwait Under a New Emir: Continuity or Change?

60 arab aMeriCaN aCtiVisM: Busboys Hosts Dinner with Rashida Tlaib

61 MusliM aMeriCaN aCtiVisM:

Six Members of Congress Address

American Muslims for Palestine

People stand in line, spaced six feet apart due to COVID-19, in order to vote early at the Fairfax Government Center on Sept. 18, 2020 in Fairfax, VA. See pp. 16-29 before you cast your vote for members of Congress.

63 the World looks at the Middle east —CARTooNS

72 obituaries

64 other PeoPle’s Mail

65 iNdeX to adVertisers

66 Middle east books reVieW

73 2020 aet Choir oF aNgels

PHOTO BY TASOS KATOPODIS/GETTY IMAGES

5 Publishers’ Page

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An Uneasy Mood

American Educational Trust

As we collectively limp toward Election Day, most Americans are likely feeling beleaguered by the pandemic, economic and health uncertainties, and a divisive political environment. Many of us simply want a time out from the endless chaos and rancor, but instead we remain largely isolated in our homes, perhaps masochistically subjecting ourselves to more and more news stories that leave us feeling hopeless about the world.

For those who care deeply about the Middle East, feelings of desolation are likely nothing new. Indeed, over the years we’ve received letters from subscribers telling us they were taking a break from reading the magazine because they could no longer stomach reading about seemingly endless and senseless wars, occupations and other injustices often paid for by their tax dollars. (They usually come back!)

dleEastBooks.com, will be a hub for your gift giving. Our books, art prints, olive oil, soap, coffee and stunning pottery offer a great option for anyone on your list. We encourage you to place your order earlier this year, given the flood of packages set to hit a postal service already struggling with logistics.

A Special Gift to You

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We Understand

Publishers’ Page

You’ll notice that this issue includes “Other Voices,” our 16-page supplement, for everyone—not only those who pay an extra $15 a year! We hope you’ll decide to use the postcard, also enclosed in this issue, to add this gem to your yearly subscription.

More Ways to Show Support

A gift subscription to the Washington Report would also be a perfect present for any social justice-oriented person on your shopping list. Now There are protests calling for justice across our country. A that bookstores and newsstands inPalestinian woman, wearing a protective face mask, takes explicably stopped carrying this part in a demonstration to show support for prisoners held in magazine, it is especially important Staying Hopeful for our readers to give gift subscripIsraeli jails, in Gaza City on Oct. 5, 2020. tions to their favorite house of worEven more frequently, however, we ship, libraries, schools, universities, receive letters from individuals doctors, friends and family. across the country thanking us for giving are hopefully also dogged voters) with the them hope in the knowledge that other information they need to be effective citiHoping for Holiday Angels Americans actually do care just as much zens that they can’t find in the mainstream as they do about justice in Palestine and press. To that end, we are pleased to preOf course, above all, we rely on your dothe Middle East. And, while we can’t guarsent 14 pages of voting records in this nations to keep the magazine and bookantee the Washington Report will be an issue (pp. 16-29) that show how each store going. Plans for the coffee shop aduplifting read, we believe the pages of the member of Congress voted on critical dition to Middle East Books and More magazine offer another reason to hope. bookstore are on hold until we can raise issues impacting the Middle East. We Page after page shows the endurance and more funds. The plans are in hand, and hope this data provides you with the inforwe’re now filing for the building permit but strength of people—from Palestine to mation needed to cast a knowledgeable we need your support now. Once life gets Iran—refusing to let war, occupation, vote—and also serves as an impetus to back to normal we hope to be ready to sanctions, corruption, authoritarianism, regularly call your elected officials, partichost events and sip some brew together and now COVID-19, stymie their determiularly if you are displeased with their voting again in our revitalized space. After what nation to secure a better future. As we fight records. When Americans make their may be more than a year of isolation we a myriad of battles here at home, we ought voices clear and are armed with the facts, want to be ready to gather again. During to view their determination as a source of it’s increasingly hard for lobbies to do their these difficult times, we are grateful to all strength and a blueprint to follow. dirty business (see pp. 14-15)! of you for digging down deep so that toPractical Information Holiday Shopping gether we can...

Of course, our primary duty at the WashThe holiday season is rapidly approachMake a Difference Today! ington Report is to arm subscribers (who ing, and we hope our bookstore, MidNOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2020

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

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letters_6.qxp_NOVEMBER DECEMBER 2020 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 10/15/20 9:02 PM Page 6

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

DELINDA C. HANLEY DALE SPRUSANSKY WALTER HIXSON JULIA PITNER JANET McMAHON SAMI TAYEB NATE BAILEY 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, Aug./Sept. and Nov./Dec. combined, at 1902 18th St., NW, Washington, DC 20009-1707. Tel. (202) 939-6050. Subscription prices (United States and possessions): one year, $29; two years, $55; three years, $75. For Canadian and Mexican subscriptions, $35 per year; for other foreign subscriptions, $70 per year. Periodicals, postage paid at Washington, DC and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, P.O. Box 91056, Long Beach, CA 90809-1056.

Published by the American Educational Trust (AET), a nonprofit foundation incorporated in Washington, DC by retired U.S. foreign service officers to provide the American public with balanced and accurate information concerning U.S. relations with Middle Eastern states. AET’s Foreign Policy Committee has included former U.S. ambassadors, government officials, and members of Congress, including the late Democratic Sen. J. William Fulbright and Republican Sen. Charles Percy, both former chairmen of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Members of AET’s Board of Directors and advisory committees receive no fees for their services. The new Board of Advisers includes: Anisa Mehdi, John Gareeb, Dr. Najat Khelil Arafat, William Lightfoot and Susan Abulhawa.

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LetterstotheEditor UAE-BAHRAIN-ISRAEL DEAL IS A DANGEROUS SHAM

President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu have much in common. Both are facing serious charges of gross abuse of power. Trump is experiencing pre-election jitters, desperate to deflect the spotlight on his failed leadership to combat COVID-19. More and more Americans are heading to the polls to express their anger over Trump’s betrayal.

With the help of self-styled Middle East “expert” Jared Kushner, Trump and Netanyahu crafted a so-called peace agreement between Israel and two of the most repressive autocratic regimes in the Middle East, the UAE and Bahrain.

Over 90 percent of the United Arab Emirates’ workforce is a mix of foreign workers and embassy officials. The voiceless local Emirati citizens are strong supporters of Palestinian statehood.

Likewise the ruler of Bahrain uses repressive measure to control the country’s small native population—particularly the majority Shi’a population—and outsources much of its labor to migrants.

The sham agreement will embolden the Israeli government to seize more Palestinian land and intensify their misery. Israel has violated countless norms of international law and ignored U.N. resolutions. The draconian military occupation continues.

The Gaza prison condemns Palestinians to a life of desperation.

If Israel is sincere on shedding its status as a pariah state, it should lift the siege of Gaza, end its military occupation and usher in a true democracy where all its citizens, Palestinians and Jews alike, enjoy the same rights.

Finally, the sham agreement will likely allow U.S. defense contractors to continue exporting their killing machines, ensuring the subjugation of the voiceless people of Bahrain and the UAE, and continue the slaughter of civilians in neighboring Yemen, which is already suffering the worst famine in the world.

Tejinder Uberoi, Los Altos, CA U.N. correspondent Ian Williams’ article in this issue (see p. 32) provides a timely overview of how U.S.-mediated “peace deals” often produce short-term wins for po-

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

KEEP THOSE CARDS & LETTERS COMING! Send your letters to the editor to the Washington Report, P.O. Box 53062, Washington, DC 20009 or e-mail <letters@wrmea.org>.

litical leaders and long-term challenges to actual peace.

DOUBLE STANDARD ON IRAN

The Iranian government recently agreed to allow United Nations inspectors to enter the country and examine their nuclear facilities.

This reasonable policy is particularly notable when compared to that of Iran’s main regional rivals, particularly Israel.

While there is no evidence of an Iranian nuclear weapon, it has been suggested that they would be reckless not to develop one for deterrent purposes. While I appreciate concerns about Iran’s nuclear weapons potential, I think Iran’s leaders understand the terrible consequences of even planning for a nuclear standoff with the Israeli state.

It is widely accepted that Israel possesses an arsenal of nuclear weapons and the technology to deploy them to devastating effect. Intimidation is the main reason to possess these monstrous devices, whose strategic power lies in the fear generated by the threat of their use. I question Israel’s decision to bar International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors access to their nuclear facilities while holding Iran to a different standard.

Such arrogant exceptionalism naturally creates insecurity, resentment and distrust.

Even the awful dictator in North Korea has been more transparent than Israel when it comes to nuclear weapons.

Morgan Duchesney, Ottawa, Canada In a recent article for the Atlantic Council, nuclear weapons expert Kelsey Davenport noted the IAEA “confirms that Iran continues to abide by critically important verification measures put in place by the [nuclear] deal....As a result, if Tehran were to further move outside the limits set by the [deal] or make the political decision to dash to a bomb, it is highly likely that its efforts would be quickly detected.” One would never assume Iranian compliance, given the deceitful and incendiary rhetoric constantly flowing from Israel and the U.S. ■ NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2020

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WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

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baroud_8-9.qxp_From the Diaspora 10/15/20 10:30 PM Page 8

From the Diaspora

How Do Democrats and Republicans Differ On Palestine and Israel?

By Ramzy Baroud

PHOTO BY AARONP/BAUER-GRIFFIN/GC IMAGES

human rights, let alone inTHE POLARIZED nature of ternational law altogether.

American politics often “Joe Biden has made it makes it difficult to address clear...he will not tie U.S. fundamental differences besecurity assistance to Istween the country’s two rael to political decisions main political rivals; RepubIsrael makes, and I couldlicans and Democrats. As n’t agree more,” Harris, each side is intent on diswho is promoted enthusicrediting the other at every astically by some as a opportunity, unbiased infor“progressive” politician, mation regarding the two was quoted as saying in a parties’ actual stances on intelephone call on Aug. 26. ternal and external issues The call was made to can be difficult to decipher. what Israeli newspaper Regarding Palestine Haaretz termed as “Jewand Israel, however, both ish supporters.” The parties’ establishments Jerusalem Post and the are quite clear on offering Times of Israel referred to Israel unlimited and unthis crucial constituency conditional support. The as “Jewish donors.” discrepancies in their posiAlthough the view of the tions are, at times, quite party’s rank and file has negligible, even if Democsignificantly shifted rats occasionally attempt against Israel in recent to present themselves as years, the Democrat’s fairer and even-handed. upper echelon still caters Judging by statements to the Israel lobby and made by Democrat presiA ballot drop box for the general election in California is seen at the Will & Ariel dential candidate Joe Durant Branch of the Los Angeles Public Library on Oct. 6, 2020, in Hollywood, their rich backers, even if this means continuing to Biden, his running mate California. mold U.S. foreign policy in Kamala Harris, and people the Middle East so that it serves Israeli rather than U.S. interaffiliated with their campaign, a future President Biden does not ests. intend to reverse any of the pro-Israel political measures Republicans, on the other hand, have cemented their support adopted by the Donald Trump administration. for Israel, but no longer around geostrategic issues pertaining to Moreover, a Democrat administration, as revealed, will not Israel’s “security” or U.S. interests. The speeches made by Reeven consider the possibility of conditioning U.S. financial and publican leaders at the Republican National Convention (RNC), military support to Israel on the latter’s respect for Palestinian held in Charlotte, NC in August, were all aimed at reassuring “Christian Zionists,” who now represent the largest pro-Israel Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and editor of Palestine Chronicle. His latest book is These Chains Will Be Broken: constituency in the U.S. The once relatively marginal impact of Palestinian Stories of Struggle and Defiance in Israeli Prisons Christian Zionists in directly shaping U.S. foreign policy has mor(available from AET’s Middle East Books and More). Dr. Baroud is a phed over the years to define the core values of Republicans. non-resident senior research fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Regardless of the nature of the discourse through which ReAffairs (CIGA) and also at the Afro-Middle East Center (AMEC). His publican and Democrat leaders express their love and support website is <www.ramzybaroud.net>.

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WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2020

baroud_8-9.qxp_From the Diaspora 10/15/20 10:31 PM Page 9

for Israel, the two parties are decidedly “pro-Israel.” There are many recent examples that corroborate this assertion.

On Nov. 18, 2019, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that Washington would no longer consider Jewish settlements illegal or a violation of international law. That position was later cemented in Trump’s so-called “Deal of the Century,” published on Jan. 28, 2020.

Democrats, however, continue to perceive illegal Jewish settlements as, indeed, illegal. “This decision harms the cause of diplomacy, takes us further away from the hope of a two-state solution, and will only further inflame tensions in the region,” Joe Biden’s campaign said in a statement, in response to Pompeo’s declaration.

Although markedly different, it is hard to imagine a Democrat administration upholding the above position, while simultaneously refraining from reversing previous decisions made by the Trump administration. It can only be one or the other.

One’s cynicism is fully justified. As we recently learned, the Democrat establishment has refused to even use the word “occupation,” with reference to Israel’s occupation of Palestine, in their party platform released on July 15. According to Foreign Policy, the decision “followed heavy last-minute lobbying by pro-Israel advocacy groups.”

On Dec. 6, 2017, the Trump administration made one of the boldest pro-Israel decisions, when he formally recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. A few months later, on May 14, 2018, the U.S. Embassy was moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem; a brazen violation of international law.

The legal foundation of Trump’s decision was the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995. This act was the outcome of bipartisan efforts, bringing together Republicans and Democrats in Congress. Interestingly, leading Democrats, such as Joe Biden and John Kerry, were the main cheerleaders of the embassy move, back then. Only one Democrat senator, the late Robert Byrd, voted against the bill. In

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the House of Representatives, only 30 out of 204 Democrats voted “no.”

Even though many Democrats rejected the timing of Trump’s implementation of the Jerusalem Embassy Act, their criticism was largely political, primarily motivated by Democrats’ attempts to discredit Trump. The fact that the Biden campaign, later on, made it clear that the decision will not be reversed should he become president, is a further illustration highlighting the moral bankruptcy of the Democrat establishment.

The truth is, U.S. unconditional backing for Israel is a common cause among all American administrations, whether Democrat or Republican. What they may differ on, however, is their overall motive and primary target audience during election time.

Political polarization and misinformation aside, both Democrats and Republicans head to the November elections with strong pro-Israel sentiments, if not outright support, while completely ignoring the plight of occupied and oppressed Palestinians. ■

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WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

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views_Jewish_10-13r.qxp_Two Views 10/15/20 10:11 PM Page 10

Two Views

PHOTO BY DREW ANGERER/GETTY IMAGES

Jewish Voters are Turning Away from Israel and AIPAC

Democratic presidential nominee former Vice President Joe Biden (c) speaks as his running mate Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) looks on during an event at the Alexis Dupont High School in Wilmington, DE on Aug. 12, 2020. Harris is the first Black woman and first person of Indian descent to be a nominee on a presidential ticket by a major party in U.S. history. Her husband Douglas Emhoff would also be the first Jewish spouse to a U.S. vice president.

American Jewish Voters’ Priorities are Health Care and Gun Violence—Not Israel

By Allan C. Brownfeld

THE 2020 PRESIDENTIAL campaign has made the Middle East a focus of much attention. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, the first

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. For more information, watch American Jews & Israel: A Faltering Relationship on the Washington Report’s YouTube channel.

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secretary of state in memory to speak at a national convention, delivered his remarks from the King David Hotel in Jerusalem while on an official trip to the region. President Donald Trump arranged a signing ceremony on Sept. 15 at the White House with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and representatives from the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. For his efforts, several right-wing parliamentarians in Europe nominated Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize.

In his 20-minute call with American Jewish leaders the next day, ahead of Rosh Hashanah, Trump focused on Israel. He claimed that the agreement between Israel, Bahrain and the UAE promoted “peace” in the region. What he ignored, and most American Jews understand very well, is that peace requires an accommodation with the Palestinians.

Washington RepoRt on Middle east affaiRs

noveMBeR/deceMBeR 2020

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Trump spent most of his call making the case for American Jews to vote for him. He closed by repeating a line that has caused controversy in the past, saying, “We really appreciate you; we love your country also.” By “your country,” he was referring to Israel.

Earlier, introducing his son-in-law Jared Kushner, he referred to him as an “unbelievable leader for Israel.” These comments echo others he has made, including at the White House Hanukkah party two years ago, which suggest American Jews think of themselves as Israelis.

Trump’s comments also blur the line between White House events and his re-election campaign. Until his presidency, campaign appeals from the White House were seen as unethical if not illegal. Trump urged Jewish listeners to campaign for him and suggested that Israel would suffer if he is not re-elected. He said, “Whatever you can do in terms of Nov. 3 is going to be very important, because if we don’t win, Israel is in big trouble.” He also boasted about what his administration had done for Israel, such as providing “$4.2 billion in annual aid.” The correct amount is $3.8 billion, and this was a deal brokered by Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama. “We’re in the Middle East because of Israel,” Trump declared.

Beyond this, Trump lamented that, in the 2016 election, he saw a poll that indicated he received only 25 percent of the Jewish vote, despite the fact that, “I have a son-in-law, a daughter who are Jewish, I have beautiful grandchildren that are Jewish, I have all these incredible achievements.” He said he hoped that abandoning the nuclear agreement with Iran, moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights and eliminating U.S. aid to Palestinians would cause large numbers of Jewish voters to support his re-election.

After the call, Trump remarked to officials in his administration, Jews “are only in it for themselves” and they “stick together.”

In contrast, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden used his Rosh Hashanah message to focus on the religious significance of the occasion. He said, “These are the days of awe that give us a chance to restart, to speak up...What kind of country do we want to be.” Biden highlighted how he decided to run after watching neo-Nazis marching in Charlottesville in 2017 and being appalled at what he called the president’s “equivocations” in condemning racist and anti-Semitic violence. His only mention of Israel was when he said, “We can pursue peace in the world, including by remaining a steadfast ally of Israel.”

The Trump campaign is making a concerted effort to raise its number of Jewish votes to as much as 35 percent, which could have an impact on such swing states as Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

In a Times of Israel article entitled “Why Jews Should Vote For Trump,” Norm Coleman, chairman of the Republican Jewish Coalition and former U.S. Senator from Minnesota, warned of “virulent anti-Semitism that now flows from the lips of the ascendant ‘progressive leadership’ of the Democrat Party, including Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib and AOC.”

Coleman argued that “the administration has spoken out forcefully against anti-Semitism” and that it has “adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of anti-Semitism which specifically includes both traditional anti-Semitic tropes and anti-Israel elements such as dehumanizing and demonizing Israel and seeking destruction of the Jewish state by the BDS movement.”

After listing Trump’s record of taking core issues off the negotiating table, and instead making them gifts to Israel, Coleman concluded, “There has never been a better friend of Israel and the Jewish community in the White House.”

Matt Brooks, executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition, argued that Donald Trump can defeat Joe Biden in a nail biter election by running on his record as “the most pro-Israel president ever.” The Republican Jewish Coalition is spending $10 million for the largest outreach effort ever undertaken in the Jewish community to increase the Jewish vote in Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Still, most Jews remain liberal. Frank Newport of Gallup reports that 44 percent of Jews are liberal, much higher than the overall 25 percent among the general population, making Jews the most liberal of any major religious group in the country. Another 36 percent of Jews are moderates, with 20 percent describing themselves as conservative, compared with 37 percent of the total population. According to Pew Research, 42 percent of Jews say that President Trump favors Israel too much.

For their part, the Democrats maintain a strong pro-Israel position. The party platform eliminated the term “occupation” to describe Israel’s role in the West Bank. It condemned the BDS movement, but also opposed legislation that would penalize the movement, citing free speech concerns. There was mention of “Palestinian rights,” although there was no criticism of Israel. The Democrats were critical of President Trump’s abandonment of the nuclear agreement with Iran. It is clear that criticism of Israeli policy is growing among many Democrats. The defeat of Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY), the strongly pro-Israel chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, in the Democratic primary, despite financial support from pro-Israel PACs, is an indication of this trend.

The idea that appealing to Jewish voters on the basis of support for Israel, particularly the policies of the right-wing government of Prime Minister Netanyahu, is, it seems, a recipe for defeat and a complete misunderstanding of the motivation of Jewish voters.

Recent public opinion polls show that Donald Trump has a 29 percent approval rating among Jewish voters and a 71 percent disapproval rating. Ruderman Foundation Polls show that only 4 percent of American Jews consider Israel the most important voting issue. Health care is at the top of the list by 43 percent; 28 percent cite gun violence; and 21 percent point to Social Security and Medicare.

American Jews are increasingly critical of Israel’s more than 50year occupation and its denial of political rights to millions of Palestinians. The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, a right-wing Israeli

American Jews are Increasingly critical of Israel’s More than 50-year Occupation

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think tank, issued a report in July entitled, “American Jewry in Transition: How Attitudes Toward Israel May Be Shifting.” It found that one quarter of American Jews believe that Israel is “racist and colonial” and that its system is similar to “apartheid.” It found that 31 percent would vote for Reps. Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar regardless of Israel lobby views of the two congresswomen as anti-Semitic. The idea that anti-Semitism is coming from America’s progressive movement is rejected by most American Jews. This study found that 51 percent found the right-wing and white nationalist groups were the main source of anti-Semitism and only 1 percent believed that the left was largely responsible.

The Trump administration’s embrace of Israel’s maximalist positions may have more to do with its appeal to Christian Zionists than to Jews. U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman refers to the relationship between Israel and the U.S. as “an altar of holiness,” and the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem as a “shrine.” At a ceremony in Jerusalem, he declared that Israel “was on the side of God,” making the Israeli state “holy,” and therefore a legitimate object of worship. This has been accompanied by the virtual canonization of those who embrace its occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Miriam Adelson, the wife of billionaire casino mogul, Sheldon Adelson, and a major contributor to the Trump campaign, proposed that the story of Donald Trump, “hero and patriot,” ought to be added to the Bible.

President Trump may find support for his views among a small group of ultra-Orthodox Jews and Evangelicals but if he thinks that this is the way to appeal to large numbers of American Jews, he is mistaken. At the 2019 conference of J Street, the liberal pro-Israel lobbying group, Rabbi Ayelet Cohen of the New Israel Fund said that American Jews are losing interest in Israel, are tired of fighting over Israel, and that rabbis are quietly dropping Israel from Hebrew school curricula and no one is noticing.

As Americans are increasingly focusing on racial disparities in our own society, more and more American Jews are making an analogy between our treatment of minorities and Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. Other Jewish Americans are lamenting the fact that Jews, who have been the victims of persecution, now find themselves persecuting others.

American Jewish alienation from Israel’s increasingly right-wing government continues to grow. Clearly, there is now a major transformation in the thinking of American Jews, which politicians in both parties seem not to have noticed.

If Biden Wins, Adelson and Evangelicals are Out, AIPAC’s Back and J Street’s in with a Bang

By Chemi Shalev

AIPAC ACTIVISTS, even those who believe that Donald Trump is a godsend for Israel and Joe Biden spells trouble, should be praying for a decisive Democratic win on November 3. A Trump triumph probably means that the “pro-Israel” lobby will continue to be sidelined over the next four years, if it survives at all. In the lobbying business, protracted redundancy is usually fatal.

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A Biden victory would get AIPAC back in the game, albeit with a daunting twist. On the one hand, the lobby is more than likely to quickly regain exclusive rights to represent its fickle, long-lost client, the government of Israel, especially if Binyamin Netanyahu is still around. The prime minister will need all the help he can get to shed the toxic legacy of his mutual admiration society with Trump, which is a red flag for many Democrats—doubly so if victory makes them bullish.

On the other hand, in a Democratic administration, especially one in which the party controls both houses of Congress, AIPAC would have to contend with an old nuisance turned potential nemesis, J Street. The self-styled “political home for pro-Israel, pro-peace Americans” is no longer the impudent and upstart new kid on the block that it was during the eight years of the Obama administration, when AIPAC still reigned supreme. Far from it.

If Biden wins, and all the more so if Democrats assert control over both houses of Congress, J Street will be a formidable, if not equal, competitor for the hearts and minds of the ruling establishment. If Israel sticks with its short-sighted antipathy to J Street, and AIPAC lets Jerusalem call the tune, the pro-Israel lobby’s energies will ultimately be consumed by internal conflict instead of regaining and fortifying its foothold in the corridors of power.

In days of yore, presidents went and presidents came, but AIPAC stood eternal, solid as a rock. The lobby was a durable switch hitter: Its top echelons and mass membership leaned Democratic, but its sentiments and preferences, as far as Israel goes, were increasingly aligned with Republicans. Trump’s election upended the equation: For the first time in its 40-year existence, AIPAC was pushed off center stage. Worse, its one and only client left home and had brazenly and openly retained the services of others.

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, once ranked just behind the then all-powerful National Rifle Association in terms of Washington clout, fell prey to the binary with-us-or-against-us polarization in U.S. politics. Just as Trump’s divisiveness and the extreme emotions he elicits on both drove a wedge between proTrump and anti-Trump Jews, it split the pro-Israel community in two and initiated an unprecedented rightward shift in pro-Israeli power, influence and, most crucially, access. Adelson and the Evangelicals took over and AIPAC was shunted aside.

AIPAC’s predicament was compounded by the fact that Trump’s unabashedly pro-Israel policies and decisions were making its own long-held dreams come true. AIPAC had long lobbied for U.S. recognition of Israeli Jerusalem and Golan Heights, for U.S.-brokered regional “peace” that sidelined the Palestinians and against the Iran nuclear deal. When crunch time came and history was in the air, AIPAC found itself in the bleachers, a kibitzer cheering the glory of others.

The uncanny meeting of minds between Trump and Netanyahu made AIPAC redundant, almost by definition. The two leaders, however, not only didn’t need AIPAC’s help, but didn’t want it, either. Ne-

Chemi Shalev is the U.S. editor and correspondent for the Haaretz newspaper. Reprinted with permission.

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tanyahu’s generous right-wing benefactor before their falling out, Sheldon Adelson, became the GOP’s and Trump’s biggest donor. Much as the tough-talking wannabe billionaire in the White House may have resented the far tougher, true-blue tycoon in Las Vegas, he could hardly afford to ignore him.

Adelson, never a big fan of AIPAC, expanded his influence in Washington with a coterie of Jewish Republicans who either share his views or benefit from his fortunes—or both. Trump, needless to say, is unlikely to be very aware of or concerned with what AIPAC is or does, anyway. But then came the far more controversial onetwo punch when, to the chagrin of most of the Jewish community, the largely Jewish lobby that insists on being dubbed “proIsrael” was supplanted by, of all people, messianic Christian Evangelicals.

Long cultivated by Netanyahu and the Israeli right as a bulwark against naïve U.S. peace-seekers, the 50-million strong evangelical community emerged as Trump’s indispensable base and most fervent crusader. Their wishes, including those that originated with Netanyahu or his emissary, Ambassador Ron Dermer, became the president’s command.

With a president hailed by Israel as a lion of Judah, Republican lawmakers who follow him in lockstep and a Democratic Party disinclined to challenge the administration’s pro-Israel policies—with the notable and crucial exception of the Iran nuclear deal—AIPAC was deprived of its traditional role of recruiting Congress to curb Middle East policies deemed harmful to Israel. The lobby had not only lost its client; it didn’t have many objects at which to direct its persuading efforts, either.

A Biden victory would instantly remove Adelson and the Evangelicals from their current positions of supreme influence and give AIPAC a shot at landing the leading role on center stage. It is far from clear, however, that it is the top candidate for the role: Not only has J Street cornered the market of Israel-supporting Democratic moderates who detest Netanyahu and his policies, but AIPAC will also have to work hard to regain the trust and favor of more mainstream centrist Democrats, as well as NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2020

top foreign policy officials in a future Biden administration. They still show the scars from the bitter 2015 battle over the Iran nuclear deal and still bear its grudges.

The pro-Israel lobby cautioned Netanyahu against a costly head-on confrontation with President Barack Obama, but joined him in battle nonetheless, winding up with the worst of both worlds. Netanyahu blamed what he viewed as AIPAC’s half-hearted efforts for his failure to convince enough Democrats to block the deal, strengthening his resolve, once Trump was elected, to rely on Evangelicals instead.

At the same time, Democrats have neither forgiven nor forgotten AIPAC’s apocalyptic depictions of Iran as an existential threat to Israel and their sometimes implied, often explicit, inference that a vote for the deal was a vote for Israel’s destruction.

The same dynamic, albeit with less anger and resentment, is also at play on the Israeli-Palestinian issue. AIPAC may have courageously stuck to its guns by continuing to support a two-state solution of one sort or another despite pressures to the contrary, but J Street’s unequivocal endorsement of genuine Palestinian independence and clear-cut territorial division is far more acceptable in the eyes of most Democrats today.

Many of the new Democratic lawmakers that came to Congress in 2018, and those that might join them in 2020, don’t know

and probably couldn’t care less that AIPAC was the only game in town way before J Street was born in 2007. AIPAC is still the bigger, wealthier and more experienced of the two groups, but J Street has diligently cultivated a growing legion of up-andcoming Democrats who are more connected to the current zeitgeist of the party, if not a Biden White House.

The purely Israeli interest is for J Street to collaborate with AIPAC, because the alternative is for it to find common cause with the radical anti-Israel contingent of the Democratic Party. The recent parting of ways between J Street and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez over her withdrawal from participating in a memorial for Yitzhak Rabin highlighted the gaps, but these are far from unbridgeable.

It will be hard enough for AIPAC to recalibrate its hitherto condescending hostility towards J Street, but Netanyahu will ultimately drive them apart. AIPAC would probably prefer to deal with a different Israeli leader, but in their situation, beggars can’t be choosers and they’ll take what they can get.

J Street, on the other hand, shares much of the Israeli center-left’s deep-seated antipathy towards Netanyahu, which is getting worse by the day. With most Israelis feeling that their country is split down the middle and falling apart, it’s only fitting that the lobbies purporting to represent them follow in their footsteps. ■

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Special Report

Americans of All Stripes Increasingly Reject The Israel Lobby’s Settler Colonial Propaganda

Grant F. Smith (l) and Walter Hixson explore the history of the Israel lobby at the 2019 Israel Lobby and American Policy conference.

THE ANNUAL ISRAEL LOBBY conference, sponsored by the Washington Report and the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy (IRmep), was set to take place this May to once again provide Americans with a counter-narrative to the propaganda continually being pushed by both Jewish and Christian pro-Israel groups. Of course, the conference, titled “Transcending the Israel Lobby at Home and Abroad,” had to be rescheduled due to the rampant spread of the novel coronavirus.

With a critical election quickly approaching and Americans stuck at home watching the Trump administration hand out free gift after free gift to Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, the conference planning committee decided we could not wait for a postCOVID world to resume our critical examination of the Israel lobby.

Thus, we launched a virtual series dubbed “Extra!” to provide ongoing content on the lobby until we are able to again convene at the National Press Club in Washington, DC. The first four webinars of the “Extra!” series focused on the role of the news media, the importance of understanding settler colonialism, and the role Jewish and Christian groups play in advancing

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

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Israel’s interests in the United States.

University of Massachusetts Professor Emeritus Sut Jhally kicked off the series on Sept. 2 with a discussion titled “Israeli Propaganda in the News Media,” moderated by IRmep’s Grant F. Smith. In 2016, Jhally produced the film “The Occupation of the American Mind,” which explores how pro-Israel propaganda has so wildly penetrated the American psyche.

While the Israel-Palestine “conflict” is often portrayed as deeply complex, Jhally believes it is actually quite simple to understand.

The reality, he said, is that Israel is carrying out clear and overt land left in order to grow its settler colony in historical Palestine. Pro-Israel forces, Jhally argued, intentionally portray this land appropriation as a complex geopolitical issue in order to steer Americans away from developing sympathy for Palestinians. “When [the cause of the conflict] is that simple, what propaganda then has to do is make it seem as though it’s complicated,” he said.

Furthermore, Jhally noted pro-Israel propagandists have the gall to depict Israel as the victim of Palestinian violence and intransigence. “[They] flip reality on its head,” he said. “Rather than presenting Palestinians as the victim of this, [they] present the Israelis as the victim.”

As anyone who watches cable news or reads the mainstream

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press knows, this victimization narrative is often spread with ease and met with little critical opposition. Jhally cited the 20182019 Great March of Return as a recent example of the media propagating proIsrael talking points. Israeli soldiers shot, killed and maimed Gazans, who gathered along the border every Friday to demand a return to the homes and land from which they were ethnically cleansed when Israel was created in 1948. Yet, countless headlines emphasized the savagery of Palestinians. “When you have one of the largest armies in the world going up against unarmed protesters who are [infrequently] using feeble weapons, it’s still presented as though Israel is under attack,” Jhally noted.

Such chutzpah is nothing new. As Washington Report contributing editor Walter Hixson noted in his Sept. 23 webinar, settler colonial societies such as Israel tend to draw a dichotomy between their attempts to “civilize” barren lands and the “uncivilized” natives who resist modernity and civility. “When you believe you are chosen to inherit the land, then resistance to that becomes savage, it becomes terror,” he noted.

While settler colonialism is a global phenomenon that has existed across the globe for millennia, Hixson said the Israeli case study is unique in two ways. The Nazi Holocaust, the historian noted, provided an intense and urgent driving force for the creation of a Jewish State. The Israeli project is also unique for taking place in the modern era, after international anti-colonial movements had emerged and the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights was adopted. “It has coincided with this era of unprecedented acknowledgment of the displacement of indigenous people,” Hixson noted.

Israel’s brazen attempts to defy the new international human rights consensus have succeeded, thanks largely to its powerful lobby that has worked to obfuscate the reality of the ongoing settler colonial project.

“The need for the lobby was very great because of these powerful [global decolonizing] discourses,” Hixson said.

Indeed, Jhally noted that if Americans NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2020

were not bombarded with disinformation, they would likely strongly condemn Israeli policy. “If we were presented with both viewpoints, then people actually could make up their own minds,” he said. “I’m pretty sure, and the Israel lobby is also sure, that if that happened, then American public opinion would turn against Israel.”

Jhally cited education as the key to overcoming pro-Israel propaganda. “We have no hope of being able to match the billions of dollars that are spent on propaganda by the other side. But, if you can turn that propaganda around, so that when people see it they can identify what they’re watching, then you can use the propaganda against itself,” he said.

Beyond education, Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb said diversity is also a key to reversing Americans’ support for settler colonialism at home and abroad. Speaking on the Sept. 10 webinar about Jewish American views of Israel, the activist emphasized that Americans can do much to correct historical wrongs by simply listening to and uplifting individuals with diverse backgrounds in their own local communities.

“Shifting to more solidarity [and understanding] our racism here [in the U.S.] will inform our policy there [in Israel],” she said.

For instance, she does not think it’s coincidental that the election of individuals such as Muslim Reps. Rashida Tlaib (DMI) and Ilhan Omar (D-MN) has coincided with shifting American views of Israel.

Even though polls show the vast majority of American Jews are not zealous Zionists, Allan Brownfeld of the American Council for Judaism noted that major Jewish pro-Israel organizations claim they speak for all American Jews. “The idea that the representatives of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) or the American Jewish Committee speak for American Jews is completely wrong,” he

TO WATCH these, as well as future, “Transcending the Israel Lobby at Home and Abroad Extra!” webinars, or to register for our conference, please visit <www.IsraelLobbyCon.org>.

said, noting that less than a quarter of American Jews belong to such organizations.

The Trump administration’s devotion to Israel is focused on appeasing their conservative Evangelical base rather than the largely left-leaning American Jewish community, Brownfeld argued. “You have an administration that has made Israel a wedge issue primarily to attract Christian Zionists because the majority of Jews oppose occupation, oppose annexation,” he said.

In his Sept. 17 webinar, Rev. Don Wagner noted that despite their growing political clout and large base of voters, proIsrael Evangelical groups do not spend nearly the same amount of resources on lobbying compared to Jewish pro-Israel groups. “Their impact is modest compared to AIPAC, the ADL and the rest of the mainstream Jewish Zionists,” he said.

Wagner, a respected expert on Christian Zionism, also questioned the actual membership size of Christians United for Israel (CUFI), purportedly the largest pro-Israel group in the country. “CUFI claims eight to nine million members,” he noted. “I think that’s completely exaggerated and falsified, I think it’s way less than half.”

“I think it’s time to challenge CUFI’s taxexempt status,” Wagner added. Moderator Smith noted that because of the group’s religious status, their finances are particularly difficult to trace. “They are set up as an association of churches, so they’re even less transparent than AIPAC [the American Israel Public Affairs Committee], the ADL, the Republican Jewish Coalition, the Zionist Organization of America, and others who do lobbying,” Smith noted.

While many of the Israel lobby’s activities remain opaque and understudied, it is clear a growing number of Americans, regardless of their religion, are seeing past the propaganda that seeks to legitimize Israel’s settler colonial project.

We hope you will continue to join us for future webinars as we work to further educate Americans and disrupt systems of repression perpetuated by the pro-Israel lobby at home and abroad. ■

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Special Report

Eight Senators, 20 Representatives in 116th Congress’ “Hall of Fame”

By Shirl McArthur WITH IMPORTANT HALL OF FAME ELECTIONS just around Career Pro-Israel Senate PAC Donations the corner, the WashingBrown, Sherrod (D-OH) $116,065 ton Report again presents Carper, Thomas (D-DE) 70,400 its Report Card for the Leahy, Patrick (D-VT) 152,481 Merkley, Jeff (D-OR) 40,725 current members of ConSanders, Bernie (I-VT) 5,000 gress.* Issues were subUdall, Tom (D-NM) 71,000 Van Hollen, Chris (D-MD) 36,306 jectively chosen to Warren, Elizabeth (D-MA) 10,000 demonstrate congresHouse sional support for, or Blumenauer, Earl (D-OR) $29,860 harm to, U.S. national inCarson, Andre (D-IN) 15,110 terests in the Middle East.

Cohen, Steve (D-TN) 42,510 DeFazio, Peter (D-OR) 29,710 For the past five years, Garcia, “Chuy” (D-IL) 1,000 since Israeli Prime MinisGrijalva, Raul (D-AZ) 25,550 Jayapal, Pramila (D-WA) 0 ter Binyamin Netanyahu, Khanna, Ro (D-CA) 13,750 in an address to ConLee, Barbara (D-CA) 14,400 Levin, Andy (D-MI) 7,000 gress, blatantly attacked Lowenthal, Alan (D-CA) 27,700 then-President Barack McCollum, Betty (D-MN) 24,750 McGovern, Jim (D-MA) 24,725 Obama with an all-out efMoore, Gwen (D-WI) 11,500 fort to scuttle Iran nuclear Omar, Ilhan (D-MN) 0 negotiations, Republicans Pingree, Chellie (D-ME) 20,676 Pocan, Mark (D-WI) 19,500 have made U.S.-Israel Raskin, Jamie (D-MD) 9,550 and U.S.-Iran relations Rush, Bobby (D-IL) 0 Watson Coleman, Bonnie (D-NJ) 23,535 strongly partisan issues.

Furthermore, President Donald Trump has insisted that congressional Republicans blindly acquiesce to his sometimes ill-considered actions. Consequently, all members of these Halls of Fame are Democrats, and members of the Halls of Shame are Republicans.

For the House, five positive and five negative issues were chosen. Twenty members registered in at least four positive columns, and they are shown in the “Hall of Fame.” The “Hall of Shame” lists the six House members who registered in all five negative columns.

For the Senate, five positive and five negative issues were chosen. Eight senators registered in four or five positive columns with no negative mark, and they are shown in the “Hall of Fame.” The “Hall of Shame” lists those seven senators who registered in all five negative columns with no positive mark.

THE ISSUES

HOUSE: The Positives 1. No to Annexation. Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) led about 190 representatives in signing a letter to Netanyahu,

Shirl McArthur is a retired U.S. foreign service officer based in the Washington, DC area.

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“Alternate Prime Minister” Benjamin Gantz, and Career Pro-Israel Senate PAC Donations Foreign Minister Gabi Barrasso, John (R-WY) $ 41,991 Ashkenazi opposing IsCotton, Tom (R-AR) 12,000 rael’s plans to annex part Cramer, Kevin (R-ND) 19,924 of the West Bank. SignCruz, Ted (R-TX) 106,705 Ernst, Joni (R-IA) 43,500 ers of the letter are Hyde-Smith, Cindy (R-MS) 16,500 shown in Column 1.

Tillis, Thom (R-NC) 16,500 2. No to “Peace House Plan.” Reps. Andy Levin Abraham, Ralph (R-LA) $8,500 (D-MI) and Alan LowenAllen, Rick (R-GA) 500 Cole, Tom (R-OK) 9,000 thal (D-CA) led more Guest, Michael (R-MS) 1,000 than 100 representatives LaMalfa, Doug (R-CA) 0 Pence, Greg (R-IN) 3,500 in signing a letter to Trump opposing his “deeply flawed proposal for peace between Israelis and Palestinians.”

Signers of the letter are shown in Column 2.

3. Khashoggi Murder.

H.R. 2037, to hold Saudi Arabia “accountable” for the murder of U.S. legal permanent resident Jamal Khashoggi, was introduced by Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-NJ) with 19 cosponsors. They are recognized in Column 3.

4. Pro-Palestinians. Reps. Mark Pocan (D-WI), Ro Khanna (D-CA) and Deb Haaland (D-NM) initiated letters supporting Palestinians. Signers of at least one of these letters are recognized in Column 4.

5. No to Anti-BDS Bill. H.Res. 246 opposing “the Global Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement” was passed by the House in July 2019, on a roll call vote. Those voting NO are shown in Column 5.

HALL OF SHAME

HOUSE: The Negatives 6. Yes to Annexation. Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) led more than 100 representatives in signing a June 22 letter to Netanyahu “expressing their support” for his plans to annex part of the West Bank. Signers are shown in Column 6.

7. No to Repeal AUMF. In January, the House passed H.R. 550 which included an amendment from a bill introduced by Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) to repeal the previously enacted Authorization for Use of Military Force against Iraq. Those voting against Lee’s amendment are shown in Column 7. *excluding members who died or resigned while in office

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8. No to Two-State Solution. In December 2019, the House passed an amended H.Res. 326 supporting a twostate solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Although weakened by the amendments, the measure still says that any U.S. proposal should expressly endorse a two-state solution. Those voting No are identified in Column 8.

9. No, Prohibit Iran Hostilities. The House-passed H.R. 550 also included an amendment from a bill introduced by Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) to “prohibit the use of funds for unauthorized military force against Iran.” Those voting against Khanna’s amendment are shown in Column 9.

10. No, Turkey Sanctions. Following Turkish military operations against Syrian Kurdish forces in Syria, the House, in October 2019, passed H.R. 4695, imposing sanctions on various Turkish officials and organizations.

Those voting against the bill are identified in Column 10.

SENATE: The Positives A. No to Annexation. Letters, initiated by Sens. Chris Murphy (D-CT), Bob Casey (D-PA), and Michael Bennet (D-CO), were sent in May to Netanyahu, Gantz and Ashkenazi opposing Israel’s plans to annex part of the West Bank. Signers of the letters are shown in Column A. B. Concern Over Yemen. Sens.

Murphy and Todd Young (R-IN) led nine senators signing a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo expressing their concern over events in Yemen, and urging the U.S. to help facilitate a diplomatic solution. Signers are shown in Column B. C. Aid for Palestinians. Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Chris Coons (D-DE) initiated separate letters to Trump and Pompeo urging them to take steps to provide humanitarian aid to the West Bank and Gaza. Signers of the letters are recognized in Column C. D. Ease Iran Sanctions. In March Sens. Murphy, Warren and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) led letters urging the Trump administration to ease sanctions against Iran. Signers are shown in Column D. E. No to “Peace Plan.” Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) led 12 senators in signing a January 2020 letter to Trump expressing their concern over his “onesided Israeli-Palestinian plan,” and urging his “administration to demonstrate a real commitment to a viable two-state solution.” Signers of the letter are recognized in Column E. SENATE: The Negatives F. For AIPAC Bills. The first bill introduced by the Senate in the 116th Congress, S.1, re-introduced four bills strongly promoted by AIPAC that didn’t get acted on in the 115th Congress.

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Those voting for the bill are shown in Column F. G. No, No Hostilities vs. Iran. In May, the Senate failed to override Trump’s veto of the February-passed S.J.Res. 68, “to direct the removal of U.S. Armed Forces from hostilities against the Islamic Republic of Iran that have not been authorized by Congress.” Those voting against S.J.Res. 68 in February or against the motion to override Trump’s veto of the measure are named in Column G. H. No, Disapprove Saudi Arms.

Following Khashoggi’s murder, at least 22 Joint Resolutions of Disapproval of arms sales to Saudi Arabia were passed by the Senate. Forty-five Republicans voted against these joint resolutions, and they are identified in Column H. I. No, No U.S. Hostilities vs.

Yemen. The Senate passed S.J.Res. 7, “to direct the removal of U.S. Armed Forces from hostilities in the Republic of Yemen,” in March 2019, by a vote of 54-46. Those voting against the measure are named in Column I. J. Yes to Annexation. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) led seven senators in signing a letter to Trump expressing their support for “the extension of Israeli civil law into Israeli communities and areas critical for Israel’s security such as the Jordan Valley.” Signers are shown in Column J. ■

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Applicants Send: • Two original signed letters of recommendation from professors of Mass Communications.

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NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2020

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REPRESENTATIVES

Alabama

Aderholt, Robert (R) Brooks, Mo (R) Byrne, Bradley (R) Palmer, Gary (R) Roby, Martha (R) Rogers, Mike (R) Sewell, Terri (D) Alaska Young, Don (R) Amer. Samoa Radewagen, A.A.C. (R) Arizona Biggs, Andy (R) Gallego, Ruben (D) Gosar, Paul (R) Grijalva, Raul (D) Kirkpatrick, Ann (D) Lesko, Debbie (R) O’Halleran, Tom (D) Schweikert, David (R) Stanton, Greg (D) Arkansas Westerman, Bruce (R) Womack, Steve (R) Crawford, Rick (R) Hill, French (R) California Aguilar, Pete (D) Barragan, Nanette (D) Bass, Karen (D) Bera, Ami (D) Brownley, Julia (D) Calvert, Ken (R) Carbajal, Salud (D) Cardenas, Tony (D) Chu, Judy (D) Cisneros, Gil (D) Cook, Paul (R) Correa, Luis (D) Costa, Jim (D) Cox, TJ (D) Davis, Susan (D) DeSaulnier, Mark (D) Eshoo, Anna (D) Garamendi, John (D) Garcia, Mike (R) Gomez, Jimmy (D) 18

X X X

X

X

X X

X X

X X

X

X X

X

X

X

X

X X X

X X X X X

X X X

X

X

X X

X

X X X X

X X X X

X X X X

X X X X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X X

X

X X X X X X X

X X X

X X X

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2020

mcarthur_hallsr_16-29.qxp_Special Report 10/15/20 8:42 PM Page 19

Turk ey S anc tion s

hibi t Ira nH o st i litie s Pro

No Soluto Two tion -Sta te

al A UM F to R

epe

xat ion

6

7

8

9

10

X

X

X

X

X

X

X X

X X

X X

X

X

X

X

No,

5

No,

No

X X

oA nne

X

X X

X X X

Yes t

4

to A nti -

3

No

2

1

B DS

a ns ti ni Pro

Pale s

Kha s

hog gi M u

rde r

l a n” No

to “ Pe a

ce P

xat ion to A nne

HALL OF SHAME. Appears in all five negative columns.

No

HALL OF FAME. Appears in at least four positive columns.

NEGATIVES Bill

POSITIVES

HOUSE KEY:

REPRESENTATIVES

California

Colorado

Connecticut

DC Delaware

Harder, Josh (D) Huffman, Jared (D) Khanna, Ro (D) LaMalfa, Doug (R) Lee, Barbara (D) Levin, Mike (D) Lieu, Ted (D) Lofgren, Zoe (D) Lowenthal, Alan (D) Matsui, Doris (D) McCarthy, Kevin (R) McClintock, Tom (R) McNerney, Jerry (D) Napolitano, Grace (D) Nunes, Devin (R) Panetta, Jimmy (D) Pelosi, Nancy (D) Peters, Scott (D) Porter, Katie (D) Rouda, Harley (D) Roybal-Allard, Lucille (D) Ruiz, Raul (D) Sanchez, Linda (D) Schiff, Adam (D) Sherman, Brad (D) Speier, Jackie (D) Swalwell, Eric (D) Takano, Mark (D) Thompson, Mike (D) Torres, Norma (D) Vargas, Juan (D) Waters, Maxine (D) Buck, Ken (R) Crow, Jason (D) DeGette, Diana (D) Lamborn, Doug (R) Neguse, Joe (D) Perlmutter, Ed (D) Tipton, Scott (R) Courtney, Joe (D) DeLauro, Rosa (D) Hayes, Jahana (D) Himes, Jim (D) Larson, John (D) Norton, Eleanor Holmes (D) Blunt Rochester, Lisa (D)

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2020

X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X

X X X

X

X

X

X X

X X X

X

X

X X

X

X X

X X

X

X

X

X X

X X

X

X X X X X X X X X

X

X X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X X X X X

X X

X X WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

19

4

5

6

7

8

9

X X

X X

X X

X X

X X

X X

No, Tu

3

hib

No to

2

No, Pro

Yes to

Rep

No to

1

osti litie s it Ir an H

MF No to T Solu w tion o-Sta te

eal AU

exa tion Ann

Pro

Ant

Kha sho g

Pale stin ians

No to

gi M urd

er

i-BD S Bi ll

NEGATIVES

No to

Ann

“Pe ace P

exa tion

lan”

POSITIVES

rke y Sa ncti ons

mcarthur_hallsr_16-29.qxp_Special Report 10/15/20 8:42 PM Page 20

10

REPRESENTATIVES

Florida

Georgia

Guam Hawaii Idaho Illinois 20

Bilirakis, Gus (R) Buchanan, Vern (R) Castor, Kathy (D) Crist, Charlie (D) Demings, Val (D) Deutch, Ted (D) Diaz-Balart, Mario (R) Dunn, Neal (R) Frankel, Lois (D) Gaetz, Matt (R) Hastings, Alcee (D) Lawson, Al (D) Mast, Brian (R) Mucarsel-Powell, Debbie (D) Murphy, Stephanie (D) Posey, Bill (R) Rooney, Francis (R) Rutherford, John (R) Shalala, Donna (D) Soto, Darren (D) Spano, Ross (R) Steube, Greg (R) Waltz, Michael (R) Wasserman Schultz, D. (D) Webster, Daniel (R) Wilson, Frederica (D) Yoho, Ted (R) Allen, Rick (R) Bishop, Sanford (D) Carter, Earl (R) Collins, Doug (R) Ferguson, A. Drew (R) Hice, Jody (R) Johnson, Hank (D) Loudermilk, Barry (R) McBath, Lucy (D) Scott, Austin (R) Scott, David (D) Woodall, Rob (R) San Nicolas, Michael (D) Case, Ed (D) Gabbard, Tulsi (D) Fulcher, Russ (R) Simpson, Mike (R) Bost, Mike (R)

X X X X X X X X X

X

X

X

X X

X

X

X

X

X

X X X

X X X

X X X

X X X

X

X

X X

X

X X X

X X

X X

X X

X X X

X X X

X X X X

X

X

X

X X X

X X

X

X

X X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X X X

X X X

X X X

X X X

X

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

X

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2020

mcarthur_hallsr_16-29.qxp_Special Report 10/15/20 8:42 PM Page 21

Turk ey S anc tion s

hibi t Ira nH o st i litie s

al A UM F epe

xat ion

6

7

8

9

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

No,

X

Pro

X

5

No,

X X X

No Soluto Two tion -Sta te

X X X

to R

X X

No

X X X

oA nne

4

Yes t

3

to A nti -

2

No

1

B DS

a ns ti ni Pro

Pale s

Kha s

hog gi M u

rde r

l a n” No

to “ Pe a

ce P

xat ion to A nne

HALL OF SHAME. Appears in all five negative columns.

No

HALL OF FAME. Appears in at least four positive columns.

NEGATIVES Bill

POSITIVES

HOUSE KEY:

10

REPRESENTATIVES

Illinois

Indiana

Iowa

Kansas

Kentucky

Louisiana

Bustos, Cheri (D) Casten, Sean (D) Davis, Danny (D) Davis, Rodney (R) Foster, Bill (D) Garcia, ”Chuy” (D) Kelly, Robin (D) Kinzinger, Adam (R) Krishnamoorthi, Raja (D) LaHood, Darin (R) Lipinski, Daniel (D) Quigley, Mike (D) Rush, Bobby (D) Schakowsky, Jan (D) Schneider, Bradley (D) Shimkus, John (R) Underwood, Lauren (D) Baird, Jim (R) Banks, Jim (R) Brooks, Susan (R) Bucshon, Larry (R) Carson, Andre (D) Hollingsworth, Trey (R) Pence, Greg (R) Visclosky, Peter (D) Walorski, Jackie (R) Axne, Cindy (D) Finkenauer, Abby (D) King, Steve (R) Loebsack, Dave (D) Davids, Sharice (D) Estes, Ron (R) Marshall, Roger (R) Watkins, Steve (R) Barr, Andy (R) Comer, James (R) Guthrie, Brett (R) Massie, Thomas (R) Rogers, Harold (R) Yarmuth, John (D) Abraham, Ralph (R) Graves, Garret (R) Higgins, Clay (R) Johnson, Mike (R) Richmond, Cedric (D) Scalise, Steve (R)

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2020

X X X X

X X

X X X

X X

X

X

X X

X

X

X X X X X

X X X X

X

X

X X X X

X

X X

X X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X X

X

X

X

X X

X X

X

X

X

X X X

X X

X X

X X X X X X

X X X

X

X X X X

X X X X X X X X

X X

X

X X

X X

X X

X

X X X X

X

X

X

X X

X

X

X

X WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

21

4

5

6

7

8

9

X

X

X

X

No, Tu

3

hib

No to

2

No, Pro

Yes to

Rep

No to

1

osti litie s it Ir an H

MF No to T Solu w tion o-Sta te

eal AU

exa tion Ann

Pro

Ant

Kha sho g

Pale stin ians

No to

gi M urd

er

i-BD S Bi ll

NEGATIVES

No to

Ann

“Pe ace P

exa tion

lan”

POSITIVES

rke y Sa ncti ons

mcarthur_hallsr_16-29.qxp_Special Report 10/15/20 8:42 PM Page 22

10

REPRESENTATIVES

Maine

Golden, Jared (D) Pingree, Chellie (D) X Mariana Islands Sablan, G. Kilili Camacho (D) Maryland Brown, Anthony (D) X Harris, Andy (R) Hoyer, Steny (D) X Mfume, Kweisi (D) Raskin, Jamie (D) X Ruppersberger, Dutch (D) X Sarbanes, John (D) X Trone, David (D) X Massachusetts Clark, Katherine (D) Keating, William (D) X Kennedy, Joseph III (D) X Lynch, Stephen (D) X McGovern, Jim (D) X Moulton, Seth (D) X Neal, Richard (D) X Pressley, Ayanna (D) X Trahan, Lori (D) X Michigan Amash, Justin (L) Bergman, Jack (R) Dingell, Debbie (D) Huizenga, Bill (R) Kildee, Dan (D) X Lawrence, Brenda (D) X Levin, Andy (D) X Mitchell, Paul (R) Moolenaar, John (R) Slotkin, Elissa (D) X Stevens, Haley (D) Tlaib, Rashida (D) X Upton, Fred (R) Walberg, Tim (R) Minnesota Craig, Angie (D) X Emmer, Tom (R) Hagedorn, Jim (R) McCollum, Betty (D) X Omar, Ilhan (D) X Peterson, Collin (D) Phillips, Dean (D) X Stauber, Pete (R) Mississippi Guest, Michael (R) Kelly, Trent (R) Palazzo, Steven (R) Thompson, Bennie (D) 22

X

X

X

X

X

X

X X X X X X X

X

X X

X X X X

X

X

X X X

X

X

X

X X

X X

X

X

X

X X

X

X

X X

X

X X

X X X

X X

X X

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

X X

X X

X

X X

X

X X X

X X X

X X X X

X X X

X X

X

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2020

mcarthur_hallsr_16-29.qxp_Special Report 10/15/20 8:42 PM Page 23

7

8

9

X X X X

X X X X X X X X X X X

X X X X X X X X X X X

X X X X X X X X X X X

X X

X

X X

X X

X X

X X

No,

6

No,

5

Turk ey S anc tion s

hibi t Ira nH o st i litie s Pro

No Soluto Two tion -Sta te

al A UM F epe

xat ion

to R

X

No

X X

oA nne

4

Yes t

3

to A nti -

2

No

1

B DS

a ns ti ni Pro

Pale s

Kha s

hog gi M u

rde r

l a n” No

to “ Pe a

ce P

xat ion to A nne

HALL OF SHAME. Appears in all five negative columns.

No

HALL OF FAME. Appears in at least four positive columns.

NEGATIVES Bill

POSITIVES

HOUSE KEY:

10

REPRESENTATIVES

Missouri

Clay, William (D) Cleaver, Emanuel (D) Graves, Sam (R) Hartzler, Vicky (R) Long, Billy (R) Luetkemeyer, Blaine (R) Smith, Jason (R) Wagner, Ann (R) Montana Gianforte, Greg (R) Nebraska Bacon, Don (R) Fortenberry, Jeff (R) Smith, Adrian (R) Nevada Amodei, Mark (R) Horsford, Steven (D) Lee, Susie (D) Titus, Dina (D) New Hampshire Kuster, Ann (D) Pappas, Chris (D) New Jersey Gottheimer, Josh (D) Kim, Andy (D) Malinowski, Tom (D) Norcross, Donald (D) Pallone, Frank (D) Pascrell, Bill (D) Payne, Donald (D) Sherrill, Mike (D) Sires, Albio (D) Smith, Chris (R) Van Drew, Jeff (R) Watson Coleman, B. (D) New Mexico Haaland, Deb (D) Lujan, Ben (D) Torres Small, Xochitl (D) New York Brindisi, Anthony (D) Clarke, Yvette (D) Delgado, Antonio (D) Engel, Eliot (D) Espaillat, Adriano (D) Higgins, Brian (D) Jacobs, Chris (R) Jeffries, Hakeem (D) Katko, John (R) King, Peter (R) Lowey, Nita (D) Maloney, Carolyn (D) Maloney, Sean (D) NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2020

X X X X X X X X X X X X X

X

X

X

X X

X

X X

X X X X

X X

X X

X

X X X

X X

X X X X X X WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

23

6

7

X

X

8

9

X

X X

No, Tu

5

hib

4

No, Pro

3

osti litie s it Ir an H

MF No to T Solu w tion o-Sta te

No to

Rep

Ann

eal AU

exa tion

i-BD S Bi ll Ant

er gi M urd

Yes to

X

No to

X X X X X

Pale stin ians

2

Pro

No to

1

NEGATIVES

Kha sho g

No to

Ann

“Pe ace P

exa tion

lan”

POSITIVES

rke y Sa ncti ons

mcarthur_hallsr_16-29.qxp_Special Report 10/15/20 8:42 PM Page 24

10

REPRESENTATIVES

New York

Meeks, Gregory (D) Meng, Grace (D) Morelle, Joseph (D) Nadler, Jerrold (D) Ocasio-Cortez, Alexandria (D) Reed, Tom (R) Rice, Kathleen (D) Rose, Max (D) Serrano, Jose (D) Stefanik, Elise (R) Suozzi, Thomas (D) Tonko, Paul (D) Velazquez, Nydia (D) Zeldin, Lee (R) North Carolina Adams, Alma (D) Bishop, Dan (R) Budd, Ted (R) Butterfield, G.K. (D) Foxx, Virginia (R) Holding, George (R) Hudson, Richard (R) McHenry, Patrick (R) Murphy, Greg (R) Price, David (D) Rouzer, David (R) Walker, Mark (R) North Dakota Armstrong, Kelly (R) Ohio Balderson, Troy (R) Beatty, Joyce (D) Chabot, Steve (R) Davidson, Warren (R) Fudge, Marcia (D) Gibbs, Bob (R) Gonzalez, Anthony (R) Johnson, Bill (R) Jordan, Jim (R) Joyce, David (R) Kaptur, Marcy (D) Latta, Bob (R) Ryan, Tim (D) Stivers, Steve (R) Turner, Michael (R) Wenstrup, Brad (R) Oklahoma Cole, Tom (R) Hern, Kevin (R) Horn, Kendra (D) 24

X X

X

X

X

X X

X X

X X

X X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X X

X X

X X

X X X X

X X X

X X X X

X

X X

X

X

X X X X

X X X X X

X

X X

X

X X

X

X

X X X X X

X X X X X

X X X X X

X

X

X

X

X X X X X

X X X X

X X X X X

X X X X

X X X

X

X X

X X

X

X

X

X

X

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2020

mcarthur_hallsr_16-29.qxp_Special Report 10/15/20 8:42 PM Page 25

5

6

7

hibi t Ira nH o st i litie s

Turk ey S anc tion s

4

8

9

X

X X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X X X X X X X

X X X X X X X

X X X

X X

X X

X X

X X X X X X X

X

X X X X X X X

No,

3

Pro

2

No,

1

No Soluto Two tion -Sta te

al A UM F No

to R

epe

xat ion Yes t

oA nne

No

to A nti -

B DS

a ns ti ni Pro

Pale s

Kha s

hog gi M u

rde r

l a n” No

to “ Pe a

ce P

xat ion to A nne

HALL OF SHAME. Appears in all five negative columns.

No

HALL OF FAME. Appears in at least four positive columns.

NEGATIVES Bill

POSITIVES

HOUSE KEY:

10

REPRESENTATIVES

Oklahoma

Lucas, Frank (R) Mullin, Markwayne (R) Oregon Blumenauer, Earl (D) Bonamici, Suzanne (D) DeFazio, Peter (D) Schrader, Kurt (D) Walden, Greg (R) Pennsylvania Boyle, Brendan (D) Cartwright, Matt (D) Dean, Madeleine (D) Doyle, Mike (D) Evans, Dwight (D) Fitzpatrick, Brian (R) Houlahan, Chrissy (D) Joyce, John (R) Keller, Fred (R) Kelly, Mike (R) Lamb, Conor (D) Meuser, Dan (R) Perry, Scott (R) Reschenthaler, Guy (R) Scanlon, Mary (D) Smucker, Lloyd (R) Thompson, Glenn (R) Wild, Susan (D) Puerto Rico Gonzalez-Colon, Jenn (R) Rhode Island Cicilline, David (D) Langevin, Jim (D) South Carolina Clyburn, James (D) Cunningham, Joe (D) Duncan, Jeff (R) Norman, Ralph (R) Rice, Tom (R) Timmons, William (R) Wilson, Joe (R) South Dakota Johnson, Dusty (R) Tennessee Burchett, Tim (R) Cohen, Steve (D) Cooper, Jim (D) DesJarlais, Scott (R) Fleischmann, Chuck (R) Green, Mark (R) Kustoff, David (R) Roe, Phil (R) Rose, John (R) Texas Allred, Colin (D) NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2020

X X X X

X X

X

X X X

X X

X X X X

X X

X X

X X X X X X X

X X

X X X X

X X

X

X

X X X X

X X X X

X

X

X X X X X

X X

X X X X

X X X X X X

X X X X X X

X X X X X

X WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

25

4

5

6

7

8

9

X X X

X X X X X

X X X X X

X X X X X

X X

X X X

X X X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X X

X

X

No, Tu

3

hib

No to

2

No, Pro

Yes to

Rep

No to

1

osti litie s it Ir an H

MF No to T Solu w tion o-Sta te

eal AU

exa tion Ann

Pro

Ant

Kha sho g

Pale stin ians

No to

gi M urd

er

i-BD S Bi ll

NEGATIVES

No to

Ann

“Pe ace P

exa tion

lan”

POSITIVES

rke y Sa ncti ons

mcarthur_hallsr_16-29.qxp_Special Report 10/15/20 8:42 PM Page 26

10

REPRESENTATIVES

Texas

Arrington, Jodey (R) Babin, Brian (R) Brady, Kevin (R) Burgess, Michael (R) Carter, John (R) Castro, Joaquin (D) Cloud, Michael (R) Conaway, K. Michael (R) Crenshaw, Daniel (R) Cuellar, Henry (D) Doggett, Lloyd (D) Escobar, Veronica (D) Fletcher, Lizzie (D) Flores, Bill (R) Garcia, Sylvia (D) Gohmert, Louie (R) Gonzalez, Vicente (D) Gooden, Lance (R) Granger, Kay (R) Green, Al (D) Hurd, Will (R) Jackson Lee, Sheila (D) Johnson, Eddie Bernice (D) Marchant, Kenny (R) McCaul, Michael (R) Olson, Pete (R) Roy, Chip (R) Taylor, Van (R) Thornberry, Mac (R) Veasey, Marc (D) Vela, Filemon (D) Weber, Randy (R) Williams, Roger (R) Wright, Ron (R) Utah Bishop, Rob (R) Curtis, John (R) McAdams, Ben (D) Stewart, Chris (R) Vermont Welch, Peter (D) Virgin Islands Plaskett, Stacey (D) Virginia Beyer, Don (D) Cline, Ben (R) Connolly, Gerald (D) Griffith, Morgan (R) Luria, Elaine (D) McEachin, A. Donald (D) 26

X

X

X X X

X X X

X X

X X

X X X X

X

X

X X

X X

X X

X X

X X X

X X

X X X X X

X X

X X X X

X X X X X

X X X X X

X X X X X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X X X

X X

X X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X X

X

X

X

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2020

mcarthur_hallsr_16-29.qxp_Special Report 10/15/20 8:42 PM Page 27

4

5

6

7

hibi t Ira nH o st i litie s

Turk ey S anc tion s

3

8

9

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X X

X X

X X

X X X

X X X X X

X X X X X

X

X X

X X

X X

X

X

X

X

No,

2

Pro

No

1

No,

No Soluto Two tion -Sta te

al A UM F

Yes t

to R

epe

xat ion

No

oA nne

B DS

Pro

to A nti -

ti ni

Kha s

Pale s

hog gi M u

No

to “ Pe a

a ns

rde r

l a n” ce P

xat ion to A nne

HALL OF SHAME. Appears in all five negative columns.

No

HALL OF FAME. Appears in at least four positive columns.

NEGATIVES Bill

POSITIVES

HOUSE KEY:

10

REPRESENTATIVES

Virginia

Riggleman, Denver (R) Scott, Robert (D) X Spanberger, Abigail (D) X Wexton, Jennifer (D) X Wittman, Rob (R) Washington DelBene, Suzan (D) X Heck, Denny (D) X Herrera Beutler, Jaime (R) Jayapal, Pramila (D) X Kilmer, Derek (D) X Larsen, Rick (D) X Newhouse, Dan (R) Rodgers, Cathy McMorris (R) Schrier, Kim (D) X Smith, Adam (D) X West Virginia McKinley, David (R) Miller, Carol (R) Mooney, Alex (R) Wisconsin Gallagher, Mike (R) Grothman, Glenn (R) Kind, Ron (D) X Moore, Gwen (D) X Pocan, Mark (D) X Sensenbrenner, Jim (R) Steil, Bryan (R) Tiffany, Thomas (R) Wyoming Cheney, Liz (R)

X X X

X

X X

X

X

X X X X X X X X X

X X X

X X

Aid for Pale stin ians

Eas e

No

For

No,

n No, Disa ppr ove Sau di A rms No, N Yem o U.S . Ho en stili ties vs.

Yes to A nne xat ion

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

es v tilit i No

Hos

lls AIP AC Bi

eac to “ P

Iran

San

e Pl

an”

ctio ns

n Yem e cern

ove r

xat ion to A nne

HALL OF SHAME. Appears in all five negative columns and no positive column.

s. Ir a

Con

A

SENATE KEY: HALL OF FAME. Appears in four or five positive columns and no marks in the negative column.

NEGATIVES

No

POSITIVES

I

X

X

X

X X

X X

X X

X X

X X

X X

J

SENATORS

Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas

Jones, Doug (D) Shelby, Richard (R) Murkowski, Lisa (R) Sullivan, Dan (R) McSally, Martha (R) Sinema, Kyrsten (D) Boozman, John (R) Cotton, Tom (R)

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2020

X X X X X X X X

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

X 27

4

5

6

7

8

9

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mcarthur_hallsr_16-29.qxp_Special Report 10/15/20 8:42 PM Page 28

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REPRESENTATIVES

California

Feinstein, Dianne (D) Harris, Kamala (D) Colorado Bennet, Michael (D) Gardner, Cory (R) Connecticut Blumenthal, Richard (D) Murphy, Christopher (D) Delaware Carper, Thomas (D) Coons, Chris (D) Florida Rubio, Marco (R) Scott, Rick (R) Georgia Loeffler, Kelly (R) Perdue, David (R) Hawaii Hirono, Mazie (D) Schatz, Brian (D) Idaho Crapo, Mike (R) Risch, James (R) Illinois Duckworth, Tammy (D) Durbin, Richard (D) Indiana Braun, Mike (R) Young, Todd (R) Iowa Ernst, Joni (R) Grassley, Chuck (R) Kansas Moran, Jerry (R) Roberts, Pat (R) Kentucky McConnell, Mitch (R) Paul, Rand (R) Louisiana Cassidy, Bill (R) Kennedy, John (R) Maine Collins, Susan (R) King, Angus (I) Maryland Cardin, Benjamin (D) Van Hollen, Chris (D) Massachusetts Markey, Edward (D) Warren, Elizabeth (D) Michigan Peters, Gary (D) Stabenow, Debbie (D) Minnesota Klobuchar, Amy (D) Smith, Tina (D) Mississippi Hyde-Smith, Cindy (R) Wicker, Roger (R) Missouri Blunt, Roy (R) Hawley, Josh (R) Montana Daines, Steve (R) Tester, Jon (D) Nebraska Fischer, Deb (R) Sasse, Ben (R) 28

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WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

X X X X X X X X X X X X

X

X

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2020

mcarthur_hallsr_16-29.qxp_Special Report 10/15/20 8:42 PM Page 29

5

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HALL OF SHAME. Appears in all five negative columns.

No

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NEGATIVES Bill

POSITIVES

HOUSE KEY:

8

9

10

X X X X X

X X X X

X X X X

X X X X

X X

X X X

X X X

X X X

X X X

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X

X

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REPRESENTATIVES

Nevada

Cortez Masto, Catherine (D) Rosen, Jacky (D) New Hampshire Hassan, Maggie (D) Shaheen, Jeanne (D) New Jersey Booker, Cory (D) Menendez, Robert (D) New Mexico Heinrich, Martin (D) Udall, Tom (D) New York Gillibrand, Kirsten (D) Schumer, Charles (D) North Carolina Burr, Richard (R) Tillis, Thom (R) North Dakota Cramer, Kevin (R) Hoeven, John (R) Ohio Brown, Sherrod (D) Portman, Rob (R) Oklahoma Inhofe, James (R) Lankford, James (R) Merkley, Jeff (D) Oregon Wyden, Ron (D) Pennsylvania Casey, Robert (D) Toomey, Patrick (R) Rhode Island Reed, Jack (D) Whitehouse, Sheldon (D) South Carolina Graham, Lindsey (R) Scott, Tim (R) South Dakota Rounds, Mike (R) Thune, John (R) Tennessee Alexander, Lamar (R) Blackburn, Marsha (R) Texas Cornyn, John (R) Cruz, Ted (R) Utah Lee, Mike (R) Romney, Mitt (R) Vermont Leahy, Patrick (D) Sanders, Bernie (I) Virginia Kaine, Tim (D) Warner, Mark (D) Washington Cantwell, Maria (D) Murray, Patty (D) West Virginia Capito, Shelley Moore (R) Manchin, Joe (D) Wisconsin Baldwin, Tammy (D) Johnson, Ron (R) Wyoming Barrasso, John (R) Enzi, Michael (R) NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2020

X X X X X X X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X X

X

X

X X X

X

X X X X

X

X X X

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X

X X X

X X X X X

X X X X X X X X

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WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

X 29

awad_30-31.qxp_Christianity and the Middle East 10/15/20 10:52 PM Page 30

Christianity and the Middle East

Palestinians protesting against Jewish settlements and Israel’s normalization of ties with two Arab states, scuffle with Israeli settlers in Asira al-Qibliya in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, on Sept. 18, 2020.

AFTER YEARS of an apparent stalemate between Israel, the Palestinians and other Arab nations, the Trump administration has heralded a so-called breakthrough in relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, two small but wealthy Gulf states, each of which is more than 1,000 miles in distance from Israel. On Sept.

15, parties interested in the region watched the televised “celebration” that was crowned with the title, “A Historic Peace Agreement.”

In a bid to justify the agreements, many commentators, with a clearly pro-Israel bias, have remarked that these treaties augur well for the Palestinians if they take advantage of the opportunity they have been afforded. Palestinians, this line of reasoning goes, should quickly join the bandwagon of these two states and pursue peace and a final settlement with Israel. These same commentators often portray the Palestinians as intransigent and rejectionist, never accepting any of the “generous offers” that Israel has put on the table. Once again, this line of thought goes,

Rev. Dr. Alex Awad is a retired United Methodist Missionary. He and his wife, Brenda, served in Jerusalem and in Bethlehem for more than 25 years. Rev. Awad served as pastor of East Jerusalem Baptist Church, dean of students at Bethlehem Bible College, and director of the Shepherd Society. Awad has written two books, Through the Eyes of the Victims and Palestinian Memories. Rev. Awad is a member of the Palestinian Christian Alliance for Peace (PCAP).

30

Palestinians are rejecting peace, and would do well to reconsider.

However, a closer reading of these new accords shows that the Palestinians, who are the very people that remain under Israeli occupation, were an afterthought in these agreements. In short, the Emirates and Bahrain agreed to these treaties to serve their own, unique interests. The Palestinians and their cause, as has so often been done in the past, were used as lip service to provide legitimacy to the new treaties. But Palestinians were not involved in, let alone consulted, about these agreements.

Is it true that Palestinians continually reject peace? I implore the reader to hear Palestinians’ voices and to understand why we have not joined the Emirates and Bahrain’s rush to join Trump’s “peace deal.” To start, I want to make clear that Palestinians are desperate for peace. We need a peace agreement with Israel more than the Emirates, Bahrain or any other Arab country.

We are the party that is suffering the most from the absence of peace. The Palestinian economy is worse than terrible; our lands are shrinking due to the encroachment of Israeli settlers; thousands of our young people languish in Israeli prisons; and over two million Palestinians live under a horrific blockade in the Gaza Strip. Moreover, our people are constantly attacked and killed by settlers and Israeli soldiers and many Palestinian homes are routinely demol-

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2020

PHOTO BY JAAFAR ASHTIYEH/AFP VIA GETTY

Sidestepping Palestinians Will Never Foster Real Peace

By Rev. Alex Awad

awad_30-31.qxp_Christianity and the Middle East 10/15/20 10:52 PM Page 31

ished by the strong arm of the occupiers.

Who in the world needs and wants peace more than Palestinians? In the past four decades, Palestinians have responded positively to every invitation to participate in conferences that promised peace. We participated in the Madrid Conference of 1991, Oslo Accords (1993), Wye River Memorandum (1998), Camp David II Summit (2000), the Clinton Parameters (2000), the Taba Summit (2001) and (2002), Road Map for Peace (2003), Geneva Accord (2003), and the Sharm el-Sheikh Summit of 2005. More recently, during the Obama administration, Palestinians welcomed and participated with U.S. initiatives to broker peace.

Did Palestinian leaders accept all the above invitations with the intent to finally reject them and tell the world, “We are not interested in peace.” Absolutely not! Nearly every instance in which Palestinians rejected the terms of the above-mentioned peace initiatives was the result of the U.S. and Israel exerting enormous pressure on Palestinians to surrender territory and rights that the U.N. and the international community had clearly declared belonged to the Palestinians.

More recently, when President Donald Trump visited Israel and Palestine soon after his election, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was happy to meet with him. However, Trump was quickly swayed by his extremely pro-Israel advisers and cabinet and immediately took incredibly offensive actions against the Palestinians, including moving the U.S. Embassy to West Jerusalem without consulting the Palestinians, as well as completely shutting down the PLO’s consular office in Washington, DC. Once Trump’s “Deal of the Century” was announced and Palestinians studied the terms, they realized that the new deal violated U.N. resolutions and international legitimacy. The deal was created by Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in collaboration with pro-Israeli American Zionist leaders including Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner, Trump’s bankruptcy lawyer U.S. Ambassador David Friedman, and Jason Greenblatt, chief legal officer to the Trump NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2020

Organization. Need I mention that the Palestinians were not consulted or involved at all in laying the groundwork for this socalled “peace deal”?

Palestinians have realized they will never achieve a fair deal during Trump’s presidency. His Zionist billionaire friends, and his Zionist-leaning Evangelical base have made sure that any move he takes must be fully pro-Israel. As his first term comes to an end, the U.S. president and his pro-settler-Zionist team realized that they would not be able to produce Israeli-Palestinian peace without the participation of Palestinians. Desperate to achieve an accomplishment in the Middle East before November, the Trump team decided to revive an Israeli plan to normalize relations with willing Arab states.

In fact, rich Gulf states have had economic and military relations with Israel for years, while paying lip service to the Palestinian cause. Their deep fear of Iran and their desire to acquire U.S. F-35 stealth fighter jets and advanced armed drones prompted them to seize the opportunity to normalize relations with Israel regardless of the objections of Palestinians.

Emirati and Bahraini leaders have unfortunately ignored the fact that the deal will make it easier for Israel to ultimately annex more than 40 percent of the West Bank and end Muslim control of Islamic holy sites in East Jerusalem. Moreover, East Jerusalem would also be placed under complete Israeli control. Reflecting on the deal, British MP Emily Thornberry said, “This is not a peace plan. This is a monstrosity…”

Palestinian leader Hanan Ashrawi commented, “Israel is occupying Palestinian land, so that’s where you need to make peace—not with countries that have had no conflict with Israel. It’s a spectacle put together to create the impression that Trump can make peace where no peace was needed, actually.”

Palestinians are tired of participating in so-called negotiations and peace initiatives where the cards are stacked against them and they aren’t even given a turn. This is precisely why they didn’t engage in this charade. When the United States and Israel truly desire peace in the Middle East, they

must address the real issues, such as Jewish settlements in the West Bank, the Israeli theft of East Jerusalem, the confiscation and annexation of Palestinian lands, the refugee issue and the blockade of the Gaza Strip. Sidestepping Palestinians and pressuring them to surrender their rights will never achieve the true, just peace that we all pray for in Palestine and Israel. ■ United States Postal Service Statement of Ownership, Management, and Circulation (required by 39 USC 6985 (1) Publication Title: Washington Report on Middle East Affairs; (2) Publication No: 015505; (3) Filing Date: 10/15/20; (4) Issue Frequency: Monthly except Jan/Feb, March/April June/July, Aug/Sept and Nov./Dec. combined (5) No. of issues published annually: 7; (6) Annual subscription price: $29; (7) Complete mailing address of known office of publication: American Educational Trust, 1902 18th St., NW, Washington, DC 20009-1707; (8) Complete mailing address of headquarters or general business office: American Educational Trust, 1902 18th St., NW, Washington, DC 20009-1707; (9) Full names and complete mailing addresses of publisher, editor and managing editor: Publisher: Andrew Killgore, 1902 18th St., NW, Washington, DC 20009-1707, Executive Editor: Delinda Hanley, 1902 18th St., NW, Washington, DC 20009-1707, Managing Editor: Dale Sprusansky, 1902 18th St., NW, Washington, DC 20009-1707; Editor: Julia Pitner, 1902 18th St., NW, Washington, DC 20009-1707; 10) Owner: American Educational Trust, 1902 18th St., NW, Washington, DC 20009-1707; (11) Known bondholders, mortgagees, and other security holders owning or holding 1 percent or more of total amount of bonds, mortgages, or other securities: none; (12) The purpose, function, and nonprofit status of this organization and the exempt status for federal income tax purposes has not changed during preceding 12 months; (13) Publication title: Washington Report on Middle East Affairs; (14) Issue date for circulation data below: Aug./Sept. 2020 XXXIXv.6 (15) Extent and nature of circulation: (a) total no. copies (net press run): Average no. copies each issue during preceding 12 months, 5365, No. copies of single issue published nearest to filing date, 5300; (b) Paid and/or requested circulation: (1) Paid/requested Outside-County mail subscriptions stated on Form 3541 (include advertiser’s proof and exchange copies): Average no. copies each issue during preceding 12 months, 1,725, No. copies of single issue published nearest to filing date, 1,675; (2) Paid In-County subscriptions stated on Form 3541 (include advertiser’s proof and exchange copies): Average no. copies each issue during preceding 12 months, 0, No. copies of single issue published nearest to filing date,0; (3) Sales through dealers and carriers, street vendors, counter sales, and other non-USPS paid distribution: Average no. copies each issue during preceding 12 months, 10 No. copies of single issue published nearest to filing date,10 (4) Other classes mailed through the USPS: Average no. copies each issue during preceding 12 months, 40 No. copies of single issue published nearest to filing date, 35; (c) Total paid and/or requested circulation [sum of 15b (1), (2), (3), and (4)]: Average no. copies each issue during preceding 12 months, 1775; No. copies of single issue published nearest to filing date, 1720; (d) Free distribution by mail (samples, complimentary and other free): (1) Outside-County as stated on Form 3541: Average no. copies each issue during preceding 12 months, 2028; No. copies of single issue published nearest to filing date 2063; (2) In-County as stated on Form 3541, Average no. copies each issue during preceding 12 months, 0, No. copies of single issue published nearest to filing date, 0; (3) Other classes mailed through the USPS, Average no. copies each issue during preceding 12 months, 250, No. copies of single issue published nearest to filing date, 269; (e) Free distribution outside the mail (carriers or other means): Average no. copies each issue during preceding 12 months, 1006 No. copies of single issue published nearest to filing date, 1012 (f) Total free distribution (sum of 15d and e): Average no. copies each issue during preceding 12 months, 3284 No. copies of single issue published nearest to filing date 3344; (g) Total distribution (sum of 15c and f): Average no. copies each issue during preceding 12 months, 5059, No. copies of single issue published nearest to filing date, 5064; (h) Copies not distributed: Average no. copies each issue during preceding 12 months, 306; No. copies of single issue published nearest to filing date 236; (i) Total (sum of 15g and h): Average no. copies each issue during preceding 12 months, 5365 No. copies of single issue published nearest to filing date, 5300; (j) percent paid and/or requested circulation (15c/15gX100): Average no. copies each issue during preceding 12 months, 35%, No. copies of single issue published nearest to filing date, 34%; 16 Electronic Copy Circulation: a. Paid Electronic Copies: Average No. Copies Each issue during preceding 12 months: 58; No. Copies of Single Issue Published Nearest to Filing Date: 56; Total paid print copies and paid Electronic Copies: Average No. Copies Each issue during preceding 12 months: 1775;Total paid print and Electronic Copies of Single Issue published nearest to filing date: 1720; Total Print Distribution +Paid Distribution: Average No. Copies Each issue during preceding 12 months: 5117; Total paid print and Electronic Copies of Single Issue published nearest to filing date: 5120; Percent Paid (Both Print & Electronic Copies): Average No. Copies Each issue during preceding 12 months: 35%;Total paid print and Electronic Copies of Single Issue published nearest to filing date 34%.

This statement of ownership wil be printed in the Nov/.Dec. 2020 issue of this publication; (17) Signature and Title of Editor, Publisher, Business Manager, or Owner: Delinda Hanley, Executive Director, 9/12/19, I certify that all information furnished on this form is true and complete. I understand that anyone who furnishes false or misleading information on this form or who omits material or information requested on the form may be subject to criminal sanctions (including fines and imprisonment) and/or civil sanctions (including civil penalties). Failure to file or publish a statement of ownership may lead to suspension of second-class authorization. PS Form 3526 October 1999 (Facsimile).

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

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williams_32-33.qxp_UNITED NATIONS REPORT 10/15/20 8:54 PM Page 32

United Nations Report

No Sure Winners, but Definite Losers in Trump’s Peace Deals: Palestinians and Kosovars

Kosovo President Hashim Thaci during his speech at the Rosh Hashanah ceremony organized by the Kosovar and Albanian Jewish communities on Sept. 15, 2020 in Pristina, Kosovo. The event comes almost two weeks after Kosovo and Israel announced mutual diplomatic relations at an event in Washington, DC and the establishment of a Kosovar Embassy in Jerusalem.

U.N. GENERAL ASSEMBLIES often used to have a productionline quality as delegates personally but woodenly delivered faithful renditions of content-free speeches. In those pre-COVID days, one got the impression that Moscow Speech Central delivered a dozen or so identical speeches to Warsaw Pact delegates. That was then, but there has now been progress. This year most heads of state or government delivered pre-recorded speeches but their lack of interest was due more to the lack of inspiration from the current paucity of world leadership than to any enforcesd party line.

In fact, the big show-biz disappointment was, of course, President Donald Trump’s damp squib of a speech which excoriated a highly selective group of enemies while in no way addressing any type of multilateral action. His speech did not totally disappoint—referring to COVID as the “China Virus” at the U.N. is not one of the great moments of diplomacy. “The nation which unleashed this plague

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).

32

onto the world: China” gets cheers in a NASCAR stadium rally but it’s unlikely to get similar resonance at the United Nations.

However, some claims do bear closer examination. He boasted, “We achieved a peace deal between Serbia and Kosovo. We reached a landmark breakthrough with two peace deals in the Middle East, after decades of no progress. Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain all signed a historic peace agreement in the White House, with many other Middle Eastern countries to come. They are coming fast, and they know it’s great for them and it’s great for the world.”

If readers can control their guffaws and gag reflexes, we should parse the details of these “peace deals,” which all portend unending conflicts in the long term in return for ephemeral domestic political advantage. To be fair to Trump, this is not unique to him. Anyone with any geopolitical sense would know that patched together pacts like Oslo and Dayton, which do not mandate the means of delivery for recidivist deal breakers like successive Serbian and Israeli governments, are simply suspending or postponing conflict. Once the Israelis got what they wanted, the effective abandonment of Arab, Muslim and

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2020

PHOTO BY FERDI LIMANI/GETTY IMAGES

By Ian Williams

williams_32-33.qxp_UNITED NATIONS REPORT 10/15/20 8:54 PM Page 33

votes from pro-Israeli voters in swing states Western and unlikely to take the Palestinian Non-Aligned diplomatic solidarity with the in Florida for Trump’s success in getting anside. However, this house of scraps of Palestinians, they had no incentive other other pseudo Muslim country to recognize paper has a very finite shelf life. It is an exthan their own conscience and good standIsrael and move its embassy to Jerusalem. pedient electioneering construct designed ing with the world to fulfill their part of Oslo.

Needless to say, it will be mentioned in Neto last through the U.S. and Israeli elections, But, by the time it was played out, the Nobel tanyahu’s election materials as well. and no longer. Republican Albanians rePeace prizes had been won, and Clinton had Overall, while Dayton and Oslo bought portedly promised Trump a strategic (and pocketed the campaign donations. at least some years of stable stagnation almost certainly exaggerated) block of So, Washington Report readers know how for Palestinians and the Bosnians, this votes in Michigan (where 10,000 votes well relying on Israeli promises has worked deal has a much shorter shelf life. Back in turned the last election) in return, as did for the Palestinians and for peace so far, and the real world, after the elections, Serbia Serb lobbyists who were privately assured can form their own opinions on the efficacy will renew the pressure on Pristina and that there would be a territorial swap of Alof the Emirati and Bahraini agreements in serenege on its promise to Israel if Nebanian majority districts in Serbia with (curcuring Palestinian rights. But they might be tanyahu were actually to open an emrently) Serb majority areas in Kosovo. less aware of the Kosovar intricacies. bassy in Kosovo. There is in fact no “deal” In the meantime, the usual suspects On the face of it, Kosovo and Palestine between Serbia and Kosovo since Belpromised big checks and possibly even have much in common. Like the Palestinigrade does not recognize its ans, the Kosovars were ethni(Advertisement) former province as an indecally cleansed and repressed, pendent state. Instead both at least in part because of their parties have made separate perceived religion, Islam. Both promises to the U.S.—that have been recognized by a they implement agreements majority of countries—but crafted by the EU! their aggressors and wouldIn return for this pseudo be occupiers have lobbied indeal, Kosovo loses much ternationally against their full needed support in the Nonrecognition by, for example, Aligned and Muslim world the United States. In Kosovo, while looking globally like a the U.S. effectively procured a postage stamp state whose party coup against the very vote can be bought across the friendly government there to counter of the U.N. post office. cement this multipart deal.

Local observers consider Bear in mind that the issue of there are real chances of a Kosovar relations with Israel fundamentalist upsurge there was not a big deal—they are over U.S. treatment of its relvery laid back “Episcopalianatively popular anti-corruption style” nominal Muslims fond of government and the anticithe aperitif raki. pated stiffing by Belgrade.

It was Israel that until now Playgrounds for Palestine is a project to build playgrounds for our And of course, there are the refused recognition of children. It is a minimal recognition of their right to childhood and creative expression.

It is an act of love. enhanced chances of a fundaKosovo, precisely because of mentalist government in Israel the precedent for Palestine, Playgrounds for Palestine (PfP) is a registered 501(c)3 non-profit and Washington in the unlikely so this was apparently a organization, established in 2001. We’re an all-volunteer organizaevent that Trump’s convoluted volte-face for the Jewish state tion (no paid staff) that raises money throughout the year to conelectoral algorithms play out. struct playgrounds and fund programs for which now risks alienating its children in Palestine.

So, there are no sure winners. axis of ethnic cleansing with However, there are definite Belgrade. As part of the deal Selling Organic, Fair Trade Palestinian olive losers: the Palestinians, the Serbia has agreed to move its oil is PfP’s principle source of fundraising.

Kosovars, as well as the elecembassy to Jerusalem as is year, PfP launched AIDA, a private label olive oil from Palestinian farmers. torates of Israel and the U.S. well as a favor Washington, in Please come by and taste it at our table.

The Middle East has suffered return for which they merely for years from Washington’s promised not to press Kosovo We hope you’ll love it and make it a staple in your pantry. habit of seeing foreign policy too vigorously for a time. as a domestic political game Kosovo doesn’t lose that For more information or to make a donation visit: board, but this “deal” is fatuous much, since most of the counhttps://playgroundsforpalestine.org • P.O. Box 559 • Yardley, PA 19067 even by those standards. ■ tries that recognize it are proNOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2020

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

33

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Special Report

VOA’s Arabic Service in Rhodes, Greece, circa 1972. The reputation of this nearly 80-year-old institution may be sullied beyond repair.

WHEN I TRAVEL, I’ve been startled to discover that ordinary people in the Middle East know more about the United States than many American voters. That’s because they’ve been hearing extraordinary, in-depth, unbiased reporting about this country and the rest of the world from the Voice of America (VOA) since 1942.

Some of my earliest memories are of driving home after a Sunday spent in the desert or on a beach in the Middle East, listening to VOA on the radio. Later, from 1970-1973, my father, Richard Curtiss, Washington Report’s co-founder, worked with the VOA’s Arabic Service in Rhodes, Greece, along with some of the best journalists from across the Arab world. When the station was relocated, all those talented employees kept their jobs with VOA, many of them moving with their families to the U.S. Those VOA old-timers stayed in touch and their children became immigrant success stories—doctors, dentists, professors and restauranteurs. One son, Palestinian-born Mohammed Hadid, became an American real estate mogul and sired supermodels Bella, Gigi and Anwar Hadid.

Now, VOA’s reliable, un-censored news about the U.S. and the rest of the world is under attack.

Donald Trump, the disrupter in chief, selected Michael Pack, an alt-right filmmaker, to run the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), which oversees international broadcasting, including VOA. Pack is an ally of former White House chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon, who has been indicted for defrauding donors who thought they were funding construction of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Delinda C. Hanley is executive editor of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.

34

For two years, the Senate Democrats resisted Pack’s confirmation, saying they rejected a nominee who is under an active criminal investigation. The DC Attorney General’s office is investigating reports that Pack’s nonprofit, Public Media Lab, funneled $1.6 million into Pack’s conservative film and TV production company, Manifold Productions. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in a party-line 12-10 vote, finally confirmed Pack’s appointment on June 4, 2020.

Then the Pack and Bannon purge they’d vowed to make, ridding U.S. broadcasters of what they describe as “deep state” elements, began. As soon as Pack was confirmed, he fired seasoned experts and began turning USAGM into a propaganda arm for the Trump administration. Pack fired the top editors of Middle East Broadcasting, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio-Free Asia and the Office of Cuba Broadcasting. Two top VOA editors, VOA director Amanda Bennett and deputy director Sandy Sugawara, resigned.

The Washington Post’s Jackson Diehl said that Pack also “ousted the diplomats and media professionals on oversight boards and replaced them with low-level Trumpists from other government agencies.” By the way, federal law prohibits government officials from interfering with independent reporting by these news agencies.

Next, Pack refused to renew the J-1 visas of foreign-born journalists, who produce news reports in 47 languages, in order to “protect U.S. national security,” insinuating they were spies. About 100 VOA news employees are not U.S. citizens (just like many of our friends in the 1970s, who became Americans). These foreign nationals are experienced bilingual reporters who can’t be easily replaced by U.S. citizens in newsrooms.

Pack also froze all VOA contracts, under which some 40 percent

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2020

CURTISS FAMILY PHOTO

VOA Punished for Telling America’s, Instead Of Trump’s, Story

By Delinda C. Hanley

hanley_34-35.qxp_SPECIAL REPORT 10/15/20 8:56 PM Page 35

of its staff are employed. According to the Washington Post, these actions will devastate VOAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ability to deliver news to foreign audiences, including in authoritarian states, where many people depend on U.S. broadcasting for uncensored information.

The National Press Club (NPC), which represents more than 3,000 reporters, editors and professional communicators worldwide, urged Pack to renew expiring visas for foreign journalists working in the U.S. for Voice of Americaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s international services. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We know of no sensible reason to deny VOAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s foreign journalists renewed visas,â&#x20AC;? said NPC president Michael Freedman. â&#x20AC;&#x153;These men and women provide an essential service to VOA by reporting from the U.S. and telling the American story to their audiences overseas. They have the language skills and cultural background to perform this work. They are not taking jobs away from American workers.â&#x20AC;?

Authorities in their countries of origin may have been angered by VOAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s reporting.

Radio Free Europe has long been a target of Russia, who issued arrest warrants for their journalists in 2010. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Failure to renew visas for VOAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s foreign journalists could be tragic,â&#x20AC;? said NPC Journalism Institute president

Angela Greiling Keane. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Instead of fulfilling its mission of standing for press freedoms, USAGM would be chasing journalists out of the U.S. and putting them in harmâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s way.â&#x20AC;?

American-born reporters are also in danger. Pack ordered two of his aides to investigate the journalism of Steve Herman, the VOA White House Bureau Chief, who reported on Vice President Penceâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s disregard for masks. Their confidential 30-page report recommended Herman be banned from covering presidential politics because of a perceived conflict of interest.

Alhurra is a U.S-based public Arabic-language satellite TV channel, operated by the Middle East Broadcasting Networks, which also operates Radio Sawa that broadcasts news programming to audiences in the Middle East and North Africa. Pack has issued â&#x20AC;&#x153;guidanceâ&#x20AC;? to Alhurra reporters regarding issues on which they can or cannot report.

They have been told that their stories must not be critical of Trump and they should focus more on stories about â&#x20AC;&#x153;his achievements.â&#x20AC;?

Pack ignored a bipartisan letter from senators objecting to his â&#x20AC;&#x153;termination of qualified, expert staff and network heads for no specific reason.â&#x20AC;? Pack also ignored a subpoena to testify at a House hearing. In ad(Advertisement)

dition, whistleblowers allege Pack â&#x20AC;&#x153;illegally diverted funds, ignored congressional reporting requirements, and sought to investigate the voting histories of USAGM employees,â&#x20AC;? according to Diehl, the Post reporter.

Another recent move, this time by the Trump administrationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s U.S. Department of Justice, called for AJ+, the U.S.-based online news affiliate of the Al Jazeera media network, to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). Al Jazeera, which receives funding from the government of Qatar but maintains its editorial independence (much like USAGM, pre-Pack), has been targeted by Saudi Arabia and the UAE since its launch in 1996. The NPC's Journalism Institute criticized this â&#x20AC;&#x153;wholly politicalâ&#x20AC;? action by the Justice Department, because it â&#x20AC;&#x153;effectively says that the U.S. government views Al Jazeera to be a propaganda arm of the Qatari government rather than the independent news organization that journalists all over the world know it to be.â&#x20AC;?

The fourth estate, which plays a crucial role in the outcome of political issues, is under siege. Whether or not Trump loses the election, the damage he has already inflicted on U.S. government-funded media, venerated around the world, is calamitous. â&#x2013;

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Special Report

A Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II fifth-generation combat aircraft performs a demonstration flight during the 2019 Dubai Airshow. Washington is studying ways to make the F-35 more visible to Israeli radar systems by changing the jet or providing Israel with better radar, among other possibilities.

THE UNITED STATES has the dubious distinction of being the world’s leading arms dealer. It dominates the global trade in a historic fashion and nowhere is that domination more complete than in the endlessly war-torn Middle East. There, believe it or not, the U.S. controls nearly half the arms market. From Yemen to Libya to Egypt, sales by this country and its allies are playing a significant role in fueling some of the world’s most devastating conflicts. But Donald Trump, even before he was felled by COVID-19 and sent to Walter Reed Medical Center, could not have cared less, as long as he thought such trafficking in the tools of death and destruction would help his political prospects.

Look, for example, at the recent “normalization” of relations between the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Israel he helped to broker, which has set the stage for yet another surge in American arms exports. To hear Trump and his supporters tell it, he deserves a Nobel Peace Prize for the deal, dubbed “the Abraham Accords.”

In fact, using it, he was eager to brand himself as “Donald Trump, peacemaker” in advance of the November election. This, believe me, was absurd on the face of it. Until the pandemic swept every-

William D. Hartung writes regularly for TomDispatch. He is the director of the Arms and Security Program at the Center for International Policy and the co-author of The Mideast Arms Bazaar: Top Arms Suppliers to the Middle East and North Africa 2015 to 2019.

Copyright ©2020 William D. Hartung—distributed by Agence Global 36

thing in the White House away, it was just another day in Trump world and another example of the president’s penchant for exploiting foreign and military policy for his own domestic political gain.

If the narcissist-in-chief had been honest for a change, he would have dubbed those Abraham Accords the “Arms Sales Accords.”

The UAE was, in part, induced to participate in hopes of receiving Lockheed Martin’s F-35 combat aircraft and advanced armed drones as a reward. For his part, after some grumbling, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu decided to one-up the UAE and seek a new $8 billion arms package from the Trump administration, including an additional squadron of Lockheed Martin’s F-35s (beyond those already on order), a fleet of Boeing attack helicopters, and so much more. Were that deal to go through, it would undoubtedly involve an increase in Israel’s more than ample military aid commitment from the United States, already slated to total $3.8 billion annually for the next decade.

JOBS, JOBS, JOBS

This wasn’t the first time President Trump tried to capitalize on arms sales to the Middle East to consolidate his political position at home and his posture as this country’s dealmaker par excellence. Such gestures began in May 2017, during his very first official overseas trip to Saudi Arabia. The Saudis greeted him then with ego-boosting fanfare, putting banners featuring his face along

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

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PHOTO BY MARINA LYSTSEVA\TASS VIA GETTY IMAGES

The Art of the Weapons Deal in the Age of Trump

By William D. Hartung

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roadways leading into their capital, Riyadh; projecting a giant image of that same face on the hotel where he was staying; and presenting him with a medal in a surreal ceremony at one of the Kingdom’s many palaces.

For his part, Trump came bearing arms in the form of a supposed $110 billion weapons package. Never mind that the size of the deal was vastly exaggerated. It allowed the president to gloat that his sales deal there would mean “jobs, jobs, jobs” in the United States.

If he had to work with one of the most repressive regimes in the world to bring those jobs home, who cared? Not he and certainly not his son-in-law Jared Kushner who would develop a special relationship with the Saudi Crown Prince and heir apparent to the throne, Mohammed bin Salman.

Trump doubled down on his jobs argument in a March 2018 White House meeting with bin Salman. The president came armed with a prop for the cameras: a map of the U.S. showing the states that (he swore) would benefit most from Saudi arms sales, including—you won’t be surprised to learn—the crucial election swing states of Pennsylvania, Ohio and Wisconsin.

Nor will it surprise you that Trump’s jobs claims from those Saudi arms sales are almost entirely fraudulent. In fits of fancy, he’s even insisted that he’s creating as many as half a million jobs linked to weapons exports to Riyadh. The real number is less than onetenth that amount—and far less than onetenth of one percent of U.S. employment.

But why let the facts get in the way of a good story?

AMERICAN ARMS DOMINANCE

Donald Trump is far from the first president to push tens of billions of dollars of arms into the Middle East. The Obama administration, for example, made a record $115 billion in arms offers to Saudi Arabia during its eight years in office, including combat aircraft, attack helicopters, armored vehicles, military ships, missile defense systems, bombs, guns and ammunition.

Those sales solidified Washington’s position as the Saudis’ primary arms supplier.

Two-thirds of its air force consists of Boeing NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2020

F-15 aircraft, the vast bulk of its tanks are General Dynamics M-1s, and most of its air-to-ground missiles come from Raytheon and Lockheed Martin. And mind you, those weapons aren’t just sitting in warehouses or being displayed in military parades.

They’ve been among the principal killers in a brutal Saudi intervention in Yemen that has sparked the world’s worst humanitarian catastrophe.

A new report from the Arms and Security Program at the Center for International Policy (which I co-authored) underscores just how stunningly the U.S. dominates the Middle Eastern weapons market. According to data from the arms transfer database compiled by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, in the period from 2015 to 2019 the United States accounted for 48 percent of major weapons deliveries to the Middle East and North Africa, or (as that vast region is sometimes known acronymically) MENA. Those figures leave deliveries from the next largest suppliers in the dust. They represent nearly three times the arms Russia supplied to MENA, five times what France contributed, 10 times what the United Kingdom exported, and 16 times China’s contribution.

In other words, we have met the prime weapons proliferator in the Middle East and North Africa and it is us.

The influence of U.S. arms in this conflict-ridden region is further illustrated by a striking fact: Washington is the top supplier to 13 of the 19 countries there, including Morocco (91 percent of its arms imports), Israel (78 percent), Saudi Arabia (74 percent), Jordan (73 percent), Lebanon (73 percent), Kuwait (70 percent), the UAE (68 percent), and Qatar (50 percent). If the Trump administration goes ahead with its controversial plan to sell F-35s and armed drones to the UAE and brokers that related $8 billion arms deal with Israel, its share of arms imports to those two countries will be even higher in the years to come.

DEVASTATING CONSEQUENCES

None of the key players in today’s most devastating wars in the Middle East produce their own weaponry, which means

that imports from the U.S. and other suppliers are the true fuel sustaining those conflicts. Advocates of arms transfers to the MENA region often describe them as a force for “stability,” a way to cement alliances, counter Iran, or more generally a tool for creating a balance of power that makes armed engagement less likely.

In a number of key conflicts in the region, this is nothing more than a convenient fantasy for arms suppliers (and the U.S. government), as the flow of ever more advanced weaponry has only exacerbated conflicts, aggravated human rights abuses, and caused countless civilian deaths and injuries, while provoking widespread destruction. And keep in mind that, while not solely responsible, Washington is the chief culprit when it comes to the weaponry that’s fueling a number of the area’s most violent wars.

In Yemen, a Saudi/UAE-led intervention that began in March 2015 has, by now, resulted in the deaths of thousands of civilians through air strikes, put millions at risk of famine, and helped create the desperate conditions for the worst cholera outbreak in living memory. That war has already cost more than 100,000 lives and the U.S. and the United Kingdom have been the primary suppliers of the combat aircraft, bombs, attack helicopters, missiles, and armored vehicles used there, transfers valued in the tens of billions of dollars.

There has been a sharp jump in overall arms deliveries to Saudi Arabia since that war was launched. Dramatically enough, total arms sent to the Kingdom more than doubled between the 2010-2014 period and the years from 2015 to 2019. Together, the U.S. (74 percent) and the U.K. (13 percent) accounted for 87 percent of all arms deliveries to Saudi Arabia in that five-year time frame.

In Egypt, U.S.-supplied combat aircraft, tanks and attack helicopters have been used in what is supposedly a counterterror operation in the Northern Sinai desert, which has, in reality, simply become a war largely against the civilian population of the region. Between 2015 and 2019, Washington’s arms offers to Egypt totaled $2.3 billion, with billions more in deals made earlier

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but delivered in those years. And in May 2020, the Pentagon’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency announced that it was offering a package of Apache attack helicopters to Egypt worth up to $2.3 billion.

According to research conducted by Human Rights Watch, thousands of people have been arrested in the Sinai region over the past six years, hundreds have been disappeared, and tens of thousands have been forcibly evicted from their homes.

Armed to the teeth, the Egyptian military has also carried out “systematic and widespread arbitrary arrests—including of children—enforced disappearances, torture, extrajudicial killings, collective punishment and forced eviction.” There is also evidence to suggest that Egyptian forces have engaged in illegal air and ground strikes that have killed substantial numbers of civilians.

In several conflicts—examples of how such weapons transfers can have dramatic and unintended impacts—U.S. arms have ended up in the hands of both sides. When Turkish troops invaded northeastern Syria in October 2019, for instance, they faced Kurdish-led Syrian militias that had received some of the $2.5 billion in arms and training the U.S. had supplied to Syrian opposition forces over the previous five years. Meanwhile, the entire Turkish inventory of combat aircraft consists of U.S.-supplied F-16s and more than half of its armored vehicles are of American origin.

In Iraq, when the forces of the Islamic State, or ISIS, swept through a significant part of that country from the north in 2014, they captured U.S. light weaponry and armored vehicles worth billions of dollars from the Iraqi security forces this country had armed and trained. Similarly, in more recent years, U.S. arms have been transferred from the Iraqi military to Iranian-backed militias operating alongside them in the fight against ISIS. Meanwhile, in Yemen, while the U.S. has directly armed the Saudi/UAE coalition, its weaponry has, in fact, ended up being used by all sides in the conflict, including their Houthi opponents, extremist militias, and groups linked to al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. This equal-opportunity spread 38

of American weaponry has occurred thanks to arms transfers by former members of the U.S.-supplied Yemeni military and by UAE forces that have worked with an array of groups in the southern part of the country.

Who benefits? Just four companies— Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Boeing and General Dynamics—were involved in the overwhelming majority of U.S. arms deals with Saudi Arabia between 2009 and 2019.

In fact, at least one or more of those companies played key roles in 27 offers worth more than $125 billion (out of a total of 51 offers worth $138 billion). In other words, in financial terms, more than 90 percent of the U.S. arms offered to Saudi Arabia involved at least one of those top four weapons makers.

In its brutal bombing campaign in Yemen, the Saudis have killed thousand of civilians with U.S.-supplied weaponry. In the years since the Kingdom launched its war, indiscriminate air strikes by the Saudi-led coalition have hit marketplaces, hospitals, civilian neighborhoods, water treatment centers and even a school bus filled with children.

American-made bombs have repeatedly been used in such incidents, including an attack on a wedding, where 21 people, children among them, were killed by a GBU12 Paveway II guided bomb manufactured

by Raytheon.

A General Dynamics 2,000-pound bomb with a Boeing JDAM guidance system was used in a March 2016 strike on a marketplace that killed 97 civilians, including 25 children. A Lockheed Martin laser-guided bomb was utilized in an August 2018 attack on a school bus that slaughtered 51 people, including 40 children. A September 2018 report by the Yemeni group Mwatana for Human Rights identified 19 air strikes on civilians in which U.S.-supplied weapons were definitely used, pointing out that the destruction of that bus was “not an isolated incident, but the latest in a series of gruesome [Saudi-led] coalition attacks involving U.S. weapons.”

It should be noted that the sales of such weaponry have not occurred without resistance. In 2019, both houses of Congress voted down a bomb sale to Saudi Arabia because of its aggression in Yemen, only to

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have their efforts thwarted by a presidential veto. In some instances, as befits the Trump administration’s modus operandi, those sales have involved questionable political maneuvers. Take, for instance, a May 2019 declaration of an “emergency” that was used to push through an $8.1 billion deal with the Saudis, the UAE and Jordan for precision-guided bombs and other equipment that simply bypassed normal congressional oversight procedures completely.

At the behest of Congress, the State Department’s Office of Inspector General then opened an investigation into the circumstances surrounding that declaration, in part because it had been pushed by a former Raytheon lobbyist working in State’s Office of Legal Counsel. However, the inspector general in charge of the probe, Steven Linick, was soon fired by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for fear that his investigation would uncover administration wrongdoing and, after he was gone, the ultimate findings proved largely—surprise!—a whitewash, exonerating the administration. Still, the report did note that the Trump administration had failed to take adequate care to avoid civilian harm by U.S. weaponry supplied to the Saudis.

Even some Trump administration officials have had qualms about the Saudi deals.

The New York Times has reported that a number of State Department personnel were concerned about whether they could someday be held liable for aiding and abetting war crimes in Yemen.

Will America remain the world’s greatest arms dealer? If Donald Trump is re-elected, don’t expect U.S. sales to the Middle East—or their murderous effects—to diminish any time soon. To his credit, Joe Biden has pledged as president to end U.S. arms and support for the Saudi war in Yemen.

For the region as a whole, however, don’t be shocked if, even in a Biden presidency, such weaponry continues to flow in and it remains business as usual for this country’s giant arms merchants to the detriment of the peoples of the Middle East. Unless you’re Raytheon or Lockheed Martin, selling arms is one area where no one should want to keep America “great.” ■ NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2020

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The Nakba Continues

Netanyahu Feigns Regret over Police Cover-Up in Killing of Teacher Abu al-Qiyan

By Jonathan Cook

PHOTO JONATHAN COOK

THREE YEARS AFTER the Israeli government began vilifying a Palestinian teacher to retrospectively justify his murder by Israel’s security forces, Binyamin Netanyahu issued a public apology to his family. Referring to the death of Yacoub Abu alQiyan in 2017, the Israeli prime minister said on Sept.

8, “Yesterday we found out he was not a terrorist.”

Israeli police, said Netanyahu, had portrayed 50year-old Abu al-Qiyan as “a terrorist to protect themselves” and stop their crimes from being exposed. They shot him even though he posed no threat. Abu alQiyan was unarmed and dri- Thousands of Palestinians turn out for the funeral of Yacoub Abu al-Qiyan in Umm al-Hiran in January 2017. They ving at less than 10 km (6 were to be disappointed: the police refused to hand over the body because they claimed he was a terrorist. miles) per hour at the time.

After shooting him, police left him to bleed to death for half an hour, country’s Jewish majority. Palestinian “citizens” comprise a fifth of denying him medical assistance that would have saved his life.

Israel’s population.

To cover up their role, police falsely claimed that he had tried to Bedouin citizens like Abu al-Qiyan face the most discrimination ram them with his car. The Israeli state prosecution service was of all Palestinian communities inside Israel. Nonetheless, he had deeply implicated in this affair too, added Netanyahu. They had managed to gain a Ph.D. in chemistry; the first Bedouin to do so in blocked a criminal investigation, even though they knew what really Israel. happened.

Netanyahu was also correct in that Abu al-Qiyan was a victim of Netanyahu said he and his ministers had been deceived back in extreme police brutality. When his car came under a hail of gunfire, early 2017—suggesting this was the reason he wrongly accused he was hit twice by live rounds. He lost control of his car as a result, Abu al-Qiyan of committing a “terror attack.” In fact, Netanyahu was which sped downhill out of control, hitting and killing a policeman. not telling the whole truth.

Abu al-Qiyan was then left to bleed to death as police and Israeli Indeed, Abu al-Qiyan was not a terrorist, or a member of the Ismedical teams refused to come to his aid. “Had he received treatlamic State, as the police repeatedly claimed. He was a school ment...he would not have died,” concluded Dr. Maya Forman, who deputy principal, and member of Israel’s large Palestinian minority. helped conduct the autopsy.

That made him—unlike the Palestinians in the occupied territories— Where Netanyahu was wrong, however, was in suggesting he an Israeli citizen, though one with few of the rights enjoyed by the was ever deceived by the police claims. He knew from the start that Abu al-Qiyan was not a terrorist, even while publicly calling him one.

Jonathan Cook is a journalist based in Nazareth and a winner of the The Shin Bet, Israel’s intelligence service, which is directly anMartha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. He is the author of swerable to the prime minister, concluded within two days that the Blood and Religion and Israel and the Clash of Civilisations (available from AET’s Middle East Books and More). incident was not a terror attack.

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2020

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39

Yacoub Abu al-Qiyan’s widow, Raba, and one of their children sit amid the rubble of the home that Israeli Border Police demolished in January 2017, on the night they shot him and then allowed him to bleed to death.

Netanyahu not only colluded in the character assassination of Abu al-Qiyan—following his physical assassination by the police—but along with his ministers amplified those slurs to include the rest of Israel’s Palestinian minority.

His police minister at the time, Gilad Erdan, demonized the minority’s representatives in the parliament, accusing them of condoning terrorism and inciting against the police by denying that Abu al-Qiyan’s killing was justified.

But Netanyahu’s goal in apologizing was not to clear Abu al-Qiyan’s name. It was to tarnish the reputation of the Israeli police and prosecution service—and for self-interested reasons. Those involved in the killing of Abu al-Qiyan and the cover-up are the same police force and prosecution service that will be acting against Netanyahu in December, when his corruption trial begins in earnest.

Netanyahu faces a string of charges that he committed bribery, fraud and breach of trust. His political survival now depends on breathing life into a narrative that the Israeli police and legal system are themselves corrupt and waging an anti-democratic war to bring the prime minister down.

Should he succeed, he will demand that 40

all the corruption charges against him are dropped.

Palestinian legislator, Aida ToumaSuleiman, tweeted that Netanyahu’s apology was worthless, calling it the “cynical use of blood for ominous political purposes.”

Nonetheless, Netanyahu is right about the profound corruption and anti-democratic nature of Israel’s law enforcement and prosecution system—even if that corruption is not against him.

Human rights groups have long shown that the Israeli security services too often have trigger-happy fingers and contempt for Palestinian life. Investigations rarely take place, and when they do their findings are preordained. Prosecutors turn a blind eye to police misdeeds, hastily closing such files.

Shortly after Netanyahu’s apology, Human Rights Watch demanded the return of the body of Ahmed Erekat, a 26-year-old Palestinian shot by Israeli soldiers in violation of both Israeli and international law. His death parallels Abu al-Qiyan’s treatment.

In late June Erekat was shot dead by soldiers in what they called a car-ramming at a West Bank checkpoint but appeared to be a traffic accident in which a soldier was lightly injured. Video shows Erekat emerg-

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ing from his car, posing no visible threat, only to be gunned down by soldiers. Medical crews were again blocked from approaching.

Efforts by Human Rights Watch to find out whether Erekat was armed, or whether Israel has conducted an investigation, have all gone unanswered.

In late May Israeli police also killed an autistic Palestinian man, Iyad al-Hallaq, shooting him at close range after chasing him through Jerusalem’s Old City. There were at least 10 cameras in that area, according to local media, but Israeli authorities claim none were working.

As these incidents suggest, Abu alQiyan’s story is no aberration.

The context for Abu al-Qiyan’s killing in January 2017 were Israeli police efforts to implement a Netanyahu government decision to demolish his village, Umm al-Hiran, in Israel’s semi-desert Negev region. The entire village, home to 1,000 Palestinian citizens of Israel, was due to be razed so it could be replaced by a new, exclusively Jewish community, Hiran.

It was the second time these Bedouin villagers were being ethnically cleansed by their own state. Sixty years earlier, the Israeli army expelled them from their ancestral lands to make way for another exclusively Jewish community.

Years of struggle, aided by international and local human rights groups, had come to naught. The country’s highest court had ruled: “The residents of Umm al-Hiran have no right to the place.”

Trying to avoid bad publicity, Netanyahu’s government sent in hundreds of members of a paramilitary unit, the Border Police, under cover of night to forcibly evict the villagers. They arrived with live ammunition, rubber bullets, tear gas and stun grenades.

Abu al-Qiyan had decided to leave before the demolitions began to avoid any confrontation. He packed his car with belongings, and then headed along a dusty track toward the main road.

As with dozens of Bedouin communities in the Negev, there were no paved roads in Umm al-Hiran, because—as part of its Judaization policy—Israel denies these villages basic services.

As Abu al-Qiyan carefully navigated the NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2020

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track down a small hill in the dark, police opened fire, aiming at his car’s headlights.

Dozens of shots were fired. He was hit twice, a later leaked autopsy report revealed, once in the torso and once in the knee, rendering him incapable of controlling the car.

An aerial video shows that after the shots the car suddenly sped up and veered erratically down the slope. At the bottom, it crashed into a group of police, killing Erez Levy.

Because police in Umm al-Hiran regarded its inhabitants as criminals—a view expressed toward the Negev’s Bedouin by all Israeli governments, including Netanyahu’s—it seems they could only interpret Abu al-Qiyan’s car’s speeding toward them as a car-ramming.

Two doctors and a team of paramedics, 10 meters (33 feet) from his car, joined the police in allowing Abu al-Qiyan to bleed to death. A paramedic said they did not help because they were not ordered to do so by police. Justifying the inaction, one told an investigator, “Sad, it’s easy to talk now but in the field the signs were that it was an attack.”

According to transcripts in the Israeli Haaretz newspaper, the officer who shot first, known as S, admitted his life was not in danger.

Police claims that they had definitive proof Abu al-Qiyan was an ISIS supporter—evidence they promised to produce within days—never materialized.

Police were caught out in another deception. Ayman Odeh, the Palestinian lawmaker monitoring events in Umm al-Hiran, was left with a bleeding head wound. Police claimed he had been hit by a stone thrown by villagers. In fact, as Odeh claimed and photographic evidence proved, police had fired rubber bullets at him, as they had at the villagers.

Eyal Weizman, head of Forensic Architecture, which used video and other evidence to piece together that night’s events, has noted that had Odeh been allowed to reach Abu al-Qiyan, the teacher’s life would have been saved.

The demonization of Abu al-Qiyan and of Palestinian leaders like Odeh for disput(Advertisement)

ing the police narrative was led by the Netanyahu government. Erdan, then police minister and today Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, called the villagers of Umm al-Hiran “violent thieves.” He accused Odeh and other Palestinian legislators of being as responsible for Levy’s death as the “terrorist” Abu al-Qiyan. “This blood is also on your hands,” he wrote.

In a post praising Erez Levy, Netanyahu said those “supporting and inciting for terrorism”—code for the Palestinian leadership in Israel—would face “all necessary force,” including even denial of citizenship.

The family was denied compensation, and are today living in mobile homes after their eviction in 2017. In line with its policy toward “terrorists,” Israeli authorities delayed releasing his body and refused a public burial.

The truth about Abu al-Qiyan’s killing is emerging—unlike that of Erekat and al-Hallaq—only because Netanyahu needs to unearth the truth about Abu al-Qiyan in the hope that he can bury the truth about himself. ■

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Special Report

Palestine, Today: Decolonizing Palestine Through Open Maps

IMAGE COURTESY NIHAD DUKHAN

By Eleni Zaras

An image from the Palestine Open Maps project focuses on Al-Shihabi’s grandparents’ village, Lubya. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution by Majd Al-Shihabi PALESTINIAN TERRITORY is occupied, regardless of any official declaration of annexation. Maps, mapmakers and the obfuscation of satellite imagery have aided and abetted this reality. However, recent efforts in re-mapping the territory as well as pushback on satellite imagery regulations aim to reclaim lost land and Palestinian heritage.

Opening the webpage of “Palestine, Today” <https://today.visualizingpalestine.org/> satellite imagery reveals swirling deep blue water that touches land near the center of the screen. The green coastal land quickly dissipates into swaths of barren sand with rising and falling elevations, traceable like faintly perceptible veins through skin. One bold, continuous line is imposed onto this land mass: a white outline of Palestine. Hovering above this territory reads, “Palestine, Today: Explore How the Nakba Transformed Palestine.”

Eleni Zaras is the former assistant bookstore director at Middle East Books and More. She is a student in Near Eastern Studies at New York University’s Kevorkian Center and has a BA in the History of Art from the University of Michigan and a Masters degree in History from the Universite Paris Diderot.

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“Palestine, Today” is a project launched in May 2020 by Visualizing Palestine, an organization known for its infographics and database, Palestine Open Maps. In this “spin-off” project, as one of the project’s design engineers Majd Al-Shihabi dubs it, they have stitched together maps created by the British Colonial Authority in the 1940s before the Nakba and juxtaposed them with recent satellite imagery.

“This huge 1940s map was pieced together by the Palestine Open Maps project from 155 individual 1:20,000 scale map sheets produced under the British Mandate of Palestine,” the website’s introduction explains. “Laid out at their original size, the map sheets would measure 12m by 7m (38ft by 24ft).”

As we scroll down the page, these historic maps fade into satellite images and transport us into the present day. Together, they illustrate the transformation of about 1,500 communities from before and after the Nakba. While Palestine Open Maps offers extensive resources in a searchable, database format, “Palestine, Today” differs in its seamless, narrative approach. Color-coated pins dot the initial map, marking villages, towns and cities. The colors designate

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one of four statuses: communities that were destroyed in the Nakba but rebuilt by new inhabitants; zones depopulated after the Nakba and appropriated by Israelis; towns that were depopulated but not reconstructed; and finally, communities that still exist today. The user can click on a pin or search a town by name to watch its transformation and gather key statistics and information.

The ease with which the viewer can move through the “Palestine, Today’’ website conceals the cumbersome research and labor behind it. While the maps were technically in the public domain and free from copyright laws, numerous barriers prohibited easy access.

Ahmad Barclay, one of the project’s main user experience (UX) designers, explains in an podcast interview with The Funambulist that these 155 map sheets are held at the British National Archives and the Israeli National Archives. However, they were scattered amongst different files, making them difficult to locate, inaccessible to most Palestinians, and impossible to read as a whole set.

Recently, though, for an unknown reason, the individual map sheets were digitized and made available online through the Israeli National Archives website, but were still unavailable to download even though they’re in the public domain. Thanks to his technical prowess, Barclay managed to overcome this hurdle and successfully download them. He then organized an “Impact Data Lab” in Jordan in 2018 with the goal of “making something interesting” with them, explains Al-Shihabi. Only after the maps were downloaded could they then be stitched together and vectorized, or essentially traced, and turned into maps that people without technical knowledge could “usefully use.” These historic maps pinpoint “tens of thousands of places of interest, from mountains, valleys and rivers, to ports, train stations and air fields,” the website enumerates.

Currently, Al-Shihabi is identifying information from the historic maps that have been erased from contemporary maps. Through his own work and collaborative “mapathons,” they are using the maps to extract “data about land use, boundaries, and other points of interest,” Al-Shihabi tells the Washington Report. Storing this information into a separate database, they’re working to save and “describe the land as it was just before the Nakba.”

The historic British maps use Latin transliterations for the names of points of interest, which make their original Arabic spelling and pronunciation a challenge to discern. With the help of his grandmother, Al-Shihabi said he began to identify and correctly spell some of the sites near the village where she lived until the Nakba.

He has organized these “mapathons” all over the world, bringing in others with knowledge of Arabic and Palestinians with memories of the land to help collaboratively relocate and remap these sites.

The launching of “Palestine, Today” came about two months ahead of an amended U.S. law that will reveal more detailed satellite imagery of Israel and the occupied territories. In 1997, the KylBingaman Amendment (KBA) to the U.S. National Defense Authorization Act mandated that satellite images of these territories to be obscured on all U.S.-based satellite imagery providers (such as

Google Earth, Bing, and Mapbox). “Even as foreign companies began producing high-resolution imagery during the 2010s,” Zena Agha writes in an Aug. 3, 2020 article for Foreign Policy on this topic, “U.S. dominance meant that, in reality, the KBA was applied on a de facto global scale.”

The scale normally accessible on such satellite imagery databases is 0.25-0.6 meters per pixel. Under this amendment, images of Israel and the occupied territories were capped at 2 meters per pixel. This exceptional status was repealed on July 21, 2020.

“Taken together, these effects amounted to a deliberate blind spot created by the KBA, which directly prohibited the vital work of researchers, academics and humanitarians,” writes Agha. The pressure to repeal this status was in fact spearheaded by two Oxford University archaeologists.

This “deliberate blind spot” is exactly what Barclay and AlShihabi say they hope to counter. Al-Shihabi confirms the utility of this more detailed imagery, reiterating the “investigative” nature of his work. “There are a lot of natural features that have changed over time, but some are the same—say a certain river or road has moved—and sometimes the maps are not very clear, so the way we deal with it is to flip between satellite and historical maps to make sure we are reading it correctly.

So there are a lot of ways the higher resolution can help us.”

Barclay and Al-Shihabi both hail this project as an act of “countermapping” or a way to “decolonize” Palestine’s history, and serve as a visual companion to the oral histories many Palestinians aim to preserve.

While papers and material remnants of Palestinian history have been lost and destroyed through the years of colonization, what does still exist is being systematically censored or restricted. “A joint investigative effort between Haaretz and the Israeli research, documentation, and human rights organization Akevot has exposed the very deliberate hindrances to archival access in Israel resulting from an official policy to withdraw pivotal archival documents from the public domain,” Ilan Pappé writes in the Spring 2020 issue of the Journal of Palestine Studies.

Institutions or even certain researchers still “view themselves as the gate keepers of those archives, rather than the activators of those archives,” Al-Shihabi bemoans. “It’s exactly the opposite of what they should be doing.” However, by creating these open maps and open data sets, he affirms, “there’s no one person who owns this data. Nobody needs to ask me for permission to use this data— I’m begging people to use it.”

“A second Nakba is happening slowly right now,” Al-Shihabi determines, “and it will be complete when the last person [who lived] during the Nakba will no longer be with us. A big part of this push toward archiving is the nagging awareness that we have an entire generation of people we are losing, and with them all that memory and knowledge.” He concludes, “If you don’t preserve your past, you will lose your future.” ■

A second Nakba is happening slowly right now

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2020

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Gaza on the Ground

A Gaza Mother Mourns the Loss of her Fishermen Sons

PHOTO BY MAHMUD HAMS/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

By Asya Abdul-Hadi

Mourners comfort Nawal al-Zazoua, the mother of two Palestinian fishermen who were shot at sea to the south of the Gaza Strip bordering Egypt, during her sons’ funeral in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, on Sept. 27, 2020.

“I APPEAL TO YOU and beg you to have mercy on a child who committed no crime and was only fishing to earn a living. It has been 13 days and our house is empty. Now, every hour and every minute I want Yasser here. I’m not that healthy and his father is ill. I want my son to be released to help us. Have mercy on Yasser and send him back to me. Have mercy on the heart of this grieving mother and father who need our child. I lost two, and the fourth son is unable to carry the responsibility on his own.”

Nawal al-Zazoua addressed her plea to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to let her surviving son, Yasser al-Zazoua, return home. His two fishermen brothers were shot dead by

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

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Egyptian naval forces Sept. 25. The three brothers, Hassan, 26, Mahmoud, 21, and Yasser al-Zazoua, 19, were fishing in the Mediterranean Sea near the southern border town of Rafah when their boat was hit by gunfire. The bodies of the two brothers, Hassan and Mahmoud, were returned to the Gaza Strip on Sept.

26. Yasser remained in Egypt, wounded. Hundreds of mourners gathered in Gaza’s central district of Deir al-Balah to bury them.

The Palestinian Fishing Union demanded an investigation.

According the Union, this brings the number of Palestinian fishermen killed by Egyptian Naval Forces to five since el-Sisi seized power in 2013. The last incident was in July 2018, when 32-yearold Mustafa Abu Ouda, father of four, was shot dead while fishing alone in his boat, also off the coast of Rafah.

Nizzar Ayyash, head of the Union, said that Palestinian fishermen are frequently chased and subject to attacks and vandalism

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PHOTO BY MAHMUD HAMS/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

when they unknowingly approach Egyptian regional waters.

Four Palestinian fishermen were sentenced to one year in prison in Egypt after they were tortured, according to the Union. On its web page, the Union appealed to the Egyptian authorities to “release the fishermen and treat them as their brothers. The fishermen are risking their lives to search for a livelihood and flee from the oppression of the Israeli occupation that confiscates their boats, kills them and chases them daily toward neighboring Egypt, which shocks us by attacking them.”

The father of the Palestinian fishermen is comforted by his sister.

Since the incident, the aldled to 4,000, although many of them are moud used to dance and sing Egyptian Zazoua family has received conflicting fishermen by name only—as they can no songs,” she said. “They were so happy news about the whereabouts of their son longer access the sea, repair their damwith the boat, telling their father that they’d Yasser. “I haven’t talked to him or heard aged boats or afford new ones. be able to help pay for his blood transfuanything about him. For 15 days we’ve Under the Oslo accords signed in 1993, sions and medical bills.” been hearing conflicting news about Israel is obligated to permit fishing up to Hassan had recently gotten engaged Yasser’s whereabouts. We still do not 20 nautical miles offshore. After Hamas and set the date for his wedding to be on know if he’s in prison or the hospital,” his won the legislative elections in 2006, the his birthday, Sept. 29, 2021. Al-Zazoua mother said. “I feel my heart is on fire. I Israeli authorities frequently limited fishing added, “He was in the process of having don’t know if Yasser is still alive. His two access in the Gaza Mediterranean to his 60-square-meter apartment combrothers were killed in front of him,” she three, five or six nautical miles. pleted and paid down NIS 200 ($60) said, wishing she could comfort Yasser.

Khader Al-Sa’eedi, 31, lost both his toward the construction cost,” she said.

Hassan and Mahmoud used to work in eyes in February 2019, after an Israeli The Israeli authorities imposed a 15construction before the blockade imposed cruiser shot him with rubber bullets when mile sea blockade on the Gaza Strip in by the Israeli authorities in 2006. They he was fishing nine miles south of the city 2019. But Ayyash said this is not usually learned how to fish to sustain their family. of Khan Younis. implemented. Last September, Gaza Sea They worked with other fishermen for eight Ayyash told the Washington Report was placed under a complete blockade years until three weeks before the incident, that Israeli gunfire has killed 14 fisherfor 16 days, which resulted in a loss of when they purchased a used boat for men since the first intifada in late 1987. approximately $2 million in the fishing $6,000. They’d only paid the first install“Fishermen are always subject to arsector. The Israeli authorities used the ment of $570. rests, harassment, theft of their boats, as pretext that Hamas was sending incendiThe brothers have been the main well as gunfire from the Israeli side,” he ary balloons into Israel. Ayyash argued, breadwinners for their family after their pointed out.

“The fishermen have nothing to do with father, who has suffered from leukemia for Al-Zazoua recalled when her sons this, as incendiary balloons are launched three years, lost his poultry farm business Mahmoud and Yasser rescued six Egypfrom the eastern borders.” as a result of Israel’s bombing assault on tians citizens when they almost drowned The fishing industry is the second major Gaza in 2014. “I used to wait for them in Gaza waters in January 2019. “The first source of income in the Gaza Strip after every Friday to hand me NIS 50-60 people to rescue them were Mahmoud agriculture. In 2000, the Gaza fishing in($17.00) to buy groceries,” al-Zazoua reand Yasser. They risked their lives and got dustry had over 10,000 registered fishercalled. them out of the water,” she said, hoping men. Each fisherman supported 4.5 The mother described her sons as that Egyptians will return her son. ■ people. Gradually, that number has dwinhaving a great sense of humor. “MahNOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2020

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From the Diaspora

Children of Gaza: The Poet, the Fashionista and the Footballer

PHOTOS COURTESY RAMZY BAROUD

By Wafaa Aludaini and Ramzy Baroud

(L-r) Malak Judah, 9, Musa Abu Jazar, 12, and Razan Zidan, 9, share their hopes, hobbies and challenges.

CHILDREN OF GAZA have been the main victims of the Strip’s many adversities in recent years. Falling victim to the ravages of wars and, being the most vulnerable to malnutrition and health crises, Gaza’s children are truly suffering. Their cries for help, however, are often muted or unheard.

Wafaa Aludaini is a Gaza-based journalist, a broadcaster and an activist. She heads the 16th October Youth Group, which is dedicated to conveying the voices of ordinary Palestinians in Gaza to the world. Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and editor of Palestine Chronicle. His latest book is These Chains Will Be Broken: Palestinian Stories of Struggle and Defiance in Israeli Prisons (available from AET’s Middle East Books and More). Dr. Baroud is a non-resident senior research fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA) and also at the Afro-Middle East Center (AMEC). His website is <www.ramzybaroud.net>.

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To give a platform, however limited, to the voices of some of Gaza’s most defenseless, we reached out to several families in Gaza, seeking permission for their children to reflect, in their own way, on the current lockdown, their lives under siege and the seemingly perpetual war. We also asked the children to talk about their hobbies and their hopes and dreams for the future.

This is what they had to say:

MALAK JUDAH, 9, GAZA CITY

My name is Malak Judah. I am nine years old. I live in the city of Gaza. I began my hobby of singing and reciting poetry at the age of three. I have many video clips in which I sing and recite poetry.

All the poetry that I write and recite speaks of Palestine only, and our longing to go back to our homeland.

I joined the Great March of Return from the very start (March

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2018). I used to go there with my family to recite poetry and sing while standing on the main podium, only 700 meters (2,300 feet) from the fence that separates Gaza and our occupied towns in Palestine. But every time we did this, the Zionist occupation forces would fire live bullets and teargas at us. I inhaled teargas many times and, every time I did, I would almost suffocate.

I have tried to sing about other subjects aside from Palestine but I cannot because, since I came to this earth, all that I see and hear is related to the occupation policies and the oppression of our people…They keep cutting off the electricity and our water is unfit for human consumption—and, even then, it is not always available. Every few years, there is a new Zionist aggression on Gaza.

This is why my poetry is always about the difficult life that we are living through.

I dream of traveling and participating in international festivals, but because of the closure policies and the hardship of leaving, I have never been outside Gaza. Now the situation is even more critical, especially after the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. I miss my school, my teachers and the morning announcements. We have no idea when we will go back to school. It feels as if we are living through another Israeli war on Gaza.

My wish is for Palestine to be liberated so that we can go to our hometown.

RAZAN ZIDAN, 9, KHAN YOUNIS

My name is Razan Zidan. I am nine years old. I dream of being a fashion designer so that I can design beautiful clothes for my family and all the children of Palestine to wear. When I grow up, I want to give them gifts and beautiful toys, to bring happiness to their hearts.

I have many fears. I hate the coronavirus. Because of it, I cannot see my friends. I miss playing with them and I miss my school, too. I am also afraid of wars. They scare me very, very much. I hate the sound made by warplanes and the sound of shelling. I am afraid of watching the news. When there is an electric outage, I go to sleep immediately NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2020

so I am not very scared of the dark.

But I also love many things. I love to draw, and I love colors. I love roses and beautiful clothes and I love to spend time with my family.

I love Palestine very much. It is my homeland. But the occupation is vile. My father keeps saying, “the world will be beautiful when the occupation is gone.”

And that is all I want. For the world to be beautiful.

My grandfather has told me that we lived in a beautiful town called Bashsheet.

It is our original town, and it is located by the sea. I asked him why it was given that strange name. He said because Prophet Sheet was buried there. He said that it is a wonderful and beautiful town and famous for its very delicious oranges. I want to see my town and how beautiful it is. I wish to be able to go back with my family to Bashsheet.

I hope that, one day, my dream—and the dream of all of my friends—comes true, where Palestine exists without Israeli occupation.

everything in Gaza and the whole world, it became very difficult for me to practice.

I cannot go to my school any more or even ride my bike.

In Gaza, we have two enemies: the coronavirus and the Israeli occupation.

The occupation is preventing us from enjoying any of our basic rights and our hobbies. The thing that scares me the most is when electricity is out for many hours.

I dream of becoming a famous professional football player. I also want to become a very good photographer. I wish to have a good camera so that I can record my struggle and the suffering of all of the Gaza children, so the whole world may know what we have been deprived of. ■ (Advertisement)

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MUSA ABU JAZAR, 12, RAFAH

My name is Musa Salah Abu Jazar. I am twelve years old. I live in the city of Rafah.

I am a refugee and my original village is Sarafand Al-Amar. I was born mute—I cannot talk and I cannot hear. When I was little, my mother took sign language courses so she can communicate with me.

I suffer very much because most people in my society do not understand me as they do not know sign language. I call on all people to learn sign language so that they can understand me and understand all mute people, everywhere.

Despite my hearing disability, I always try to overcome all the obstacles I face.

At school, I am always the top student in the class, and I get the highest grades. I go to school on my bike, several kilometers each way. My hobbies are playing football, riding my bike and photography.

I play football with the neighborhood kids.

A few months ago, I joined a football academy so that I could improve my skills, but when the coronavirus stopped

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Gaza on the Ground

PHOTO BY MOHAMMED ABED/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

Quarantine, Lockdown, and Blockade: COVID-19 in Gaza

By Mohammed Omer

Palestinian refugees receive aid distributed by UNRWA amid the COVID-19 coronavirus disease outbreak in Gaza City, on Oct.8, 2020.

FOR MANY YEARS, two million Palestinian people in Gaza have lived in a brutally enforced lockdown. With every decade that passes, Israel is stealing ancestral lands, livelihoods and homes and squeezing the ever-growing population of Gazans into less space. Palestinians are given no option but to silently comply as their population is crushed into smaller concentrated spaces. They are forced to cope with minimal resources, including water, rationing of supplies, minimal mobility, and a terrible economy. This is what Palestinians in Gaza know as “normal.”

But now, they must deal with COVID-19.

Gaza’s population has long been besieged and their every move

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

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restricted by Israel’s military from the north, east and west—on land, sea and even in the air—assisted by Egypt on Gaza’s southern border. Israel and Egypt have imposed this lockdown due to “security concerns,” but Palestinians consider it as part of a long-term invasion of Palestinian land and a violation of their human rights.

“Lockdown is a new common term for most of the world now,” said 54-year-old Abu Amjad Ajouri, who worked on construction projects in Israel 16 years ago.

“I like Israelis, but I hate the occupation,” he says, adding “Gaza has known what a lockdown looks like since 2006.” Gazans also realize their “lockdown” is enforced to enable Israel to grow and colonize what was once a pluralistic land and to transform it into a Jewish State. That state does not protect all people, equally, from the spread of COVID-19.

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He remembers a time—before politics divided their lands—when his family shared meals with his Israeli boss. “They used to love it so much—we’d bring our food and share it during breaks,” he recalled. But that sharing has ended. Walls and ethnic fences divide multi-cultural people, friendships and work colleagues.

CORONAVIRUS INEQUALITY

“We are not equal,” Ajouri says, “and now, with COVID-19, we are more unequal,” citing all the restrictions that do not allow him to search for basic minimal-hour work to put food on his family’s table.

“An Arabic expression says, you can only stretch your feet as long as your bed,” he says, adding that his wife rations meals so that she can make ends meet.

“On TV, I see American people rushing to grab toilet paper but here in Gaza we do not even have food to feed ourselves,” Ajouri observed.

“The inequality reduces our ability to face the pandemic. Before, it was the occupying power locking us in, and containing us, from the world. Now, we are also locked down to stop the spread of coronavirus, with minimal hygiene capacity to form a preventative barrier.”

Around the world, people know how to fight COVID-19; social distance, wash your hands, wear a mask. However, inside refugee camps, social distancing is not an option. Ajouri explains, “We have large families living in small houses, with rationed resources, poor nutrition, limited medicine and poor hygiene facilities.”

Gaza has two million people and only 97 adult intensive care beds with ventilators, according to the health ministry. In Gaza, a wide outbreak would be devastating under these circumstances.

Now, coronavirus (COVID-19) is here.

Strict measures and limited travel had kept the virus under control. Since March, Hamas required anyone returning to Gaza from abroad to spend 21 days in a government-run isolation center. Until Aug. 25, Gaza had confirmed only 109 coronavirus infections and one death, all among people in quarantine facilities and none in the general population.

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2020

The first four community-spread cases were reported after a woman traveled from Gaza to Jerusalem for medical reasons and tested positive upon arrival. That led Gaza authorities to test her family in the dense alMaghazi refugee camp, where she lived.

Authorities quickly imposed a curfew and announced a 48-hour shutdown of businesses, schools, cafes and mosques.

By Sept. 11, the Ministry of Health reported 1,631 COVID-19 infections and 11 deaths in the densely packed Israeli-blockaded territory. Gaza is a perfect breeding ground for an air-borne virus.

As cases spiked to 2,800, the Gazan authorities imposed a full curfew, locking down the 139-square-mile territory. Checkpoints appeared and police vehicles patrolled streets, with loudspeakers urging residents to obey the curfew. By Oct. 9 there were 3,839 cases and 17 deaths in Gaza.

Hamada Salah, a 27-year-old father supporting a six-person household, earns money by selling vegetables on a donkey cart. The donkey cart is the “only way to keep us afloat,” he said. During the curfew this minimal income ended because Salah could no longer go between neighborhoods to sell vegetables.

“Before coronavirus, I made a small profit from selling vegetables and could buy priority things for my family as well as school needs,” he said. “Even before COVID-19, the donkey and our family would eat the same food. Whatever was left on the cart,

we would bring it home. Not exactly fresh, but edible,” he adds.

Now, he fears his options are reduced to searching around the garbage bins to find something to eat.

The U.N. agency supporting Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, issued another flashappeal to sustain health, education and emergency services. In parallel, UNRWA will step up relief interventions to address Gaza’s growing poverty and despair. But there is high risk that the U.N. agency has no money to provide essential services, due to reductions in aid from donor countries. The United States, UNRWA’s largest single country donor, cut funding entirely in 2018.

On the brighter side, Gaza has seen a massive production of masks. The sewing factories, which produced clothes for international markets before 2006 when the blockade was imposed on Gaza, are keeping at least some of their sewing machines working. As the pandemic started, Gaza exported masks to Israel, at the request of Israeli’s private sector, as well as different types of medical clothing. This gave Gaza workers a few months of continued production and earnings.

Now, COVID-19 is inside Gaza and lockdowns are in progress within the long-besieged locked-in enclave. No one knows how much more Gaza can bear and what toll COVID-19 will take on Gaza’s two million locked-in adults and children. ■

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Special Report

Blockade Encourages Food Self-Sufficiency Drive but Risks Remain for Qatar

A new type of green house, adapted for Qatar’s harsh climate, under construction at Al Wabra Farm in the municipality of Al Shahania, 25 miles north-west of Qatar's capital Doha. The Qatarat Agricultural Development Company (QADCO) began steadily expanding its local food production in June 2017, in response to an economic embargo imposed by its neighbors which had been Doha’s leading source of imports.

ALTHOUGH QATAR has achieved significant progress in reducing food insecurity, many challenges remain. In the three years of boycott imposed by its Gulf neighbors, Qatar has demonstrated impressive resilience and successfully mitigated the impact of the blockade.

In 1988 the U.N. called for every country to undertake national planning for extreme climate events and food security. Qatar submitted its national mitigation and resilience plan and signed the Paris Climate Accord in 2017. However, the blockade imposed by Saudi Arabia and the UAE highlighted a few flaws in its plan, especially in the area of food security and its natural water resources.

While Qatar still remains vulnerable in its food supply, the tiny emirate has achieved some staggering results in significantly improving its food security. “Given that Qatar previously had no historical record and tradition in agriculture, the present situation is astounding and

Stasa Salacanin is a widely published author and analyst focusing on the Middle East and Europe. He produces in-depth analysis of the region’s most pertinent issues for regional and international publications including the Al Jazeera Center for Studies, Middle East Monitor, The New Arab, Gulf News, Al Bawaba, Qantara, Inside Arabia and many more.

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a source of pride to the country,” according to Dr. Alain Gachet, a top world geologist and president of RTI Exploration. However, Qatar still imports about 90 percent of its food.

UNFAVORABLE CONDITIONS FOR FOOD PRODUCTION

In the past decade, Qatar sought to diminish its heavy dependence on food imports and stimulate local food production, by launching the Qatar Food Security Program, but the initiative was abandoned as it failed to meet the ambitious goal of achieving 70 percent selfsufficiency in food production.

The limited arable land and water supplies make the further development of the agricultural industry increasingly difficult. According to a World Resource Institute study, Qatar is ranked as the most water-stressed country in the world.

Instead, Qataris introduced a new strategy of purchasing land abroad through Hassad Foods, a subsidiary of the Qatar Investment Authority sovereign wealth fund. However, these investments remain limited as they could not fully respond to the need of the food-security program, especially in the case of unpredicted geopolitical developments in the Gulf.

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MUSTAFA MOUNES/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

By Stasa Salacanin

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DOMESTIC PRODUCTION DRIVE BEARS FRUIT

Despite highly unfavorable conditions, the country has managed to become self-sufficient in dairy and poultry production.

Having previously relied on dairy imports for 72 percent of its supply, Qatar’s milk producer Baladna recorded its first diary export in June last year.

Another big step forward has also been made in the production of vegetables, and the government plans to achieve 60 to 70 percent self-sufficiency within the next five years. Cognizant of the shortage of water and arable land, the government is now giving priority to production of vegetables that are less resource intensive. Qatar is hoping to boost its production by setting up 1,400 farms, using hydroponic technology for production.

However, rapid production progress in both sectors comes at a cost. It has increased the pressure on limited local resources, namely water.

In the immediate aftermath of the boycott, Qatar quickly replaced Saudi milk with Turkish products while rapidly developing its own dairy sector by importing some 18,000 Holstein Friesian cows. Although known to be the best milking cows in the world, this breed is sensitive to climate and must be kept in temperature-controlled stables, while every cow needs 30 to 50 gallons of water a day.

Some experts suggest that Qatar should look for alternatives and replace existing Holstein cows with another breed, more adaptable to country’s climate conditions.

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Securing the fodder supply poses an additional problem that requires large scale irrigation. Although the fodder is currently locally produced, half of groundwater allocated to agriculture is spent for fodder production.

Given that almost all the water used is groundwater, extracted from the country's aquifers and given to farmers free of charge, Qatar may soon face harsh environmental consequences. The country already faces an annual groundwater deficit.

According to the geologist Gachet, aquifers of Qatar are limited, even those at the greatest depths, and their overexploitation exceeds their recharge rates. This has resulted in a saline intrusion of the aquifers and there is no alternative for water apart from desalinization, which requires a high amount of energy for the process.

APPLYING LESSONS LEARNED THROUGH NEW TECHNOLOGIES AND DIVERSIFICATION

Qatari authorities plan to introduce measures that would reduce the depletion of Qatari aquifers by banning the use of the precious source for grow fodder and restricting its use for the production of vegetable and fruit. Also, the future strategy includes the introduction of cutting-edge crop production technologies with a limited impact on the environment. One such example is the “circular” approach adopted by the country’s key vegetable producer Agrico, which developed organic hydroponics operations, reportedly reducing 90 percent of water use. In collaboration with the Norwegian chemical firm Yara, Hassad Food also seeks to improve utilization of fertilizers, through developing new types that are more suited to the country’s climate conditions and soil salinity.

However, experts warn that Qatari ambition to increase food production toward selfsufficiency would require a more systematic strategy on a national level as isolated examples of “green” or sustainable practices would not be enough to respond to growing water supply challenges.

For a country surrounded by the sea, desalinization and freshwater transportation by pipeline remains the ultimate solution,

Gachet noted. In his opinion, it must be combined with energy diversification, between solar and wind, and perhaps, nuclear fusion plants which will contribute to the reduction of carbon emissions in the future.

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HUMAN RIGHTS Salih Hudayar, prime minister of the Washington, DC-based East Turkistan government-in-exile, held a briefing on Sept. 11 urging governments around the world to officially recognize the genocide being committed by the Chinese government against the Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz and other Turkic people of East Turkistan.

“For over 70 years China and its communist party have been waging its brutal systemic campaign of colonization, genocide and occupation while terrorizing East Turkistan and its people in the process,” Hudayar stated.

Today, at least three million Uyghurs, Kazakhs and Kyrgyz are incarcerated in Chinese concentration camps, prisons and labor camps. “Our people are being subjected to forced indoctrination, sterilization, family separation, organ harvesting, rape, torture and even summary execution,” Hudayar said.

Rich in natural and mineral resources, East Turkistan is a strategically located region comprising 1,828,418 square kilometers, and is a gateway connecting China to Central Asia, South Asia, the Middle East and, ultimately, Europe. It is a cornerstone of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s signature global infrastructure plan known as the Belt and Road Initiative.

“China fears losing control of East Turkistan and...seeks to eradicate East Turkistan and its people as a final solution to achieve its national defense strategy of preventing the independence of East Turkistan,” Hudayar said. “How many millions of Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples does China have to kill before the international community intervenes? The only way that we can guarantee the human rights, freedom and very survival of our people is by restoring East Turkistan’s independence.

We urge governments across the world to formally recognize East Turkistan as an occupied country and assist East Turkistan and its people to regain their independence.”

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East Turkistan Uyghurs Fear Annihilation by China

East Turkistan government-in-exile Prime Minister Salih Hudayar speaks to the media in Washington, DC. Zumrat Dawut described her experience as a survivor of one of China’s 1,400 concentration camps in East Turkistan and undergoing forced sterilization. “The Chinese government forcibly sterilized me to where I can no longer have any children,” she said.

Xi Jinping’s government has also forcibly separated married couples, sending them to forced labor in different areas, effectively preventing them from being able to have offspring, she explained. “This is all part of China’s plan to effectively minimize our population growth to zero and eradicate our people.”

In addition, Beijing has a policy called a “relatives program” in which they send Chinese officials to live in the homes of Uyghurs to monitor them. In some cases the Chinese officials have raped Uyghur women, Dawut said. “They also are forcing Uyghur women to marry Chinese men.”

Government officials have separated over a half million children from their families, she continued. “Parents are only allowed to see them once a month if they have been on good behavior and are listening to the Chinese government,” she explained. “The Chinese government has held even our children captive. These children are not able to take care of themselves in any way. They are very young, most are even toddlers.”

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The overall goal of the Chinese government, Dawut said, “is to completely wipe us out because we are the true owners of that land and they don’t want us to prosper or become strong and drive them out from occupying our land. So this is their ultimate solution to what they see is a problem.”

—Elaine Pasquini

WAGING PEACE Kuwait Under a New Emir: Continuity or Change?

The Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington held a webinar on Oct. 7 to examine how Kuwaiti domestic and regional politics will proceed following the Sept. 29 death of Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad alSabah.

All the panelists said they don’t expect the country’s new leader, Emir Sheikh Nawaf al-Ahmad al-Sabah, to deviate from the policies of his predecessor in any significant way. They do, however, expect him to adopt a different leadership style.

While the former emir was extremely involved in day-to-day matters of governance, Skip Gnehm, a professor at George Washington University and a former U.S. ambassador to Kuwait, said the new emir is likely to pass many of these duties onto new Crown Prince Sheikh Mishal alNOVEMBER/DECEMBER JUNE/JULY 2020

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The new Kuwaiti crown prince, Sheikh Mishal al-Ahmad al-Jaber al-Sabah, waves as he arrives at the parliament to take his oath, on Oct. 8, 2020. Mishal, 80, has been deputy chief of the Kuwait National Guard since 2004, largely staying out of the political scene and away from disputes within the royal family.

Ahmad al-Jaber al-Sabah. “I don’t think he’s inclined at all to be as engaged as Sheikh Sabah was,” Gnehm said.

Bader al-Saif, a professor at Kuwait University, believes the crown prince is uniquely qualified to both mediate tensions that have emerged within the royal family in recent years and serve as a respected bridge between the people and ruling circle. He noted that Crown Prince Mishal has managed to maintain a good relationship with other members of the ruling family and has not been named in any of the corruption scandals that have angered Kuwaitis. “I see him as both an insider and an outsider,” al-Saif said. “Having that unique combination is important for Kuwait at the moment.”

On the international front, Kuwaiti women’s rights activist Alanoud al-Sharekh said she expects the country not to alter its course. “I don’t see us having a great deviation from the pace that Sheikh Sabah has set of approaching things very cautiously and trying to take as balanced a view as possible,” she said. Deborah Jones, a former U.S. ambassador to Kuwait and Libya, noted that Kuwait has an independent streak focused on peacemaking and maintaining good relations, and is not afraid to differ with larger Gulf NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2020

Cooperation Council members on significant issues, such as the Qatar blockade.

The country, she said, has “a strong sense of self and its identity.”

Emir Sabah was well known and respected for his ability to bridge divides between feuding regional actors, and Gnehm believes the new emir will struggle to match his predecessor’s success. “I think what won’t continue is that the leadership, at least initially, is not in a position to be as active in mediating crises in the region,” he said. This, he added, is not an insult to the new emir, but rather a reflection of Sabah’s exceptional diplomatic skills, as well as the relationships he forged since being named foreign minister in 1963.

“While [Kuwait’s new emir] will continue to be a moderating force in all of these disputes, there won’t be the same impact,” Gnehm predicted.

—Dale Sprusansky

Tackling Lebanon’s Environmental Crises

The Beirut-based Carnegie Middle East Center held a virtual event on Sept. 29 to dissect the many environmental issues confronting Lebanon.

Ziad Abichaker, CEO of Cedar Environmental, an organization committed to expanding recycling in Lebanon, outlined the

country’s trash crisis. Lebanon is drowning in its own garbage, he noted, with landfills reaching capacity. Popular frustration over the issue reached its peak in 2015, when trash piling up in city streets provoked massive protests known at the “You Stink” movement.

“The waste management file is rife with corruption,” Abichaker said, pinning blame for the crisis squarely on the government. Instead of adopting a muchneeded multi-faceted approach to waste processing, he noted that the government has instead almost solely focused on incinerators as the solution, despite concerns about their cost, operational efficiency and environmental impact. “Practically every member of parliament was pushing the incineration agenda because they had some connection with some foreign companies who wanted to sell us incinerators,” he said.

Abichaker believes waste collection ought to be decentralized and entrusted to local governments. “We have 26 administrative regions in this country,” he noted.

“We should approach waste management by saying each administrative area is responsible for their own waste management.

Once you break it down, you don’t have to create those mega landfills that now we are seeing.” The poor fiscal state of local governments is the primary factor inhibiting this approach from being adopted. “Their money is being plundered by the central government,” he said.

Landfill capacity can also be better managed by investing in recycling and composting, Abichaker emphasized. He noted that his organization works to collect and export recyclable PET plastics (most commonly used to make disposable water and soda bottles), and that such initiatives ought to be expanded widely. “All these raw materials can end up being exported instead of ending up in a landfill,” he noted.

Given the high cost of importing fertilizer and Lebanon’s worsening food crisis, Abichaker also implored the country to begin composting its organic waste for domestic reuse on farms. “Any sound plan would look at our municipal solid waste and say, ‘listen 70 percent of our waste is or-

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Workers recycle glass that was shattered during the Beirut port explosion, at a factory in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli on Aug. 25, 2020. Volunteers, non-governmental groups and entrepreneurs worked to salvage as much of the glass as possible for reuse.

Cook assessed the Abraham Accords signed by Israel, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, which includes a provision suspending Israeli annexation of parts of the West Bank. “Just because the Emiratis put down this marker on annexation...doesn’t mean that suddenly [Prime Minister Binyamin] Netanyahu would negotiate with the Palestinian Authority,” he said. “Annex-

Scholar Explores Normalization, Israel-Turkey Relations

On Sept. 17, Khalil Jahshan, executive director of the Arab Center Washington DC, interviewed Steven A. Cook of the Council on Foreign Relations, and author of False Dawn: Protest, Democracy and Violence in the New Middle East.

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ation is a process that happens, so there is a great possibility that it continues.”

The agreement is simply about the UAE and Israel “normalizing their relations for their own interests,” Cook added. “The Israelis and Emiratis did this because their national interests dictated it....The Emiratis clearly were not going to allow the Palestinians to get in the way of that, while the Is-

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ganic, we have to turn it into a high quality compost,’” he said.

Nada Ghorayeb Zaarour, the former head of Lebanon’s Green Party and an anti-deforestation activist, pointed out the intersection of creating jobs, providing cleaner and safer communities and protecting the environment. Investments in a green economy, “would create ongoing manufacturing, transportation and construction jobs, and help us protect our oceans, rivers, environment, etc.,” she said.

“When we say that we want to shift to a green economy, we are talking about good quality jobs.”

Marc Ayoub, a research assistant at the American University of Beirut, noted the country is also failing to adequately manage its water supply. “The way we are moving today is toward another crisis in a decade or two, when we will be facing shortages in the water supply to the main cities, and to the Beirut area specifically,” he noted. One cause of this issue is the country’s aging network of leaking pipes that lose nearly half of the water they carry, according Ayoub.

On the energy front, Ayoub noted Lebanon currently produces three percent of its energy from renewable sources, and has pledged to increase that number to 30 percent by 2030. The country can meet this goal using solar, wind and hydroelectric sources only if it formulates a comprehensive policy. “The potential is there, the numbers and the studies are there…[but] there is a need for governance,” he said.

Indeed, all the panelists expressed faith that the Lebanese people can tackle the country’s many environmental crises— if crippling governmental corruption is quashed. “What we need is a mature government to put the environment on their agenda,” Zaarour said.

—Dale Sprusansky

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Usame Abu Salah (c) speaks with doctors from Doctors Worldwide Turkey, in Gaza City on June 30, 2020. A track star athlete, the organization helped Salah recover from injuries sustained during the Great March of Return and resume his training regimen.

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raelis clearly do not care about the Palestinians.”

The Palestinians, he observed, “have come to live in this weird, bizarre kind of world in which part of the populace is essentially locked down by the Egyptians and the Israelis, and then there is...this kind of Kabuki theatre of Palestinian statehood.”

Cook also discussed the complex Turkish-Israeli relationship. “These are countries that really dislike each other,” he said. Yet, he pointed out, “there is all of this business that goes on between the two countries.

Turkish Airlines is the largest foreign flag carrier at Ben Gurion Airport.”

Somehow these countries have been able to separate their business relationship from their diplomatic and geostrategic relationships, he noted. Their respective business communities “are important constituents of both of those leaders and that is a pretty big chunk of trade that is going on that no one wants to lose, especially as economies struggle.”

The Emiratis, he added, are also “quite concerned about the exercise of Turkish power in the region, and are seemingly moving to check that power, whether it is in Libya, the Gulf or the eastern Mediterranean.”

—Elaine Pasquini

COURTESY ZOGBY RESEARCH SERVICES

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Polls Offer Insights into Arab Views on Normalization

Two polls addressing Arab attitudes toward normalization with Israel were released on Oct. 7.

One poll, unveiled by Khalil Shikaki, director of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, showed that more than 80 percent of Palestinians oppose the normalization of relations between Israel and the UAE. (The poll was conducted before Bahrain also normalized ties with Israel.)

While respondents expressed displeasure with Abu Dhabi, they also voiced dis-

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Palestinian Supporters Rally Against Israel-UAE-Bahrain Deal

As Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, United Arab Emirates Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed Al-Nahyan and Bahraini Foreign Minister Abdullatif AlZayani signed a tri-lateral agreement establishing formal ties at the White House on Sept. 15, pro-Palestinian activists protested nearby in recently re-named Black Lives Matter Plaza.

Sporting Palestinian keffiyehs and waving Palestinian flags, the protesters denounced the agreement for appeasing Israel while selling out Palestinians. They noted that the agreement contains no provisions securing Palestinian rights or ending the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestinian land.

More than 50 human rights organizations co-sponsored the rally. Similar protests were held in cities across the U.S. —Elaine Pasquini

A Zogby Research Services poll conducted before the UAE and Bahrain normalized ties with Israel showed a surprising level of support for a new approach to the Israel-Palestine issue. satisfaction with the leadership of Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas. More than 60 percent said normalization represents a failure of Palestinian diplomacy, while 53 percent believe that internal Palestinian divisions and longstanding PA cooperation with Israel helped pave the way for normalization.

Furthermore, more than 80 percent of respondents said the deal shows that traditional Arab allies are abandoning Abbas.

While the UAE (which houses Abbas’ exiled political rival Mohammed Dahlan) and the PA have long had cool relations, Shikaki said the fact that Abbas’ traditional

At the protest outside the White House as Israel, Bahrain and the UAE sign an agreement, a Palestinian displays a map of Palestine.

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must note how Arab views are evolving.

“When I was hearing commentary after the [normalization] agreement that the overwhelming majority of Arabs reject this—it’s just not true, and I think there’s a reality check here that’s important,” he said.

It is worth noting that a poll released by the Qatar-based Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies on Oct. 6 found dramatically different results regarding normalization. According to the survey, 88 percent of Arabs disapprove of their home countries establishing diplomatic ties with Israel. The survey was conducted in 13 countries between Nov. 2019 and Sept.

2020.

—Dale Sprusansky

Efforts to Silence Criticism of Israel on Facebook

In August, more than 120 pro-Israel organizations sent a letter to Facebook imploring the social media giant to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism, which lists criticism of Israel as a form of anti-Semitism. The Foundation for Middle East Peace (FMEP) held a webinar on Sept. 10 to discuss this initiative, as well as other efforts to silence legitimate criticism of Israeli policy.

Lara Friedman, the president of FMEP, said many pro-Israel groups have cynically twisted the definition of anti-Semitism to make it Israel-centric. As an example, she pointed to the Zachor Legal Institute, one of the groups behind the Facebook campaign. Nearly every example of anti-Semitism Zachor provided to Facebook involved criticism of Israel, while they largely ignored the numerous anti-Semitic tropes perpetuated by white nationalists and other racist groups. “When they talk about IHRA, they’re only talking about criticism of Israel,” Friedman said.

Liz Jackson, the founding staff attorney for Palestine Legal, noted that efforts to get governments and private corporations to adopt the IHRA definition are about more than changing laws and policies.

“When your goal is to silence speech, even if you don’t succeed in the legal sense of getting a definition adopted, it’s successful for them politically to scare people,” she said. “People have children, and marriages, and careers, and other things to focus on, so they simply avoid the topic,” Jackson continued. “And the drivers of the definition, they know that, and have been explicit about that. They know that even when people are not officially censored, many

IMAGE COURTESY JEWISH VOICE FOR PEACE

allies supported and likely even helped facilitate normalization is a cause of popular unease. “There is concern that this is in fact a vote of no confidence in Abbas and the entire Palestinian leadership, not by the Emiratis, but by the entire group of Abbas allies—Egypt, Saudi Arabia in particular,” he said on a webinar hosted by the Arab Center Washington DC. On a webinar with the Middle East Institute, James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute, noted that recent polling conducted by Zogby Research Services in five countries displays a surprising shift in Arab views about Palestine.

While Arab citizens have regularly listed the Palestinian plight as a top concern, recent polling shows the issue now ranks near the bottom of issues they view as important. In fact, a poll conducted before the UAE deal was announced found that a surprising number of Arabs were fine with normalization occurring before a peace deal was reached between Palestine and Israel.

“I was so troubled and concerned by the findings that I went and re-polled,” Zogby noted. The second round of polling confirmed the initial results and provided some insights into why public opinion had shifted.

Zogby found support for normalization largely derived from a sense of frustration with the status quo. The top three reasons respondents gave for being open to normalization were: a hope that it would stop the killing, resignation that the conflict is stalled, and hope that normalization would provide Palestinians with greater leverage.

“I think the Arab attitude is, this isn’t going anywhere, something has to be done,” Zogby commented.

Given this reasoning, Zogby said people should not conclude the Arab street is now indifferent to the Palestinian cause. “No way does it indicate that Arabs aren’t sensitive to what happens to Palestinians,” he said. “Arab sensitivity toward Palestinians is still high. Arab frustration with Israeli behavior is still very high….What it does say is they’re frustrated that nothing’s happening and they’re looking for alternatives.”

At the same time, Zogby said observers

On Sept. 23, several organizations held an online day of action to call attention to censorship of Palestinian voices on Facebook. The impetus for the action was Facebook’s recent decision to hire Emi Palmor, former head of the Israeli Ministry of Justice’s Cyber Unit, to its new content moderation oversight board. Palmor’s work at the ministry resulted in social media companies removing thousands of posts from Palestinians.

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Memorializing the Sabra and Shatila Massacre

Witnesses from around the world gathered virtually in an open classroom on Sept. 16 to commemorate the 38th anniversary of the Sabra and Shatila massacre. Speakers shared oral histories emphasizing their commitment to continued activism and urging accountability for war crimes. The General Union of Palestinian Students NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2020

(GUPS) and the Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas Studies (AMED) program at San Francisco State University (SFU) co-sponsored the event.

The commemoration was skillfully moderated in English and Arabic by SFU Prof.

Rabab Abdulhadi, Sabreen Imtair, from SFU’s GUPS, and Omneya Ragap, who was an American University in Cairo participant in 2007’s “Cairo to the Camps,” a group that ran summer art activities for Palestinian children in Lebanon.

Scholars Dr. Jaber Suleiman and Dr. Rosemary Sayigh, and survivors Nohad Hammad and Hoda El-Asfar described the massacre. Beginning on Sept. 16, 1982, shortly after Israeli troops seized control of West Beirut, the right-wing Lebanese Phalange forces operating under the direction of Israeli forces massacred, wounded and left homeless thousands of defenseless men, women and children in the Sabra and Shatila Palestinian refugee camps.

Orthopedic surgeon Dr. Ang Swee and nurse Ellen Siegel worked at Gaza Hospital in the camp and witnessed the massacre during the Israeli invasion. They testified at the Israeli Kahan Commission’s inquiry in 1983 on the massacre, which found then-Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon “indirectly responsible” for allowing

the Phalangists into the camp, but exonerated the Israeli government of immediate responsibility. Sharon went on to serve as Israeli prime minister from 2001 to 2006.

In 2012, highly classified documents from Israel’s 1982 war in Lebanon were released. In 2018, new shocking relevations from the secret commission’s appendix were published in The New York Review of

Books. That last treasure trove was discovered during Ariel Sharon’s libel lawsuit

against Time magazine (dismissed in 1985) and turned over to reporter Seth Anziska.

They paint damning evidence of Israeli plans with Lebanese Maronite Christian leaders in Beirut to “clean the city out of terrorists.” Some of those who planned or participated in the massacre are alive today.

—Delinda C. Hanley

Assessing Key Constituencies in U.S. Elections

The first day of the Arab Center Washington (ACW)’s annual conference, Sept. 21, focused on the upcoming elections. ACW executive director Khalil E. Jahshan opened the discussion noting that more than 139 million Americans may be voting on Nov. 3. Kyle Kondik, managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball, predicted that voter turnout will likely be relatively high, up to 64

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more people just go home and hide and don’t want to talk about it, and this has a chilling effect, and it scares people away from the issue.”

As of now, Facebook has not indicated it plans to adopt the IHRA definition, but Jackson said that does not mean voices critical of Israel find complete freedom on the platform. “They’re not using the definition technically now, but they are censoring speech up and down, all over Facebook,” she noted. “We get these complaints to Palestine Legal very frequently, about people who said they got into a back and forth with a supporter of Israel about something, and all of a sudden their Facebook page is frozen, and there’s no transparency and they don’t know why.”

Jackson noted that it’s just not right-wing groups pressuring Facebook on the subject of Israel. In July, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) co-sponsored the “Stop Hate for Profit” campaign, which convinced more than 900 organizations to cease advertising on Facebook until the platform works harder to “find and remove public and private groups focused on white supremacy, militia, anti-Semitism, violent conspiracies, Holocaust denialism, vaccine misinformation and climate denialism.”

While this initiative sounds admirable, Jackson noted the ADL’s long history of defaming Palestinian activists. “It’s a faux civil rights organization,” she charged, calling the ADL “a primary driver of censorship campaigns in many of the cases that Palestine Legal is addressing….Their role is prominent in abusing the definition of antiSemitism in order to attack, censor and character assassinate.”

—Dale Sprusansky

Survivors returned to the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila on Sept. 21, 1982, after the massacre by Christian militiamen, which took place while the Israeli army surrounded the camps.

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(Clockwise from left) George Salem, Debra Shushan, Jason Husser, James Zogby and Dalia Mogahed discuss Jewish, Evangelical, Arab Amercan and Muslim voters.

percent, despite the pandemic.

Debra Shushan, director of government affairs for J Street, said that while American Jews are only about two percent of the U.S. population, they are “super voters,” who have a high turnout rate compared to other Americans. While they are courted by both the Republican and Democratic parties, 51 percent consider themselves liberal and 36 percent moderate, making them a reliably Democratic constituency.

Shushan elaborated that despite all Trump has given to Israel, “the issue of Israel is a low priority for most Jewish Americans” and “less than 24 percent of [them] rank the U.S.-Israeli relationship as a top priority in this election.” A majority does not support the current Israeli government or Trump’s withdrawal from the nuclear deal with Iran, she emphasized. Jewish Americans are worried about anti-Semitism and believe President Trump has used racist and anti-Semitic tropes, she added.

Jason Husser, associate professor of political science and policy studies at Elon University, focused on the Evangelical vote.

One in four U.S. Christians belongs to an Evangelical denomination. Since the 1980s, when Rev. Jerry Falwell established the Moral Majority in support of Ronald Reagan, White Protestants have generally leaned toward the Republican Party. Their 58

Republican identification has a lot to do with demographics (older, less affluent and less educated) and geography (mostly in the south), according to Husser. In the 2016 elections, Husser said, “Roughly four out of 10 Trump voters were Evangelicals” and they continue to support him despite what Husser politely called Trump’s “personal life-behavioral decisions that don’t align with Evangelicals.”

Evangelicals believe the U.S. to be a Christian nation first and foremost. They emphasize Armageddon (the end of the world prophecy); 80 percent of them believe God permanently gave the Holy Land to Abraham; and a majority believes “that Jews have the right to the land.” Trump has kept his Evangelical base happy with his pro-Israel policies.

Dalia Mogahed, director of research at the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, presented demographic information about the American Muslim community.

It’s the most ethnically and racially diverse of all faith communities, comprising Black Americans, Asians, Arabs, Latinos (who are the fastest growing segment) and White Americans, Mogahed said.

One percent of the American population is Muslim, half born in the U.S. and half in other countries, and 86 percent are U.S. citizens. The average age of American Mus-

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lims is about 20 years younger than the general public. Muslims are economically diverse, with 35 percent living at or under the poverty line.

Mogahed said Muslims are more likely to register as Democrats, and polling results show that their political priorities are the economy, job creation, education, health care, civil liberties and civil rights, and fighting Islamophobia, racism and domestic poverty.

About 15 percent of American Muslims are not registered and do not want to vote because they are dissatisfied with the choices or they believe that their vote will not matter. Mogahed said Muslims over 50, with a high income, who attend religious services and have had contact with a local elected official are more likely to vote. Muslims tend to live in swing states and could make a difference in the upcoming election outcome.

Mogahed suggested voting drives should be mobilized at mosques, and work should be done with economically disadvantaged and young Muslims who, according to polls, are a sizeable percentage of the Muslim community and are the least likely to vote.

James J. Zogby, founder and president of the Arab American Institute, described Nov. 3 as the “Armageddon election,” with 83 percent of voters convinced this is a very important election.

Arab Americans number about 3.7 million, Zogby said, and many live in the battleground states: Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida. Although Arab Americans historically have been split between the two parties, today two thirds of Arab Americans identify as Democrats.

That’s the result of increasing racial taunting, insulting rhetoric and profiling by Republicans. Those born in the United States, especially the second generation, increasingly tend to be Republicans and those born overseas identify more as Democrats, according to Zogby. The issues that are important to Arab Americans are the economy, health care, education, Palestine, Lebanon, and human and civil rights. Zogby believes that Arab Americans will primarily vote on issues that NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2020

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affect them and their children growing up in the United States, and not on U.S. policy in the Middle East.

—Delinda C. Hanley

Honoring the 34th president of the United States, the Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial—completed this summer after almost two decades of planning and construction—was formally dedicated on Sept. 17 and opened to the public the next day. The memorial is the seventh presidential memorial or monument located in Washington, DC. With the world currently in disarray, the memorial offers Americans an opportunity to remember Eisenhower’s disciplined foreign policy leadership.

Indeed, many view Eisenhower forcing Israel to withdraw from its illegal seizure of Egypt’s Suez Canal in 1956 as one of the few times the U.S. has truly acted as a principled conciliator in the prolonged conflict.

“I would, I feel, be untrue to the standards of the high office to which you have chosen me if I were to lend the influence of the United States to the proposition that a nation which invades another should be permitted to exact conditions for withdrawal,” he said, explaining his decision in a radio talk.

Eisenhower, a five-star general, did not take war lightly, stating in an April 4, 1957 speech to the National Education Association, “The hope of the world is that wisdom can arrest conflict between brothers. I believe that war is the deadly harvest of arrogant and unreasoning minds.”

In a Jan. 17, 1961 address, the two-term president warned against “the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”

Situated on four acres adjacent to Washington, DC’s National Mall near the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, the $150 million encomium to the former president and war hero was designed by 91year-old renowned architect Frank Gehry.

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Eisenhower Memorial Opens in Nation’s Capital

A bronze statue of President Dwight D. Eisenhower at his new memorial in Washington, DC. foot long, 60-foot tall woven stainless steel tapestry created by Tomas Osinski from a line drawing by Gehry which depicts the cliffs of Normandy, site of the D-Day invasion on June 6, 1944 led by General Eisenhower as commander of the Allied forces.

Soviet-born sculptor Sergey Eylanbekov created bronze statuary, which represents three distinct periods of Eisenhower’s life. One tableau portrays him as a youth in Abilene, Kansas, another as supreme commander of World War II Allied forces speaking to members of the 101st Airborne Infantry Division and, finally, as U.S. president.

—Elaine Pasquini

Anera Streams Its Annual Gala

Anera’s 2020 Global Gala—streamed to a global audience on Oct. 2—was a Friday night to remember during this pandemic.

In her welcoming remarks, MC Noura Erakat noted that Anera has persevered

amid COVID-19 challenges, economic turmoil, uprisings and a catastrophic explosion in Lebanon. Diplomats and political leaders provided cameo appearances, followed by Anera president Sean Carroll, who updated viewers on the organization’s vital environmental work, from recycling in Lebanon, to clean water projects.

He noted that Anera built two desalination units in Gaza, rehabilitated a water well in Khan Younis and repaired agricultural pumps powered by solar energy.

Viewers enjoyed poetry and musical performances by 47Soul, Omar Kamal, Le Trio Joubran, Lina Makhoul and Rafeef ZIadeh.

The highlight of the evening was LebaneseAmerican tenor Amine Hachem’s moving rendition of “Li Beirut,” first sung by Fairuz after Lebanon’s devastating civil war, and so appropriate today amid Beirut’s current crisis. Watch Anera’s Global Gala on YouTube and donate to help its vital work continue in Lebanon, Palestine and Jordan.

—Delinda C. Hanley

Amine Hachem sings “Li Beirut,” first sung by Fairuz.

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Busboys Hosts Dinner with Rashida Tlaib

Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) joins Andy Shallal for a virtual dinner party.

Busboys and Poets restaurants hold virtual dinner parties every Friday night, hosted by CEO and founder Andy Shallal.

The special dinner guest on Sept. 25 was Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (D-MI).

Tlaib is the oldest of 14 children, born and raised in Detroit, the proud daughter of Palestinian immigrant parents. Tlaib made history in 2008 by becoming the first Muslim woman to ever serve in the Michigan legislature. She has spent her career raising “good trouble” in Detroit, Shallal said in his introduction.

“Congress wasn’t ready for me,” Tlaib admitted, noting that legislation moves very slowly and doesn’t seem to connect with people’s needs. She fretted about Congress’ lack of urgency in lowering the cost of prescription drugs, fighting poverty and racism. Every move is transactional and bogged down in studies, Tlaib lamented.

“How many studies do we need to prove that poverty kills people?...What are we waiting for?”

She also decried the influence of lobbies.

For example, when she fought to make clean water a human right for her constituents, who couldn’t pay their water bills, she was told to “talk to the utility company” 60

instead of working on legislation to make water affordable and simplify the water reconnection process.

The pandemic showed the “ugly face of this country’s economic divide,” Tlaib noted.

Stimulus checks bailed out large corporations that hoarded the money and help didn’t reach needy communities. Tlaib also commented on Trump’s xenophobic platform and broken immigration system, as well as for-profit detention centers that separate children from their parents.

Finally Tlaib charged that the Trump and Netanyahu administrations were gas lighting and misleading the American and Israeli public about the racist and violent goings on in Israel.

Somehow Palestinians struggling under oppression retain a “culture of happiness,” Tlaib marvelled. They’re angry, then they joke and continue to find joy in their everyday lives.

—Delinda C. Hanley

Sahtain! An Online Brunch with Palestinian Farmers

In-person fundraisers and gatherings have changed due to COVID, but Palestinians, like usual, are demonstrating they can thrive amid adversity. For an hour on Sept.

20, viewers were treated to a virtual tour with Growing Palestine, an organization focused on empowering farmers and supporting Palestine’s agricultural heritage.

Samir Salem, a filmmaker and digital

media producer, escorted the armchair travelers and introduced us to “Heirloom Seed Queen” Vivien Sansour, who showed us around an organic farm surrounded by Israeli settlements outside Bethlehem.

Since the pandemic farmers have been planting food on this communal farm, which features solar power, worm compost boxes and beehives. They’ve also built a water cistern to collect rainfall and planted flowers to “keep pollinators as well as our hearts happy,” Sansour said.

Viewers also visited Abu Mohamed’s farm in Al-Bireh—land which is surrounded by coiling roads—and also community-supported. “If Israelis continue to hem us in, we will not starve,” he said, adding “this land is something worth living for.”

Dr. Mazin Qumsiyeh, from Bethlehem University’s Center for Biodiversity and Sustainability, reminded listeners that Palestine was part of the Fertile Crescent which supplied Europe with fruits and vegetables, long before Israel was established. “We’re still around,” he emphasized, despite Israel’s attempts to take the land and the inequity of water distribution. “Israelis get four or five times or sometimes eight times more water than Palestinians,” he revealed. His university is training students to grow their own food, even showing them how to grow vegetables on the walls of refugee camps.

The brunch also featured Laila ElHaddad, author of Gaza Kitchen, who

Vivien Sansour with some of the Palestinian farmers using heirloom seeds.

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PHOTO COURTESY VIVIEN SANSOUR

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showed viewers how to cook batiri eggplant on her camp stove set up in her Clarksville, Maryland garden. Viewers could hear and nearly smell and taste the garlic, onion, lentils, chili, cumin and herbs sizzling in olive oil, as she described how refugees from villages outside Gaza brought their own culinary traditions to the enclave.

Cooking is one of the best ways Palestinians can share their heritage and narrate their own stories with their children, ElHaddad concluded.

To cap off the brunch, Walaa from 47SOUL! played their signature blend of hip hop and electronica as dabkeh dancers performed. The brunch met Growing Palestine’s goals of raising funds for farmers, as well as providing a fun opportunity for Palestinians to narrate their own stories. (For more information please visit <https://growingpalestine.com>.)

—Delinda C. Hanley

MUSLIM AMERICAN ACTIVISM Six Members of Congress Address American Muslims for Palestine

American Muslims for Palestine held its annual Palestine Advocacy Days event from Sept. 14-Sept. 18. This year’s event took place virtually, and featured several high-profile speakers, including six members of Congress.

Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN) began the Sept. 15 plenary by outlining the cold reality about the situation in Palestine. “Apartheid is a system the Palestinian people endure every day as they struggle under Israel’s military occupation, an oppression that is sadly supported by U.S. taxpayer dollars— our dollars,” she noted. McCollum is the author of two notable bills in Congress.

One would prevent U.S. funds from being used to detain and torture Palestinian children, and the other would preclude the U.S. government from recognizing Israeli annexation of Palestinian land.

Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) lambasted the Trump administration for cutting basic humanitarian aid to Palestinians while providing abundant military support to Israel.

“On one hand is a need of funds for eduNOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2020

cation and healthcare, and on the other is funding for fighter jets and weapons,” she noted. “We must invest in health and divest from war.”

Tlaib also asked why the U.S. is funding Israel while claiming there is not enough money to provide basic services to Americans. “There is something fundamentally wrong when we cannot find the money to provide clean water in my own home state of Michigan but can pour billions into the Israeli military, where they expand an illegal apartheid system,” she stated.

Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI) said the lack of aid to Palestinians is egregious considering the threat the ongoing pandemic poses, especially to residents of the impoverished and densely populated Gaza Strip.

“This is an issue none of us can take lightly and I feel how personal this is to many people in my district, and it has become very personal to me,” she said.

Rep. Judy Chu (D-CA) emphasized the importance of citizens engaging their members of Congress on the issue of Palestine.

“We need voices like yours on the Hill to speak up for Palestinian human rights because too often they are completely left out of the conversation,” she said.

Chu noted that on official trips to Israel, member of Congress are often given a distorted view of the region. “The first trip I took to Israel as a member of Congress was one in which we heard from so many people, but only one was Palestinian, and

in fact she mainly spoke to say things were okay.” Chu later toured Palestine to get another perspective and said she was shocked by the injustices she witnessed.

Rep. Andre Carson (D-IN) called on Washington to use its global strength to advocate for an equitable solution to the conflict. “As the world’s most powerful democracy, America must use its immense power to urge other countries, including our partners like Israel, to forge a new path that embraces peace and equality for all,” he said.

Rep. Donald Payne, Jr. (D-NJ) noted that Palestinians are too often portrayed as initiators of violence, rather than victims of oppression. “They are a people tired of economic sanctions in their lands, they are tired of the violence of the region, they are tired of being limited in their expression and pursuit of freedom,” he said.

Dr. Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, assured the audience her people are not giving up their hope for freedom. “The Palestinians are not in the habit of surrendering,” she said. “We are not defeated. We may be under occupation, we may be suffering the worst type of torture and oppression, but in spirit we are not defeated, because we are a people with rights, and we are a people who are determined to get these rights and to be free and live with dignity on our own land.”

—Dale Sprusansky

Rep. Donald Payne, Jr. participates in this year’s virtual Palestine Advocacy Days.

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TELL YOUR ELECTED OFFICIALS WHAT YOU THINK

Other People’s Mail

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP VICE PRESIDENT MIKE PENCE 1600 PENNSYLVANIA AVE. NW WASHINGTON, DC 20500 COMMENT LINE: (202) 456-1111 WWW.WHITEHOUSE.GOV/CONTACT

Compiled by Dale Sprusansky THE ABRAHAM ACCORDS ARE NO PEACE DEAL

To the Anchorage Daily News, Sept. 30, 2020 I keep hoping the Trump administration’s international team knows what they’re doing, but I haven’t been holding my breath lately.

Then, I heard that a Norwegian nominated Donald Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize for brokering a “peace deal” between the Gulf Arab states and Israel—I actually choked for a second. What a strange sense of humor they have in Scandinavia, I thought.

The peace deal seems to be actually an economic/military cooperation pact where all partners appear to be using each other for their own ends—with a common thread of isolating or keeping Iran at bay, while unintentionally driving Iran into China’s waiting embrace.

Surely all “peaceful” deals attempted so far have not progressed much—Israel continues to expand and Palestine continues to contract, and the conflicts continue. As with this administration’s “Deal of the Century,” there is a lacking participant—Palestine. To turn these potentially catastrophic “deals” into some resemblance of “peace,” a priority must include some kind of a Palestinian entity and representation. Otherwise the “dawn of a new Middle East” could well turn into a nightmare, since it would seem to be difficult to build stable peace on top of the ethnic obliteration of an entire people.

It is interesting, even fun, to remember that in the Shah’s day in the 1970s El Al Israel Airlines was flying regular flights into Tehran and Israeli commercial representatives were buying whatever Iran had to offer.

Ken Green, Cooper Landing, AK

TRUMP, NETANYAHU AND A FAUX PEACE AGREEMENT

To the San Francisco Chronicle, Sept. 17, 2020 I could only shake my head in disgust while reading “Israel, two Arab states sign pacts” (Sept. 16). Despite President Trump’s claim that agreements between Israel and two Gulf Arab nations, the United Arab Emi64

ANY SENATOR U.S. SENATE WASHINGTON, DC 20510 (202) 224-3121

rates and Bahrain, represent the dawn of a new Middle East, there can be no lasting peace in this region without the proper establishment and recognition of a Palestinian state. Both Trump and Israel Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu are ethically challenged leaders. And both U.S. and Israeli citizens who understand this fact also know that this signing ceremony at the White House will not make either of them into statesmen or boost their stature in the global community.

Imani Odebayu, Oakland, CA

NO PEACE CAN BE ACHIEVED WITHOUT JUSTICE

To the Gettysburg Times, Sept. 27, 2020 So disappointing to read the frontpage Gettysburg Times headline on Monday, Sept. 21 on Middle East “peace” making.

The fact remains, no matter how politicians (local or otherwise) paint it, there is no peace without justice for all parties. Further oppression, with suppression and lies about that oppression, do not make peace.

Until Israel, backed by the U.S. government, takes its knee off the neck of the Palestinian people, there can be no peace.

Until Israel ends the illegal, immoral, brutal military occupation of Palestine, there can be no peace. Until Israel ends extrajudicial killings of Palestinian people, ends detention and torture of children, ends indefinite detention and torture of adults without charges, ends land grabs and destruction of Palestinian homes there can be no peace. American people would never accept such abuses and neither should Palestinian people. In my travels I experience the people in Palestine and the Middle East to be warm and hospitable, people who seek only to live and to care for their families.

Sound familiar to you, fellow citizens?

If Americans knew how the U.S. government manipulates the facts of this situation, they would demand an end to the human rights abuses perpetrated upon Palestinian families. Actual fair and balanced mainstream media reporting would mean we stop talking about Palestinian people and start talking to Palestinian people. Their lives are at stake. We should hear their

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SECRETARY OF STATE MIKE POMPEO U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE 2201 C ST. NW WASHINGTON, DC 20520 PHONE: (202) 647-6575 VISIT WWW.STATE.GOV TO E-MAIL ANY REPRESENTATIVE U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES WASHINGTON, DC 20515 (202) 225-3121

point of view, even if the truth makes us uncomfortable.

It is important for American taxpayers to understand that Palestinians are fully human. It is important for American citizens to understand that the biblical tribe of Israel is not the same as the modern state of Israel, which was founded with support from Western powers, on Palestinian land, in May 1948. It is important for Americans to understand that the modern state of Israel suffers from the same issues of corruption as any other nation. Like our head of state, Israel’s head of state is under criminal investigation.

American taxpayer dollars pay for genocide in Palestine. This is outrageous and must end.

As people of faith, we have a right and an obligation to demand an end to human rights abuses everywhere, including Israel’s abuses in Palestine. God calls us to love and honor all people.

Rev. Sandra R Mackie, Gettysburg, PA

CARTOON SMEARS PALESTINIANS

To The Virginian-Pilot, Sept. 22, 2020 Michael Ramirez’s Sept. 18 political cartoon that depicts Palestine as a vulture and other Middle Eastern countries as peacemakers is not only offensive, but it misrepresents the plight of the Palestinian people.

The Palestinians are being persecuted in their own homeland and are forced to live under deplorable conditions.

The world has seen this before with American Indians, Blacks in America and South Africa, the Jewish people in Europe and the Uyghur people in China. At a time when people are waking up to the plight of minority people, I hope people will take the time to educate themselves on the true story of the Palestinians and not be swayed by a prejudicial cartoon.

Pamela Burroughs, Hampton, VA

HEBRON A CLEAR MANIFESTATION OF ISRAELI APARTHEID

To The Washington Post, Sept. 24, 2020 Thanks to the editorial board for asserting, in its Sept. 19 editorial “A lopsided

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Middle East strategy,” that the IsraeliUnited Arab Emirates-Bahrain accords “include the reinforcement of harsh authoritarian rulers; the deepening of U.S. entanglement in a sectarian conflict among Sunni and Shi’i regimes; and the marginalization of the issue on which Israel’s future most depends: relations with the Palestinians.”

As a Palestinian American who cares deeply not only about my Palestinian sisters and brothers but also about my many Israeli friends, I wish the U.S. media would report more on the terrible conditions in places such as Hebron, which illustrate the extreme apartheid regime that Israel has imposed on the Palestinians.

The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam is the title of a book by the Jewish American thinker Barbara W. Tuchman describing the blindness that comes with the illusion of inexorable political and military power wielded at the expense of others.

Hebron is just the most visible manifestation of Israel’s march of folly, which can only lead to even more extreme instability in what has effectively become Greater Israel.

Philip Farah, Vienna, VA

PALESTINIANS LACK ACCESS TO THEIR OWN WATER

To The Washington Post, Oct. 4, 2020 The Sept. 26 front-page article “West Bank bananas were ‘green gold.’ Now farmers’ fields run dry,” outlined the fate of Palestinian agriculture on the West Bank since the seizure of the territory, and thus control of its aquifers and water, by the Israelis in 1967. With interviews with Israelis and Palestinians, the piece made clear the disconnect between Israeli words and the harsh reality lived by the Palestinians on their lands. Once-thriving Palestinian farms have died or are dying because of a lack of irrigation.

Palestinian farmers are not permitted to dig wells, unlike the Israeli settlements, and the natural springs traditionally used have dried up because of the pumping of the aquifers. Palestinians cannot buy water from the Israeli water company. As the article pointed out, the cutting up of the West Bank into numerous areas prevents the Palestinian Authority from distributing what water it does control from wet areas to dry.

There is more than one way to force a people from their homeland. Destroying Palestinian livelihoods may be slower, but it is effective.

Mary Post, Springfield, VA NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2020

REMEMBER YEMEN WHEN VOTING

To The Aspen Times, Sept. 8, 2020 We need to think of the people of Yemen while voting this November.

Beset by war since 2015, an estimated 3.6 million have been displaced and 24 million are in need of urgent humanitarian aid.

An estimated 85,000 Yemeni children under the age of five have died of hunger, and American-made bombs have killed civilians in a series of unlawful air strikes.

Yemen now faces overlapping tragedies as COVID-19 further aggravates the combined toll of conflict and mass starvation.

Sen. Cory Gardner (R-CO) has had a hand in enabling this crisis. In 2019, he voted against a resolution that would have withdrawn U.S. support for the Saudi-led coalition. The coalition—which backs the Yemeni government in its fight against Houthi rebels—has received extensive assistance from the U.S. since Yemen’s war began.

America has supported intelligence operations, provided targeting advice, sold billions of dollars worth of weapons, and refueled mid-air warplanes carrying out air strikes. This involvement has facilitated the suffering of Yemen’s people. We can trace munitions that have mangled Yemeni civilians to facilities in Texas, Oklahoma and Arizona; the bomb that killed 40 children on a school bus in Dhahyan in 2018 was made on American soil.

As voters, we need to consider this reality. Yemen’s war continues, and it is being fueled by officials who act in our name.

Isabel Wolfer, Aspen, CO

WAR AND OUR PRIORITIES DURING A PANDEMIC

To the Quad-City Times, Sept. 1, 2020 Two stories on Aug. 24th are a reminder that most of us are preoccupied with the COVID-19 nightmare, the Nov. 3rd elections, the wall and the economy.

Still, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and elsewhere continue to impact the lives of our young men and women.

Presidential historian Douglas Brinkley at Rice University says “the golden egg of Trump’s reelection is going to be promises kept, such as...keeping America out of foreign wars like Afghanistan and Iraq.”

Maybe, but the current wars continue to impact the lives of our young men and women.

Since January 2017, there have been 60 U.S. military fatalities in Iraq, with 172 wounded; in Afghanistan, there have been 63 deaths and 425 wounded. Total U.S. fatalities to date since 2003 in Iraq are 4,584 and since 2001 in Afghanistan, 2,451.

Our wounded military has an everlasting impact on the lives of those who come home. Former Marine veteran Robert Neal Jr., knows that as he checks on his fellow veterans; they are dying at the rate of 17 per day by suicide, according to a Veterans Affairs report.

Since 2003, there have been 32,455 wounded veterans from the Iraq war and 20,662 wounded from the Afghanistan war since 2001.

The financial cost of these wars at the rate of $250 million a day is now more than $5.6 trillion.

Ironically, Congress couldn’t agree to continue to spend $600 a week to save workers from destitution resulting from the pandemic.

Isn’t it time we really stopped all wars?

Vincent G. Thomas, Rock Island, IL

THE ETHICS OF MODERNIZING OUR NUCLEAR MISSILES

To The Seattle Times, Sept. 10, 2020 Re: “Air Force awards $13.3 billion contract for nuclear missiles” (Sept. 8, Nation): Will this project truly make us safer as a nation? When world tensions are sky high, when a nuclear accident might trigger a response from one of the other nuclear nations, when hackers can do their work, how does continuing this charade of nuclear deterrence really contribute to national security?

Is it total naiveté to imagine, instead of spending more money to “modernize” our nuclear weapons, that the U.S. take the lead in calling a conference to rid these immoral weapons from the planet?

Louise Lansberry, Seattle, WA ■

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Middle East Books Review All books featured in this section are available from Middle East Books and More, the nation’s preeminent bookstore on the Middle East and U.S. foreign policy. www.MiddleEastBooks.com • (202) 939-6050 ext. 1 Apartheid is a Crime: Portraits of the Israeli Occupation of Palestine

By Mats Svensson, Cune Press, 2020, hardcover, 160 pp. MEB $20

Reviewed by Charles Villa-Vicencio

A picture tells a thousand words! It was television and photographs of South African apartheid that, in the 1970s and 1980s, informed global audiences of the barbarities of racism. Thanks to social media, the present Israeli variant of apartheid is even more extensively documented. Whilst South Africa gave the word “apartheid” to institutionalized racism, international law indicates that the Israeli government’s conduct toward Palestinians meets the legal definition of apartheid, as well as the definitions of genocide and war crimes in terms of articles six, seven and eight of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

The intricacies of the legal and political debates on the illegality of the Israeli ocCharles Villa-Vicencio, the former national research director of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, is the founder and executive director of the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation based in Cape Town. He is currently a visiting professor in conflict resolution at Georgetown University in Washington, DC. This review

was edited and shortened for space from its original submission.

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cupation of Palestine continues. Mats Svensson’s album, Apartheid is a Crime, is comprised of black and white photographs and offers a different approach.

He captures the mood of “ordinary” Palestinians in a manner that speaks to people who observe the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from a distance.

The photographs include the ruins of stone huts, storage barns and other structures of occupied Palestinian farms, which have been incorporated into Israeli orange groves. The imposing wall along the Gaza border, the separation of East and West Jerusalem and the wall separating “the little town of Bethlehem” from the southern part of the West Bank are blunt structures of conquest and control, embellished on the non-Israeli side with pro-Palestinian graffiti. Svensson also captures the memories of dispossession, which are internalized on the faces of the elderly, the fortitude of women and mothers, and the determination of youths and the mischievous eyes of children who WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

await the future. The firepower of Israeli fighter jets, bombs and teargas is massive. The question is whether youthful conscripted Israeli recruits can match Palestinian resolve—and for how long?

For South Africans, the faces generate a sense of déjà vu.

Svensson’s lens is on the emotional trauma, bodily suffering and the economic dispossession of Palestinians, which speak to alienated groups in the United States, Europe, the Middle East, South Africa and elsewhere around the world.

This has resulted in growing support for Palestinians, through the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, which is reminiscent of the global mobilization that brought apartheid to an end in South Africa and currently inspires the Black Lives Matter movement against racism in the United States.

The portraits included in Apartheid is a Crime are augmented with succinct words from people who have lost their land to Zionist settlers, as well as the words of scholars, poets and world leaders, including Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Comparing the Palestinian situation to that of apartheid South Africa, Tutu speaks of the “corralling and harassing” of Palestinians, warning that “those who turn a blind eye to injustice” are contributing to the mutual destruction of the humanity of both Israelis and Palestinians. An elderly woman captures the sentiment of the first generation of displaced Palestinians, torn away from their land, their identity and their grandmothers’ stories. A wise Palestinian activist encourages Svensson to write about what he sees and hears in the lives of Palestinians. “Write, write, write!” he insists. Svensson went one step further, allowing his camera to do the writing.

The candid persistence of the hardened activist is part of the Palestinian story.

The context of Svensson’s photography is told and retold by numerous authors. Collectively, they define the emotion, suspicion and intransigence of the conflict, intertwined in the complexities NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2020

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and the affinity of political and religious Zionism. This came to a head in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, the 1967 Six-Day War that led to the occupation of East Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights, the 1973 Yom Kippur War, the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon and the first and second intifadas. The building of Jewish settlements in occupied territories and the latest threat to build more settlements with the tacit support of U.S. President Donald Trump entrenches a level of colonial subjugation that contradicts the very demand of the State of Israel—that Arab nations respect their borders and national security.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict replicates the two dominant typologies of conflict described in the field of peace and conflict studies: identity-based conflict and land or resource-based conflict.

Whatever the contextual nuances and political machinations behind the Balfour Declaration of 1917 and the Partition Plan of 1947, the current situation allows the State of Israel to be committed to territorial expansion, ethnic cleansing and, ironically, a memory of the lebensraum of German expansionism during the Second World War. Palestinians are resisting the occupation of their land and the violation of their most basic rights.

Svensson’s photographs suggest the need for a mechanism of transitional justice and peace-making, in which the basic needs of both Israelis and Palestinian are met. This involves: (i) Sufficient political will among both Israelis and Palestinians to explore a unitary state, based on mutual respect and co-existence. (ii) The importance of acknowledgement (as opposed to mere knowledge), which involves taking responsibility for the prevailing impasse. (iii) The political leadership on both sides guiding fearful and angry people away from resentment to a situation of mutual benefit. (iv) Agreement on symbolic, political and material reparations, plus the emotional reality involved. (v) The use of good governance and edNOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2020

ucation to negotiate through the interregnum between the past in pursuit of a new future. (vi) A deep reflection on history as a basis for correcting mistakes made and opportunities lost, in an attempt to avoid similar repetitions in the future. It would involve a major change for Israelis, in return for a measure of security and human rights, as an alternative to escalating international pressure and intensified Palestinian resistance to the occupation. This was the path chosen in the South African transition in 1994. Twentysix years later, the building blocks of this state are still being edged into place.

Enforcing Silence: Academic Freedom, Palestine and the Criticism of Israel

Edited by David Landy, Ronit Lentin and Conor McCarthy, Zed Books, 2020, paperback, 288 pp. MEB $29

Reviewed by Walter Hixson

This anthology centers on the concerted efforts being led by Israel and its supporting lobbies, especially in the United States and the United Kingdom, to siContributing 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. He has been a professor of history for 36 years, achieving the rank of distinguished professor.

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lence academic dissent over ongoing repression of Palestine. The book raises disturbing questions about the limitations of academic freedom amid the movement to suppress the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign and equate criticism of Israel with delegitimization and anti-Semitism.

Divided into three parts and 12 chapters, the anthology features different perspectives united around a common theme: the effort to silence dissent on campuses in the face of Israel’s ongoing settler colonial oppression. These essays show that rather than serving as bastions of free thought and dissent, universities in Israel and the West often serve to reinforce dominant hegemonic discourses.

Rather than protecting and enabling dissent, as John Reynolds argues in one of the essays, academic freedom arguments are instead “being deployed in the service of colonialism.”

In addition to assailing critics with charges of anti-Semitism, “Israel Studies” programs have been established on campuses as a “corollary to censorship and suppression of critiques of Zionism in universities.” As Hilary Aked points out, faculty posts in Israel Studies thus “serve as academic ‘facts on the ground’” bolstering settler colonialism in Palestine.

In an essay focusing on Israeli universities, Ronit Lentin demonstrates that “contrary to its ‘liberal’ image, Israeli academia works in the service of the racial state’s permanent war against the Palestinians.” Rather than enabling academic freedom, Israeli universities repress dissent while at the same time promoting “active collaboration” with the weapons and securities industries of the Israeli state. Moreover, Israel “exercises surveillance and control over educational institutions in occupied Palestine” by a variety of repressive means, including raids, closures, disruption of the free movement of students and faculty, preventing the holding of meetings and conferences, suspensions and expulsions, and the manipulation of visas and passports. The dedicated 67

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pursuit of a “colonial agenda” in Israeli higher education makes “a mockery of the very principle of academic freedom.”

An essay by Jeff Handmaker analyzes the deployment of “repressive, law-based measures, or lawfare” to “silence dissent and to persecute individual critics of Israel.” Universities increasingly resort to this “hegemonic and illegitimate use of law,” including the creation in Israel of a “government-funded tarnishing unit.”

Whereas “legal mobilization of human rights adopts positive, legitimating, and empowering forms” of advocacy for social justice, Handmaker points out “by contrast, lawfare takes negative, delegitimizing, and oppressive forms...validating the superiority of one group of people over another,” as with the nation-state law purporting to establish Israel as an exclusively Jewish state.

Palestinian scholars and activists such as Omar Barghouti, Sami Al-Arian and Steven Salaita have been especially sus-

ceptible to vilification and lawfare. As C. Heike Schotten notes, “Indigenous resistance is a mortal threat to the coherence, meaning, stability and persistence of the settler state.” The efforts to repress these scholars and activists is chilling and sometimes ironic. Salaita, for example, was hired by the University of Illinois to teach indigenous studies but when he spoke out for indigenous Palestinians amid their slaughter in Gaza in 2014 his offer of employment was withdrawn.

While some readers may find the frequent resort to academic terminology offputting, overall, the essays in this book achieve their goal of offering abundant critical analysis as to “what academic freedom means in practical terms in neoliberal academic settings,” in which corporate capitalism dominates institutional planning. The anthology thus speaks truth to power in the face of Israeli repression of Palestinians and repression of academic freedom as well.

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WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

This is What America Looks Like: My Journey from Refugee to Congresswoman

By Ilhan Omar, HarperCollins, 2020, hardcover, 277 pp. MEB $25

Reviewed by Delinda C. Hanley

I’ll admit I’ve been worried about Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), who is often the target of Islamophobic and racist taunts from President Donald Trump and his right-wing supporters. In fact, the day after Trump refused to condemn white supremacists during the first debate, the president held a rally in Omar’s state, home to one of the largest Somali populations in the country. Trump warned the crowd that if elected president, Joe Biden would turn Minnesota into a refugee camp, prompting chants to “lock her up!”

Omar was raised by her widowed father and a beloved grandfather, her childhood interrupted by Somalia’s civil war. After reading This is What America Looks Like: My Journey from Refugee to Congresswoman, I realized that Omar used her wits to fight off illness and despair in a Kenyan refugee camp and her fists to stand up to mean bullies in her middle school in Arlington, VA. Trump, who grew up pampered, rich and clueless about many of the people who make America great, doesn’t have a chance in a fight with this brilliant survivor.

Omar’s grandfather urged the family to Delinda C. Hanley is executive editor of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.

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leave their refugee camp and apply for resettlement in the U.S. because he said, “Only in America can you ultimately become an American. Everywhere else we will always feel like a guest.” After watching an orientation video showing America as a land of plenty with beautiful homes and white picket fences, the 12year-old Omar was shocked to land in New York City in 1995 and see the homeless and piles of garbage in the streets. Her father assured her, “This isn’t our America.

We’ll get to our America.” That more perfect America is a place Omar is determined to spend her life building for all of us.

I was afraid that what had been a pageturner would slow down once Omar became a teenager and her family moved to Minneapolis. Instead this reader was transfixed by her work organizing a coalition called Unity in Diversity that transformed her chaotic volatile high school into a more peaceful learning environment. She’s been organizing ever since.

Mind you, Omar was no angel and it is her single-parent father, raising a headstrong daughter, who I think earned a halo. “My father raised me with a strict morality, not strict rules...A revealing outfit upset him not for the body parts it revealed, but for the lack of self-esteem it demonstrated.”

Omar met her first husband, Ahmed, when she was only 16, and they married right after her high school graduation. She had barely started an accounting program when the 9/11 terrorism attacks occurred.

She recalls that Muslim Americans “were held responsible, as a group, for the terrorist attacks or seen as a threat. Suddenly our religion was dangerous and our American-ness called into question.”

Throughout the book, Omar honestly and fearlessly examines her religion, marriage, motherhood, work and the losses she’s endured as a refugee, “...the loss of my homeland, my language, and any sense of permanence. I lost not only my childhood but also the future that had been promised me.” Instead of sinking into depression Omar makes some tough NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2020

N E W A R R I VA L S What the West Is Getting Wrong about the Middle East: Why Islam Is Not the Problem, by Ömer Taspinar, I.B. Tauris, 2020, hardcover, 268 pp. MEB $26. The West’s actions in the Middle East are based on a fundamental misunderstanding: political Islam is repeatedly assumed to be the main cause of conflict and unrest in the region. The idea that we can decipher jihadist radicalization or the region’s problems simply by reading the Qur’an has now become symptomatic of our age. Ultimately, this oversimplification has hindered long-term solutions and stability in the region. Ömer Taspinar focuses on three cases currently under the spotlight: the role of Erdogan and unrest in Turkey, the sectarian clashes in Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Lebanon and the existence of the Islamic State. Taspinar emphasizes the importance of treating the causes, which are economic, social and institutional—rather than the symptom—the growing success of Islamist parties and jihadist movements in assessing the Middle East.

The United States of War: A Global History of America’s Endless Conflicts, from Columbus to the Islamic State,

by David Vine, University of California Press, 2020, hardcover, 464 pp. MEB $29. The U.S. has been fighting wars constantly since invading Afghanistan in 2001. This nonstop warfare is far less exceptional than it might seem: the U.S. has been at war or has invaded other countries almost every year since its independence. David Vine traces this pattern of bloody conflict from Columbus’s 1494 arrival in Guantanamo Bay through the 250-year expansion of a global U.S. empire. The United States of War demonstrates how U.S. leaders across generations have locked the country in a self-perpetuating system of permanent war by constructing the world’s largestever collection of foreign military bases—a global matrix that has made offensive interventionist wars more likely. Beyond exposing the profit-making desires, political interests, racism and toxic masculinity underlying the country’s relationship to war and empire, Vine shows how the long history of U.S. military expansion has shaped Americans’ daily lives.

Retargeting Iran, edited by David Barsamian, City Lights Books, 2020, paperback, 187 pp. MEB $15. The United States and Iran seem to be permanently locked in a dangerous cycle of brinkmanship and violence. Both countries have staged cyber-attacks and recently shot down one another’s aircraft. Why do both countries seem intent on escalation?

Why did the U.S. abandon the nuclear deal? Where can Washington and Tehran find common ground? To address these questions and the political and historical forces at play, David Barsamian presents the perspectives of Iran scholars Ervand Abrahamian, Noam Chomsky, Nader Hashemi, Azadeh Moaveni and Trita Parsi. A follow-up to the previously published Targeting Iran, this timely book continues to affirm the goodwill between Iranian and American people, even as their respective governments clash on the international stage.

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decisions and bravely embarks on a new journey, juggling kids, school and activism. She also describes her political ascent to Congress, getting out the vote for Mohamud Noor’s bid for Minnesota state senator, working for Councilmember Andrew Johnson and other progressive leaders—tirelessly organizing grassroots campaigns and building coalitions.

Omar also honestly addresses some of the controversies that have dogged her, like her “It’s all about the Benjamins baby” tweet and expresses her pride that Bernie Sanders endorsed her re-election.

“That’s my daughter, and I’m proud of her,” her father says at one point as Omar becomes a public figure. “She’s a full being. She gets to have autonomy over her decisions and how she wants to live.”

Omar’s father, Nur Omar Mohamed, died due to complications from COVID19 in June 2020, just after this book was published. “No words can describe what he meant to me and all who knew him,” the first Muslim congresswoman to wear a hijab on the House floor stated in a press release.

I beg to differ. Omar’s book describes in eloquent words her beloved father, as well as her grandfather, and many other hard-working refugees proudly raising their American children. Like Omar, these children are uniquely positioned to stand up to bullies and transform this nation into “our America.”

The Quarter

By Naguib Mahfouz, translated by Roger Allen, Saqi, 2019, hardcover, 128 pp.

MEB $15

Reviewed by Eleni Zaras

“‘So here’s a new disaster in our quarter,’ [The Head of the Quarter] told the mosque’s Imam, ‘It never has its fill when it comes to generating disasters.’”

A contagion of tears, a gambler desperate for a wife and family, and a mysterious, deadly arrow are among the 70

mundane and fantastical misfortunes recounted in Mahfouz’s collection of short stories, The Quarter, published posthumously in 2019. While misfortune, distrust and longing all lurk in the streets of Cairo’s old quarter, we also catch glimmers of their antidotes of laughter, faith and love, even if only revealed in fleeting or unconventional ways.

The 18 stories published in The Quarter were discovered by Mahfouz’s daughter in 2018 with the attached note, “To be published in 1994.” While the exact moment of the stories’ execution is unknown, the translator, Roger Allen, attempts in his introduction to situate the stories within Mahfouz’s long career.

Stylistically, he points to Mahfouz’s “increasingly allusive and economical style” in the 1960s and 1970s, and his thematic return to the hara (quarter) setting around this same time. Comparing the stories in The Quarter to Mahfouz’s other writings, Allen specifically draws parallels to Echoes of an Autobiography (published in Arabic in 1994 and in English in 1997).

Indeed, the stories in The Quarter combine the “reminisces” and “homiletic wisdom” elements of Echoes of an Autobiography. At times addressing the reader in the Eleni Zaras is the former assistant bookstore director at Middle East Books and More. She is a student in Near Eastern Studies at New York University’s Kevorkian Center and has a BA in the History of Art from the University of Michigan and a Masters degree in History from the Universite Paris Diderot.

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

first person, the narrator shares episodes of life in the quarter as if speaking with an old friend. Other times, he steps into a more elusive role of a storyteller recounting a well-versed legend outside the bounds of time. At the heart of each story, though, and of the quarter more broadly, are the Head of the Quarter and the Sheikh, who mediate between forces of men, nature and spirits and strive, with mixed results, toward a moralizing conclusion.

While the reader becomes privy to the emotions, intrigues and shifting situations in the quarter, the stories are brief—no more than a few pages—and more concerned with precision of a narrative form than developing complex psyches and robust, realist details. The setting of the “Quarter” itself floats in an unspecified time and place.

These vignettes are thus far removed in style and form from Mahfouz’s perhaps most well-known Cairo Trilogy, the epic, over 1,500-page trilogy which steeps the reader in the minds and material worlds of the characters, neighborhoods and epochs.

Yet, the judiciousness of sensory and descriptive details in The Quarter endow each line with greater potency, and draw attention to his syntactic and structural precision. In “The Prayer of Sheikh Qaf,” the story opens matter-of-factly with the lines: “Umaira al-Ayiq had been murdered./ Hifni al-Rayiq was accused of the crime./ Al-Zayni, Kibrita, and Fayiq all witnessed the crime and testified to it./ Hifni al-Rayiq confessed to the crime.”

These seemingly indisputable facts communicated in terse, unambiguous language are suddenly obfuscated when the narrator goes on to poetically concede: “But the quarter has its own hidden tongue, although no one knows to whom it belongs. It can whisper misgivings and reveal secrets. Such rumors persisted until they filled the entire atmosphere like a powerful smell.”

Mahfouz thus piques our interest from the first carefully crafted lines of each story and proceeds to succinctly divulge NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2020

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the gossip and myths of the district.

Though not specifically related, the stories in The Quarter read more like a set of interconnected tales than distinct, stand-alone stories.

Even with their folkloric structure, their conclusions defy convention. Each outcome is tinged with an unexpected twist or concession, or with uncertainty and unsolved riddles, thus challenging even a “folklore” descriptor.

At the end of this Saqi Books edition of The Quarter, we also find a few facsimiles of stories hand-written by Mahfouz, as well as his Nobel Prize acceptance speech from 1988. Though the tales are supposedly local in their relation to a quarter of Cairo, the quarter serves as a petri dish of humanity, and Mahfouz’s speech at the end amplifies their universal messages. Taken together, Mahfouz’s writings in this newly released compilation remind us of our fallibility, our interconnectedness, and our responsibility toward others, as if we too are all neighbors in this metaphorical hara.

SUPPORT MIDDLE EAST BOOKSTORE/ COFFEE SHOP

Brick-and-mortar retailers are facing a challenge. Even before the pandemic, competition from Amazon forced a lot of independent bookstores to close. Thanks to your support, Middle East Books and More defied that trend! When it’s safe we hope to welcome you back to browse, shop, and gather our community together for book talks, club meetings and film screenings.

We’re still selling books online (www.MiddleEastBooks.com) and opening a few days a week but we are also using this time to expand and add a coffee shop to the bookstore. Now that we’ve completed the architectural plans and selected the contractor, we’ve learned that renovations will cost more than $100,000.

Please send a check to AET, 1902 18th St, NW, Washington, DC, with “bookstore” on the memo line to help make your favorite bookstore a special gathering place for our community.

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2020

N E W A R R I VA L S Archive Wars: The Politics of History in Saudi Arabia by Rosie Bsheer, Stanford University Press, 2020, paperback, 379 pp. MEB $30. The production of history is premised on the selective erasure of certain pasts and the artifacts that stand witness to them. From the elision of archival documents to the demolition of sacred and secular spaces, each act of destruction is also an act of state building. Following the 1991 Gulf War, political elites in Saudi Arabia pursued these dual projects of historical commemoration and state formation with greater fervor to enforce their post-war vision for state, nation and economy. Seeing Islamist movements as the leading threat to state power, they sought to de-center religion from educational, cultural and spatial policies.

Rosie Bsheer explores the increasing secularization of the post-war Saudi state and how it manifested in assembling a national archive and reordering urban space in Riyadh and Mecca. The elites’ project was rife with ironies: in Riyadh, they employed world-renowned experts to fashion an imagined history, while at the same time in Mecca they were overseeing the obliteration of a thousand-year-old topography and its replacement with commercial megaprojects. Archive Wars shows how the Saudi state’s response to the challenges of the Gulf War served to historicize a national space, territorialize a national history and ultimately refract both through new modes of capital accumulation.

Creative Radicalism in the Middle East: Culture and the Arab Left after the Uprisings, by Caroline Rooney, I.B. Tauris, 2020, paperback, 226 pp. MEB $27. In the face of vicious oppression and years of authoritarian and neoliberal ideology, how did the Arab Left assert itself during the Arab uprisings? In this bold new account, Caroline Rooney outlines the importance of aesthetic strategies and creative expression in the left’s critique of authoritarian and Islamic extremist discourse during the revolutions.

Using a wide array of texts and sources, the book uses affect theory to show how a poetics of disappointment, despair and distrust, to dignity, solidarity and reconfigured senses of the sacred, offer a way for the left to reclaim ethical and progressive “radical” values that have been co-opted by political leaders and extremists in the Middle East. In doing so, the book offers an original conceptual framework for differentiating “radicalization” from the creative radicalism of the Arab avant-garde.

The Spiritual Poems of Rumi, translated by Nader Khalili, Wellfleet Press, 2020, hardcover, 128 pp. MEB $17. For more than eight centuries, Jalaluddin Muhammad Balkhi Rumi—commonly referred to simply as Rumi—has enchanted and enthralled readers from every faith and background with his universal themes of love, friendship and spirituality, which he seamlessly wove into resplendent poetry.

The verses herein perfectly express the spiritual quest and desire for a deeper understanding of not only ourselves, but also of our collective oneness as humankind.

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O• B • I • T • U • A • R • I • E • S Saba Shami, 65, a prominent advocate for the Arab-American community, died from cancer on Sept. 17. After leaving his hometown of Haifa almost 40 years ago, Shami came to the United States and subsequently held many positions within the Virginia state government, including chief deputy commissioner for the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, director of the Taskforce for Business Development with the Near East, special assistant to the commissioner at the Department of Motor Vehicles (where he founded the Office of Outreach and served as its first director), director of special projects for the Port Authority and chief deputy director for the Department of Professional and Occupational Regulation.

Saba’s experience and knowledge of Virginia politics virtually allowed him to reach out to any elected official in the state, which made him an effective advocate for Arab Americans.

Saba also founded the New Dominion PAC, which is the largest and most influential network of Arab Americans in Virginia, and the Arab American Democratic Caucus of Virginia. Officials running for office in the state actively sought both of these groups’ endorsements while campaigning, including senators Tim Kaine and Mark Warner.

According to Fred Shwaery of the media organization Arab America, “Saba spoke many dialects of Arabic which made him a very popular speaker. He had an uncanny ability to connect people and he knew everyone’s relatives. The ability to speak many Arabic dialects made him in demand as a political commentator on Middle East television.

Every week, he appeared throughout the Middle East on news and political television shows.”

On Facebook, Senator Tim Kaine wrote, “Heartbroken at the death of my friend Saba Shami, who fought cancer with the same bravery and spirit he brought to his incredible public service. If you met Saba even 72

once, you would never forget him— always trying to help others and a friend to all. My thoughts go out to Amira and their children.”

Saba is survived by his wife, Amira Mazzawi Shami, and his two sons, Yousef Shami and Amir Shami.

Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmed al-Jaber alSabah, 91, Emir of Kuwait, died Sept. 29 while undergoing treatment at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. In 2006, Sabah became the Emir of Kuwait after having spent four decades shaping Kuwaiti foreign policy as the country’s foreign minister, beginning in 1963. In recognition of

OTHER VOICES is an optional 16-page supple ment 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, fax (714) 226-9733, e-mail circulation@wrmea. org>, or write to P.O. Box 91056, Long Beach, CA 908091056.

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

By Sami Tayeb his humanitarian efforts around the world, Sabah was given the title “Prince of Humanity” in Kuwait. U.S. President Jimmy Carter once said about Sabah, “his support of disaster relief, peace efforts, and advancing public health are an inspiration. Other world leaders can learn from his example.” Sabah’s half brother Nawaf al-Ahmad al-Jaber al-Sabah succeeded him to the throne.

Mohammad Reza Shajarian, 80, Persian classical music singer died Oct. 8 after a decade-long battle with kidney cancer. Born in Mashhad, Iran in 1940, Shajarian’s interest in music was inspired by learning to recite the Qur’an as a child. After studying with well-known masters of classical Persian music in Tehran while he worked as a teacher, he began his music career by singing ballads on the radio. After all music, with the exception of classical music, was banned in Iran following the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Shajarian’s career took off. In the decades following the revolution, his presence was ubiquitous on state radio and television.

Among his many accolades, he received two awards from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), including the Picasso Medal in 1999 and the Mozart Medal in 2006. National Public Radio (NPR) named him one of the world’s “50 Great Voices.”

During the 2009 protests in Tehran, Shajarian expressed support for the protesters, and while driving through Tehran he flashed a victory sign and said, “death to the dictator.” After this and other acts of dissent, the government banned Shajarian from giving live performances and from state media. Despite the ban, his popularity grew and he continued to perform and record new music abroad.

Upon his death, President Hassan Rouhani stated on social media that “the grateful people of Iran will forever remember this beloved artist and his work.” ■ NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2020

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AET’s 2020 Choir of Angels

The following are individuals, organizations, companies and foundations whose help between Jan. 1, 2020 and Sept.29, 2020 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 “Transcending the Israel Lobby.” Others are donating to our “Capital Building Fund,” which will help us expand and add coffee service to the Middle East Books and More bookstore. Thank you all for helping us survive the turmoil caused by the pandemic. We are deeply honored by your confidence and profoundly grateful for your generosity.

HUMMERS ($100 or more)

Ahsen Abbasi, Leesburg, VA Fuad Abboud, Calgary, Canada Dr. & Mrs. Robert Abel, Wilmington, DE Fahed Abu-Akel, Atlanta, GA James C. Ahlstrom, Stirling, NJ Joe & Siham Alfred, Fredericksburg, VA Hamid & Kim Alwan, Milwaukee, WI Nabil & Judy Amarah, Danbury, CT Edwin Amidon, Charlotte, VT Nazife Amrou, Sylvania, OH Anace Aossey, Cedar Rapids, IA Dr. Robert Ashmore Jr., Mequon, WI Mr. & Mrs. Sultan Aslam, Plainsboro, NJ Ahmed Ayish, Arlington, VA Rick Bakry, New York, NY Allen & Jerrie Bartlett, Philadelphia, PA Joseph Benedict, Mystic, CT Bradley Bitar, Olympia, WA Elaine Brouillard, West Hyannisport, MA Sam Burgan, Falls Church, VA James Burkart, Bethesda, MD Prof. Mireya Camurati, Williamsville, NY John Cornwall, Palm Springs, CA Dr. & Mrs. Anton Dahbura, Baltimore, MD Robert & Tanis Diedrichs, Eugene, OR Dr. George Doumani, Washington, DC Sarah L. Duncan, Vienna, OH Dr. David Dunning, Lake Oswego, OR Dr. & Mrs. Hossam Fadel, Augusta, GA Steve Feldman, Winston-Salem, NC Dr. E.R. Fields, Marietta, GA Andrew M. Findlay, Alexandria, VA Joseph & Angela Gauci, Whittier, CA Ahmad & Shirley Gazori, Mill Creek, WA Michael Gillespie, Maxwell, IA Doug Greene, Bowling Green, OH Dr. Safei Hamed, Columbia, MD Erin K. Hankir, Nepean, Canada Delinda C. Hanley, Kensington, MD ** Dr. Walid & Norma Harb, Dearborn Hts., MI Prof. & Mrs. Brice Harris, Pasadena, CA Angelica Harter, N. Branford, CT Mr. & Mrs. Sameer Hassan, Quaker Hill, CT Julester Haste, Oxford, IA Jim Hausken, Kensington, CA

NOvEMBEr/DECEMBEr 2020

Gerald Heidel, Bradenton, FL M.D. Hotchkiss, Portland, OR Barbara Howard, Piscataway, NJ M. Al Hussaini, Great Falls, VA Mr. & Mrs. Azmi Ideis, Deltona, FL Bilquis Jaweed, West Chester, OH Issa & Rose Kamar, Plano, TX Timothy Kaminski, Saint Louis, MO Mr. & Mrs. Basim Kattan, Washington, DC M. Yousuf Khan, Scottsdale, AZ Dr. Mohayya Khilfeh, Chicago, IL Eugene Khorey, Homestead, PA Alfred & Dina Khoury, McLean, VA Tony Khoury, Sedona, AZ Gail Kirkpatrick, Philadelphia, PA Ronald Kunde, Skokie, IL Alison Lankenau, Tivoli, NY Edwin Lindgren, Overland Park, KS Erna Lund, Seattle, WA Allen J. Macdonald, Washington, DC Dr. & Mrs. Gabriel Makhlouf, Richmond, VA Tahera Mamdani, Fridley, MN Ted Marczak, Toms River, NJ Charles Marks, Altadena, CA## Martha Martin, Kahului, HI Stephen Mashney, Anaheim, CA Carol Mazzia, Santa Rosa, CA Shirl McArthur, Reston, VA William McAuley, Chicago, IL Gwendolyn McEwen, Bellingham, WA Stanley McGinley, The Woodlands, TX Ray McGovern, Raleigh, NC Robert Michael, Sun Lakes, AZ Tom Mickelson, Cottage Grove, WI Curtis Miller, Albuquerque, NM Peter Miller, Portland, OR Maury Keith Moore, Seattle, WA Moe Muhsin, Honolulu, HI Isa & Dalal Musa, Falls Church, VA Sara Najjar-Wilson, Reston, VA Stephen L. Naman, Atlanta, GA Mary Neznek, Washington, DC W. Eugene Notz, Charleston, SC Merrill O’Donnell, New Westminster, Canada Peggy Rafferty, Cedar Grove, NC Amani Ramahi, Lakewood, OH

Marjorie Ransom, Washington, DC Kenneth Reed, Bishop, CA John Reinke, Redmond, WA Paul Richards, Salem, OR Ambassador William Rugh, Hingham, MA Hameed Saba, Diamond Bar, CA Dr. Mohammed Sabbagh, Grand Blanc, MI Irmgard Scherer, Fairfax, VA Dr. Ajazuddin Shaikh, Granger, IN Yasir Shallal, McLean, VA Qaiser & Tanseem Shamim, Somerset, NJ Dr. Mostafa Hashem Sherif, Tinton Falls, NJ Zac Sidawi, Costa Mesa, CA Ellen Siegel, Washington, DC Yasser Soliman, Hamilton Township, NJ Darcy Sreebny, Issaquah, WA** Corrine Sutila, Los Angeles, CA Mushtaq Syed, Santa Clara, CA Dr. Joseph Tamari, Chicago, IL Eddy Tamura, Moraga, CA Doris Taweel, Laurel, MD Gretchen Theobald, Washington, DC Tom Veblen, Washington, DC V. R. Vitolins, Grosse Pointe Farms, MI Hermann Weinlick, Minneapolis, MN Edith I. Welch, Warner, NH Thomas C. Welch, Cambridge, MA Duane & Barbara Wentz, Kirkland, WA Michael Wilke, St. Charles, IL David Williams, Golden, CO Robert Witty, Cold Spring, NY Mashood Yunus, New Brighton, MN Hugh Ziada, Garden Grove, CA Fred Zuercher, Spring Grove, PA

ACCOMPANISTS ($250 or more)

Catherine Abbott, Edina, MN Michael Ameri, Calabasas, CA Syed & Rubia Bokhari, Bourbonnais, IL Duncan Clark, Rockville, MD William G. Coughlin, Brookline, MA Dr. William Fuller, Valdosta, GA

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Susan Haragely, Livonia, MI Eyas Hattab, Louisville, KY Islamic Center of Detroit, Detroit, MI Rafeeq Jaber, Oak Lawn, IL Fahd Jajeh, Lake Forest, IL Bilquis Jaweed, West Chester, OH Killgore Family, Washington, DC * Dr. Muhammad M. Kudaimi, Munster, IN Sedigheh Kunkel, Santa Monica, CA Matt Labadie, Portland, OR Michael Ladah, Las Vegas, NV Tony Litwinko, Los Angeles, CA Nidal Mahayni, Richmond, VA Richard Makdisi & Lindsay Wheeler, Berkeley, CA Dr. Charles W. McCutchen, Bethesda, MD Curtis Miller, Albuquerque, NM Yehia Mishriki, Orefield, PA Museum of the Palestinian People, Washington, DC Claire Nader, Winsted, CT Nancy Orr, Portland, OR Hertha Poje-Ammoumi, New York, NY Phillip Portlock, Washington, DC Dr. Mazin Qumsiyeh, Bethlehem, Palestine Mary H. Regier, El Cerrito, CA Jeanne Riha, Brooklyn, NY Sean Roach, Washington, DC Rotary Foundation, Evanston, IL Ramzy Salem, Monterey Park, CA Sarah Saul, Portland, ME

Dr. Abid Shah, Sarasota, FL Bernice Shaheen, Palm Desert, CA**** David J. Snider, Bolton, MA William R. Stanley, Lexington, SC John K. Y. & Margot S. Taylor, New York, NY Benjamin Wade, Saratoga, CA

TENORS & CONTRALTOS ($500 or more)

Sylvia Anderson de Freitas, Duluth, MN Dr. & Mrs. Roger Bagshaw, Big Sur, CA Helen Bourne, Encinitas, CA William G. Coughlin, Brookline, MA Andrew & Krista Curtiss, Wilmington, NC ** Mr. & Mrs. Majed Faruki, Albuquerque, NM Raymond Gordon, Venice, FL Alfred R. Greve, Holmes, NY Dr. Wasif Hafeez, W. Bloomfield, MI Masood Hassan, Calabasas, CA Virginia Hilmy, Silver Spring, MD Kandy L. Hixson, Akron, OH Brigitte Jaensch, Carmichael, CA Gloria Keller, Santa Rosa, CA Tom & Tess McAndrew, Oro Valley, AZ Darrel Meyers, Burbank, CA Audrey Olson, Saint Paul, MN Lisa Schiltz, Houston, TX James G. Smart, Keene, NH Anver Tayob, Saint Louis, MO Tom Veblen, Washington, DC Dr. James Zogby, Washington, DC***

BARITONES & MEZZO SOPRANOS ($1,000 or more)

Anonymous, San Francisco, CA Asha A. Anand, Bethesda, MD Lois Aroian, East Jordan, MI Barakat Family, Moorpark, CA### Graf Herman Bender, North Palm Beach, FL G. Edward & Ruth Brooking, Wilmington, DE Forrest Cioppa, Moraga, CA Paula Davidson, Naples, FL Gregory & Nancy DeSylva, Rhinebeck, NY Nabila Eltaji, Amman, Jordan Dr. & Mrs. Clyde Farris, West Linn, OR*,** Ronald & Mary Forthofer, Boulder, CO Judith Howard, Norwood, MA Mohammed Jokhdar, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia Ghazy Kader, Shoreline, WA Dr. Muhammad Khan, Jersey City, NJ Damaris Koehler, Mannheim, Germany Jack Love, Kailua Kona, HI Robert & Sharon Norberg, Lake City, MN** Mary Norton, Austin, TX M.F. Shoukfeh, Lubbock, TX Gretel Smith, Garrett, IN Dr. Imad Tabry, Fort Lauderdale, FL Donn Trautman, Evanston, IL Young Again Foundation, Leland, NC

CHOIRMASTERS ($5,000 or more)

American Council for Judaism, Ponte Vedra Beach, FL Anonymous, Palo Alto, CA #

Dr. & Mrs. Clyde Farris, West Linn, OR*,**

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WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

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NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2020

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Winter is coming.

And refugees living in tents are bracing for the wet and cold.

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

November/December 2020 Vol. XXXIX, No. 7

Students wearing masks take a school bus in Beirut, Lebanon on Oct. 12, 2020. The public and private schools in Lebanon commenced the new academic year on Oct. 12, amid a surge in COVID-19 infections in the country.

(Photo by bilal Jawich/Xinhua via Getty)