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CAMPAIGN TO CRIMINALIZE CRITICISM OF ISRAEL
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TELLING THE TRUTH SINCE 1982
Volume XXXVIII, No. 2
On Middle East Affairs
March/April 2019
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
18 20 22
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The Demise of USAID Efforts in the West Bank and Gaza— Larry Garber
Obsessed with Palestine, The U.S. Defunds UNRWA— Ian Williams
Why Should My Newspaper Pledge Not to Boycott Israel?— Alan Leveritt
News in Jeopardy: National, Local, Establishment and Insurgent — Delinda C. Hanley
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26
12
15 30
Campaign to Criminalize Criticism of Israel: A Challenge to Free Speech, Jewish Values— Allan C. Brownfeld
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GOP Rep. Seeks to Block Tlaib’s Palestine Congressional Delegation — Juan Cole
28 34 38 43 45 48 51
Amid Government Shutdown, 116th Congress Opens With AIPAC-Supported Bill— Shirl McArthur
Tensions Erupt Inside Palestinian Joint List Ahead of Israel’s April Elections— Jonathan Cook
Israeli Elections: Gantz vs Netanyahu, Bad Cop vs Awful Cop—Two Views—Yumna Patel, Jonathan Ofir A Weakly Inflated Trial Balloon— James J. Zogby
Entrepreneurship in Gaza: A Glimmer of Hope but a High Risk of Failure— Al-Orjwan Shurrab
Who Really Cares About Unifying the Palestinian State?—Two Views—Mohammed Omer, Ramzy Baroud
Ten U.S. Churches Now Sanction Israel—To Some Degree, and with Caveats— Steven Sellers Lapham
SPECIAL REPORTS U.S. Withdrawal From Syria—Three Views — Mark Perry, Eric S. Margolis, Shireen T. Hunter
Iran: Israel and the Neocons’ Ultimate Target —Two Views— Shireen T. Hunter, Patrick J. Buchanan
Welcome Diplomatic Progress on Afghanistan — Paul Pillar
Egypt Begins Legal Crackdown on “Fake News” — Fatma Khaled
32 41 51 54
Turkish Local Elections Pose Challenge for The Opposition, as Well as for Erdogan— Jonathan Gorvett
Now Chad, then Mali: Why African Countries are Normalizing with Israel— Ramzy Baroud
Ten U.S. Churches Now Sanction Israel—To Some Degree, and with Caveats— Steven Sellers Lapham Malaysia: An Unusual Monarchy— John Gee
ON THE COVER: Israeli soldiers confront Palestinians protesting against land seizures for Jewish settlements, in the village of al-Mughayyir, north of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, on Jan. 25, 2019. The next day, settlers from the neighboring Adei Ad outpost killed Hamdi Na’asan, 38, a Palestinian father of four. ABBAS MOMANI/AFP/Getty Images
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(A Supplement to the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs available by subscription at $15 per year. To subscribe, call toll-free 1-888-881-5861.)
Other Voices
Compiled by Janet McMahon
“Does Israel Have a Right to Exist?” Is a Trick Question, Yousef Munayyer, The Forward
Why India’s BJP Wants to Rekindle the Babri Mosque Dispute, Apoorvanand, www.aljazeera.com
OV-8
When “Trashing Our Allies” Was All the Rage, Andrew J. Bacevich, The American Conservative
OV-9
OV-3
On Boys, Frogs, and The Weekly Standard, Jim Lobe, www.lobelog.com
OV-10
OV-4
Could AIPAC Ties Challenge Democratic Israel Group?, Aiden Pink, The Forward
OV-12
OV-5
FBI and CIA’s “Duty To Warn” Victims of Israeli Nuclear Smuggling, Grant F. Smith, Antiwar.com
OV-14
OV-7
How the Far Right Accused a Chocolate Bar Of “Islamizing” Europe, Farid Hafez, Haaretz
OV-15
OV-1
How Many More Ways Can Israel Sentence Palestinians to Death?, Yara Hawari, www.aljazeera.com
OV-2
How Did Revenge Become a Military Objective? Orly Noy, www.lobelog.com If We Israelis Were Palestinians, What Would We Do?, Yossi Klein, Haaretz Christmas in Bethlehem: Controlling the Narrative Through Tourism, Megan Giovannetti, www.aljazeera.com Oman Blazes a Trail for Environmentalism in The Arab World, Austin Bodetti, www.alaraby.co.uk
DEPARTMENTS 5 PUBLISHERS’ PAGE
6 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
56 ARAB AMERICAN ACTIVISM: NAAWA Confronts Rep. Steve King’s Legislative Director 58 WAGING PEACE: A Think Tank Discussion...About Think Tanks
62 HUMAN RIGHTS: Guantanamo Prison at Seventeen
62 BOOK TALKS: Rev. Mae Cannon Offers Christian Perspectives on the Holy Land
63 MUSIC & ARTS: “A Bridge Over Blood” Focuses on Friendship
66 BOOK REVIEW: Jerusalem: The Home in Our Hearts —Carole Monica Burnett
Many people tried to go to Europe and Turkey, seeking refuge from the war. By Helen Zughaib (see p. 63). 67 LATEST ARRIVALS FROM MIDDLE EAST BOOKS AND MORE 68 THE WORLD LOOKS AT THE MIDDLE EAST —CARTOONS 69 OTHER PEOPLE’S MAIL
71 OBITUARIES
72 2018 AET CHOIR OF ANGELS 70 INDEX TO ADVERTISERS
PHOTO COURTESY JERUSALEM FUND GALLERY
56 MUSLIM AMERICAN ACTIVISM: Muslims Celebrate Congressional Victories at CAIR Reception
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“Great nations do not fight endless wars,” President Donald Trump pronounced during his Feb. 5 State of the Union Address. Weeks earlier, he promised to remove U.S. troops from Syria and dramatically reduce the number of military personnel in Afghanistan. We imagine that most of our readers, regardless of their opinion of the president, agree that it’s time for the U.S. to end its seemingly endless wars across the Middle East. We have several views on the planned regional troop drawdown on pp. 811 and p. 15 of this issue.
Starting Wars?
PHOTO BY THOMAS COEX / AFP
Ending Wars.
American Educational Trust
Publishers’ Page
his new book, President Jimmy Carter’s policy adviser Stuart Eizenstat, said the former president believes he lost his reelection campaign because of the Israel lobby. This, Eizenstat surmises, served as a warning to Carter’s successors to toe the pro-Israel line. “It is even clearer in the decades since, that progress on [the] same intractable issues with which Carter was struggling forty years ago can come only with a president willing to take enormous domestic political heat and plow ahead,” Eizenstat wrote. “None have done so since with the same combination of his grit and determination—indeed, perhaps because of the political wounds he suffered.” He went on to describe Israel’s influence over the U.S. government, and Congress in particular, as “unique in the annals of diplomacy.”
There are, of course, those in Washington, DC and within the administration that are doing everything they can to scuttle the If Americans want a wall, Palestinians are happy to donate one, planned drawdown of troops—and already paid for by U.S. tax dollars. Cars drive on a new Israeli road to even start new wars! National divided by a 26-foot wall to separate it from Palestinians (r) and Security Adviser John Bolton has the other side to be used exclusively by Israelis and settlers (l), in been clamoring for war with Iran East Jerusalem, on Jan. 10, 2019. The road has been called the Voting Israel, Muddled for years (see pp. 12-14), and “Apartheid Road.” there is no indication he has expePalestine. rienced a sudden change of heart. Will Trump peaceful BDS movement (see p. 28-29). Israelis are preparing to go to the polls on really end wars in Syria and Afghanistan just The bill passed the Senate in early Febru- April 9, in an election that will decide the to start a new military conflict in Iran (and/or ary, on a largely bipartisan basis. fate of the premiership, but will likely have Venezuela)? We hope not, and it’s our job as little impact on the “peace process.” Prime citizens to make sure the administration’s Exposing the Lobby. Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s main comneocons don’t convince the president to The Israel lobby is having its way in this admin- petitor, Benny Gantz, the former Chief of launch new wars opposed by the vast major- istration, and that’s all the more reason to General Staff of the Israel Defense Forces, ity of Americans. counter and expose its nefarious activities. We launched his campaign in January by toutwill be doing just that on March 22 at the Na- ing his role in Israel’s deadly 2012 and No Change With Israel. tional Press Club in Washington, DC, with our 2014 wars in Gaza (see pp. 38-40). As IsTrump supports rethinking the need for U.S. annual conference on the Israel Lobby and rael prepares for a potential change in govinvolvement in the region’s wars, but he also American Policy, co-hosted with the Institute for ernment, Palestinians in the West Bank firmly endorses the status quo when it Research: Middle Eastern Policy (IRmep). and Gaza remain frustrated by the failure of comes to Israel. The administration contin- Once more, expert speakers will offer atten- their leaders to form a unified and legitimate ues to promise a peace “deal of the century” dees insights into how the lobby operates, and government that can deliver them from octhat appears to be just another chapter in ways it can be defeated. This is the only annual cupation and poverty (see pp. 48-50). From the faux one-sided U.S.-led “peace process” conference in the U.S. that directly tackles the Tel Aviv to Ramallah, it appears unlikely (see p. 43-44). He’s also upped the ante Israel lobby. Tickets are still available (see the that any paradigm-shifting leader will when it comes to cruelty, cutting much advertisement on p. 37), and we hope to see emerge soon. It is thus our duty to continue to stand up for all those in the reneeded U.S. humanitarian aid to the Pales- all our readers and supporters in attendance! gion—Palestinians, Syrians, Yemenis, tinian people (see pp. 16-19). Meanwhile, etc.—who are braving injustice. With our the new Congress began its tenure with—in Old Strategies, Same Results. the midst of a prolonged government shut- The lobby’s ceaseless efforts to push Is- words, actions and advocacy, we can... down—the shameless introduction of S. 1 in rael’s interests in the halls of power in the Senate, a bill aimed to criminalize the Washington are, of course, nothing new. In Make a Difference Today! MARCH/APRIL 2019
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Managing Editor: News Editor: Assistant Editor:
Middle East Books and More Director:
Finance & Admin. Dir.: Art Director: Founding Publisher: Founding Exec. Editor:
JANET McMAHON DELINDA C. HANLEY DALE SPRUSANSKY AMIN GHARAD CHARLES R. CARTER RALPH U. SCHERER ANDREW I. KILLGORE (1919-2016) RICHARD H. CURTISS (1927-2013)
Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (ISSN 8755-4917) is published 7 times a year, monthly except Jan./Feb., March/April, June/July and Aug./Sept. combined, at 1902 18th St., NW, Washington, DC 200091707. 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 non-profit foundation incorporated in Washington, DC by retired U.S. foreign service officers to provide the American public with balanced and accurate information concerning U.S. relations with Middle Eastern states. AET’s Foreign Policy Committee has included former U.S. ambassadors, government officials, and members of Congress, including the late Democratic Sen. J. William Fulbright and Republican Sen. Charles Percy, both former chairmen of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Members of AET’s Board of Directors and advisory committees receive no fees for their services. The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs does not take partisan domestic political positions. As a solution to the Palestinian-Israeli dispute, it endorses U.N. Security Council Resolution 242’s landfor-peace formula, supported by nine successive U.S. presidents. In general, it supports Middle East solutions which it judges to be consistent with the charter of the United Nations and traditional American support for human rights, self-determination, and fair play. Material from the Washington Report may be reprinted without charge with attribution to Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. Bylined material must also be attributed to the author. This release does not apply to photographs, cartoons or reprints from other publications. Indexed by ProQuest, Gale, Ebsco Information Services, InfoTrac, LexisNexis, Public Affairs Information Service, Index to Jewish Periodicals, Ethnic News Watch, Periodica Islamica. CONTACT INFORMATION: Washington Report on Middle East Affairs Editorial Office and Bookstore: P.O. Box 53062, Washington, DC 20009-9062 Phone: (202) 939-6050 • (800) 368-5788 Fax: (202) 265-4574 E-mail: wrmea@wrmea.org bookstore@wrmea.org circulation@wrmea.org advertising@wrmea.org Web sites: http://www.wrmea.org http://www.middleeastbooks.com Subscriptions, sample copies and donations: P.O. Box 91056, Long Beach, CA 90809-1056. Phone: (888) 881-5861 • Fax: (714) 226-9733 Printed in the USA
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LetterstotheEditor
ISRAEL’S SORDID HISTORY
I just wanted to point out regarding the article in your Nov./Dec. 2018 issue, “Palestine Declares War on the U.S.,” that Israel has no “Declaration of Independence.” The closest thing it has to that is its “Declaration of Establishment,” which, by the way, vowed to adopt a constitution “not later than 1st October 1948.” That has never been done—just one of many broken promises that litter Israel’s sordid history. As for ICJ jurisdiction over Israel—it’s moot. In its application for U.N. membership Israel unreservedly agreed to honor the obligations of the U.N. Charter. Since that day it has broken that promise countless times. By all rights, it should therefore be expelled from the U.N. under Article 6, Chapter II of that Charter. But the Security Council must recommend it, which means it won’t happen, given America’s permanent membership in that body. Gregory DeSylva, Rhinebeck, NY Thank you for reminding us of Israel’s lack of a Declaration of Independence— much less a Constitution or Bill of Rights. Shared values, indeed!
ECONOMIST CONTENT WITH ISRAELI STATE POLICY
A recent issue of The Economist featured a short opinion piece that mentioned anti-Israel bias at the United Nations Human Rights Council but fails to provide even a glimpse at the historical context that might explain this stance. The author seemed particularly unimpressed with the fact that Israel’s illegal occupation of the West Bank and the Golan Heights continues to be a standing issue on the council’s agenda. The writer mentions the hypocrisy of council members Eritrea, Libya and others with poor human rights records, as if to imply that they have no right to an opinion on the conduct of a nation that proclaims itself the Middle East’s only democracy. Since Israeli politicians and their supporters never tire of this self-praise, it is reasonable to hold them accountable to the rule of law; even at the risk of predictable anti-Semitic slurs. So long as Israel enjoys U.S. diplomatic, financial and military support it will continue to act with impunity and disre-
WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
gard the U.N. resolutions and international laws that forbid one nation from keeping, populating and developing territory seized by military force. The state of Israel is literally an American protectorate rather than a truly independent nation, at least in its current manifestation. Israeli politicians are well aware that their brutal policies are slowly alienating large numbers of liberal American Jews, who still offer financial and political support. Unfortunately for their safety, Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza have the right, under international law, to retrieve any territory and property taken from them wholesale in 1947-49 and 1967 and incrementally since then. I say unfortunately because fairness is only applicable to those equal in power and influence. The weak are expected to bow meekly and accept the dictates of the mighty. Even a cursory glance at the kill ratio in the recent Gaza violence vividly illustrates what happens when Palestinians dare to even approach their former homes, let alone attempt a serious military attack. I can’t even imagine the carnage that would result if hundreds of Israeli settlers were killed by Hamas in the West Bank. The Economist, like most mainstream journals, is mainly content with current Israeli state policy and will continue to report on events as if the facts of history bear no relation to the present. In this way such publications serve their function as purveyors of views that serve those who own the world. Morgan Duchesney, Ottawa, Canada We’re trying to come up with the right image to convey a protectorate that issues orders to its protector!
HERO OF THE DAY
Michelle Alexander’s amazing column in the Jan. 19 New York Times, framed around why Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. would have supported Palestinian rights, is a FABULOUS piece, principled, powerful, and passionate. The fact that such an unequivocal piece is in that venue is a really unbelievable reflection of the discourse shift on Israel and Palestinian rights—and a tribute to so much work of our movements for so long. And at a moment when pro-Israel forces are losing so visibly, and thus lashing out more aggressively than ever, es-
MARCH/APRIL 2019
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pecially against Black critics such and had as the only reason to KEEP THOSE CARDS AND LETTERS as Angela Davis and Marc Lampenalize the obvious lie about COMING! ont Hill who are now singled out “Polish death camp” used purSend your letters to the editor to the Washington for harsh punishments, it’s also posely in international media to Report, P.O. Box 53062, Washington, DC 20009 incredibly brave. Michelle is my shift Germany’s responsibility for or e-mail <letters@wrmea.org>. hero of the day, for sure. the crime of the Holocaust from law criticism of Poland for its involvement Germans to Poles—abusing the fact that Dr. Sami Al-Arian, via e-mail Israel is definitely losing the battle to in the Nazi death camps. Millions of Germany located the concentration and silence its misdeed when even The New Jews were exterminated in such camps.” death camps in a part of Poland that York Times, America’s “newspaper of Your readers deserve to know that: found itself after September 1939 under 1) There were no Nazi, but only Ger- German occupation. There was no Polrecord,” considers Alexander’s column fit man, death camps in the German-occu- ish concentration or death camp in to print! pied part of Poland between 1939 and Poland. POLICY WEDDED TO PROPHECY 1945. This is why UNESCO adopted the Unfortunately, due to ongoing coordiDoes anyone in Washington see the official name of Auschwitz-Birkenau nation since the early 1950s of German dangers in Trump wedding foreign policy camps as “German Nazi Concentration and Jewish in general, and Israeli in parto fundamentalist end-of-times prophecy and Extermination Camp (1940-1945).” ticular, historical policies, the lie about in his Jerusalem decision? Trump is, of Someone who applauds the role of UN- “Polish death camps” is used by both course, probably motivated entirely by ESCO in addressing issues related to Is- those countries to move responsibility for politics, but Pence and other evangeli- raeli-occupied parts of Palestine should the Holocaust which took place in Gercals may well see the hand of God here. also accept UNESCO’s description of man-occupied Poland to a Polish nation This may be the most consequential de- German concentration and death camps which, by the way, suffered its own Holocision of Trump’s consequential presi- in Germany-occupied part of Poland. caust at the hands of Germans and their 2) The legislation proposed by the Pol- Austrian, Latvian, Estonian, Russian and dency. Yet, in Washington there is bipartisan consensus that it is all just fine, or ish Institute of National Remembrance— other foreign volunteers enrolled in the at least no big deal. The morning after Commission for the Prosecution of German occupation machine in Eastern the decision last December, C-SPAN’s Crimes against the Polish Nation was Europe—mainly in Poland, where Ger“Washington Journal” did not even have just mirroring a provision of a current mans found the largest Jewish populaa call-in segment on it, though it was all statute in Polish law adopted upon de- tion in all of pre-WW II Europe. mand of the Jewish lobby that provides a over BBC, France-24 and CGTN. 3) Millions of Jews who “were extermiI learned recently that John Kerry is penalty for so-called “Auschwitz denial,” nated in such camps” died at the hands considering running against Trump in of the Germans. The Poles had nothing 2020. His message to Abbas through the to do with that. Your readers are encourinterviewer was to “stay strong in the aged to check (on the Internet) the folspirit” and to “Not yield to Trump’s delowing statement from the United States mands.” Let’s all wish this good man— Holocaust Museum Encyclopedia: “Calwho knows what he’s up against in culating the numbers of individuals who Washington on this issue—godspeed. were killed as the result of Nazi policies Mark Simpson, Franklin, PA is a difficult task. It is estimated that the We wonder what will happen when Germans killed between 1.8 and 1.9 miland if Americans finally realize the enorlion non-Jewish Polish civilians during mous cost they are paying—and not just World War II. Besides, the Germans with their tax dollars—to support the polimurdered at least 3 million Jewish citicies and interests of a foreign apartheid zens of Poland.” (https://encyclopedia. state. ushmm.org/content/en/article/polish-victims) OCCUPATION IS OCCUPATION 4) Also misleading to your readers is As a son of a Polish Catholic survivor of Mr. Cook’s reference to the current prime five terrible years of the German concenminister as “far-right.” Prime Minister tration camp Auschwitz located in a GerMorawiecki represents just a conservative OTHERVOICESisan optional16-page supplement man-occupied part of Poland, I read with government which had been chosen by available only to subscribers of the Washington shock and dismay in your Jan./Feb. the Poles in their protest against Western, Report on Middle East Affairs. For an additional $15 issue the paragraph referring to Poland’s especially European Union, attempts to per year (see postcard insert for Washington Report role during World War II. Mr. Jonathan impose on Poland an ultraliberal, antisubscription rates), subscribers will receive Other Cook, in the article “Netanyahu’s courtChristian (mainly anti-Catholic) ideology Voicesinsideeachissueof their WashingtonReport ing of Bolsonaro is just the latest in a which is rejected by most of Poles. on Middle East Affairs. long line of alliances with far-right figLes A. Sosnowski, Chicago, IL Back issues of both publications are available. To ures,” repeats anti-Polish, Holocaust Clearly Israel is not pleased when othsubscribe telephone 1 (888) 881-5861, fax (714) business and Zionist propaganda when ers adopt its Zionist tactics of suppres226-9733, e-mail circulation@wrmea. org>, or write he repeats their false accusations that sion of free speech. But what’s a country to P.O. Box 91056, Long Beach, CA 90809-1056. the current prime minister “fueled Holothat’s threatened by freedom of thought caust revisionism with legislation to outand freedom of speech to do? ■ MARCH/APRIL 2019
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Three Views
U.S. Withdrawal From Syria
DELIL SOULEIMAN/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
of the few “Aiken moments” in American history. Not surprisingly, given Trump’s inclinations, the news came in a tweet posted by the president that Wednesday morning: “We have defeated ISIS in Syria,” Trump announced, “my only reason for being there during the Trump Presidency.” U.S. officials later said that all U.S. troops would be removed from Syria over the next 60 to 100 days. While the announcement took much of official Washington by surprise, The American Conservative (TAC) has learned that a select group of administration officials, as well as a handful of senior military officers, knew of Trump’s decision as early as Dec. 15. According to these officials, all of whom required anonymity in exchange for the information, Trump’s decision came as a result of a lengthy telephone exchange he had Syrian boys look at destroyed grills outside a shuttered-down restaurant, which was the site of a suicide attack targeting U.S.-led coalition forces in the flashpoint northern Syrian city with Turkish President Recep Tayyip of Manbij, which killed four U.S. servicemen the previous day on Jan. 17, 2019. The bombing, Erdogan on Friday, Dec. 14. Everything claimed by the Islamic State group, comes after U.S. President Donald Trump announced that Trump announced the following he was ordering a full troop withdrawal from Syria because the jihadists had been “largely Wednesday, we have been told, was dedefeated.” cided in that call. That telephone discussion, as one of these officials told us, was the latest in “a series of conversations the two have had over the last weeks on a host of issues,” including the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, Erdogan’s insistence that the U.S. extradite cleric By Mark Perry Fethullah Gulen to Turkey, U.S. worries about Iranian meddling in the region—and continuing U.S. support for Kurdish IN 1966, in the midst of the Vietnam War, Vermont Sen. forces operating in Syria (led by the People’s Protection George Aiken recommended that President Lyndon Johnson Units—the YPG), which Turkey views as a terrorist organizasimply “declare victory and get out.” While what Aiken actually tion. It was this last issue that was the focus of the Friday telesaid was more complex (because the U.S. couldn’t win militarphone call, spurred by Erdogan’s public pledge 48 hours earily, he implied, it should stop deploying troops and start delier that he was prepared to order his military into Syria to take ploying diplomats), his statement is commonly cited as an exon the YPG despite U.S. backing. ample of foreign policy wisdom—then, as now, a much de“We will begin our operation to free the east of the Eupleted currency in Washington. phrates [river] from the separatist organization within a few While it’s doubtful that President Donald Trump has studied days,” Erdogan said on Dec. 12. “Our target is not American Aiken’s views (or even heard of him), his Dec. 19 decision to soldiers, it is the terror organizations that are active in the reorder the unilateral withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria is one gion.” During the Friday telephone call, Erdogan once again took a Mark Perry is a contributing editor at The American Conservative hard line against the Kurds, and the administration’s support and the author of The Pentagon’s Wars. He tweets @markperrydc. for them. A part of his argument was that the U.S. had said it Copyright © The American Conservative 2018.
Trump’s Decision to Leave Syria Was No “Surprise”
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was allying with the Kurds to destroy ISIS which, as Erdogan argued, had been accomplished. Nor was Erdogan influenced by Trump’s contention that the U.S. needed to remain in Syria in order to check Iranian influence in the region. Erdogan, we have been told, was ready for the argument: the best hedge against Iran, he told Trump, was not the Kurds, or even the Saudis, but Turkey. Erdogan, as it turns out, wasn’t the only one making that argument. As reported last April, senior U.S. military officers, including Gen. Curtis Michael “Mike” Scaparrotti (the highly respected head of the U.S. European Command), warned that the U.S. “marriage of convenience” with the YPG in its fight against ISIS in Syria was poisoning its relationship with Turkey—a NATO ally. Turkey, as Scaparrotti told James Mattis in March, was particularly angry that the U.S. was supporting the YPG’s deployment to Manbij, threatening Turkish forces some 70 miles away. So what is more important, Scaparrotti asked Mattis, our relationship with the Kurds, or our relationship with Turkey? Gen. Jospeh Votel, the head of Centcom, pushed back against Scaparrotti, saying that America’s “marriage of convenience” was “temporary, tactical and transactional” and essential to defeating ISIS. And so it was that the Scaparrotti-Votel debate was both postponed (with the administration supporting Votel’s position until ISIS could be decisively defeated) and papered over— with Mattis and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issuing regular reassurances to Turkey that the U.S.-YPG relationship was only temporary. Now, with Trump’s decision, the debate has been resolved. “Somewhere, you can bet, Joe Votel is absolutely spinning his head into the ceiling,” a senior military officer told me. “I don’t know what to call this—but it sounds like Scaparrotti’s revenge.” Perhaps, but for Syria experts and for those in the military who supported Votel’s position, while Trump’s decision on a full U.S. withdrawal came as a surprise, it might have been predicted. “Yes, I was surprised,” Joshua Landis, the head of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma, says, “but I suppose I should not have been. After all, we could see this coming. Our relationship with Turkey is much, much more important than our relationship with the Kurds. Then too, if the Trump administration wants to pin Iran’s ears back in the region, it’s not Kurds, or the Saudis or the Emiratis who are going to do it. It’s the Turks.” John Allen Gay, an Iran expert and executive director of the John Quincy Adams Society, agrees. He argues that Trump’s decision confirms what everyone has quietly admitted for at least the past year: that keeping U.S. forces in Syria to counter ISIS was starting to look like a way for administration interventionists to argue that we should take on Iran. “Keeping the troops there post-ISIS was in part natural mission creep, but it was also a stalking horse for hawks in the administration who want to take on Iran,” he told TAC. “Yet dangling a few thousand guys in between Turkish forces on one side and Iranians, Russians and Syrians on the other was never going to be decisive on Iran’s regional role, and it came with real risks and no endgame,” Gay added. “I MARCH/APRIL 2019
just don’t think there’s any appetite in the American public for a big fight with Iran anywhere, let alone over eastern Syria.” Gay may well be right, at least according to a number of U.S. military officers with whom we’ve talked. “We need a respite,” a senior military officer told us in the wake of the Trump decision, “and that’s especially true for the Air Force. Those guys have been in the air over the Middle East since Operation Enduring Freedom, back in 2001. These guys are running on fumes.” Nor, as we’ve been told, are senior military officers concerned that the announced U.S. withdrawal from Syria gives Putin a victory. “Complete and absolute nonsense,” a very senior officer who served multiple tours in the region told us. “I hate to put it this way, but I think it’s true. We can’t repair Syria—and it’s not our job to do it. If Putin wants to inherit it, that’s fine.” Which is not to say that Trump’s decision has been greeted unanimously. In the wake of his decision, the administration’s foreign policy triumvirate of James Mattis, John Bolton and Mike Pompeo pushed back, arguing that keeping U.S. troops in Syria was essential, if for no other reason than to keep a high U.S. profile in the region. Their arguments were predictable, if outspoken: ISIS isn’t really defeated, Iran is on the march, the U.S. needs to show solidarity with its Kurdish allies. Trump, channeling Erdogan, pushed back on each of them—ISIS is finished, Iran could be countered in other ways and, as Erdogan had told him, the Kurds were already talking with the Assad government about an accommodation that would keep them in northeastern Syria. In truth, as we were told by a senior Turkish diplomat who was privy to the TrumpErdogan exchange, the decision had been made that Friday, when Trump told Erdogan that he agreed that the U.S. could withdraw its troops from Syria. When can you do that? Erdogan had asked. Trump wasn’t sure, so he turned to his national security adviser, who was listening in on the conversation. Can we do it today? Now? Trump asked. Bolton nodded: “Yes,” he said.
Time to Get out of Syria By Eric S. Margolis
PRESIDENT TRUMP HAS DONE the right thing with regard to America’s troop deployment in Syria. Trump ordered the 2,000 U.S. troops based in Syria to get out and come home. Neocons and the U.S. war party are having apoplexy, even though there are some 50,000 U.S. troops spread across the rest of the Mideast. The U.S. troops parked in the Syrian desert were doing next to nothing. Their avowed role was to fight the remnants of the ISIS movement and block any advances by Iranian forces.
Eric S. Margolis is an award-winning, internationally syndicated columnist. Copyright Eric S. Margolis 2018.
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We will breathe a big sigh of relief if the U.S. deployment actually goes ahead: it will remove a major risk of war with nuclear-armed Russia, whose forces are in Syria at the invitation of the recognized government in Damascus. The U.S. has no strategic interest in Syria and no business at all being militarily involved there. Except perhaps that the war party wants never-ending wars abroad for arms production and promotions. Trump’s abrupt pullout from Syria has shocked and mortified Washington’s war party and neocon fifth column. They were hoping reinforced U.S. forces would go on to attack Damascus and move against Iranian forces. It was amusing to watch the anguish of such noted warlike chickenhawks as Sen. Lindsey Graham and the fanatical national security adviser John Bolton as their hopes for a U.S. war against Syria diminished. Israel was equally dismayed: its strategic plan has long been to fragment Syria and gobble up the pieces. The venerable imperial general and defense secretary, Jim Mattis, couldn’t take this de-escalation. He resigned. Marine General Mattis was one of the few honorable and respected members of the Trump administration and a restraint on the president’s impulses. To his credit, he opposed the reintroduction of torture by U.S. forces, a crime promoted by Trump, Bolton and Mike Pompeo. What really mattered was not a chunk of the Syrian desert. Mattis’ resignation may have been much more about Afghanistan, America’s longest war. The U.S. has been defeated in Afghanistan, rightly known as the “Graveyard of Empires.” Yet no one in Washington can admit this defeat or order a retreat after wasting 17 years, a trillion dollars and thousands of Americans killed or wounded. Least of all, General Mattis, Bolton or Pompeo, who bitterly opposed any peace deal with the Taliban nationalist movement. According to unconfirmed media reports, the U.S. has already thinned out its Afghan garrison of 14,000-plus soldiers. These soldiers’ main function is to guard the corrupt, drugdealing Afghan puppet government in Kabul and spot Taliban forces so they can be attacked by U.S. airpower. The Taliban insists it won’t begin serious negotiations until all U.S. and 8,000 foreign troops are withdrawn. In fact, the Taliban, which has been quietly talking to the U.S. in Abu Dhabi, have agreed to a 50 percent cut in Western troops in order to begin peace talks. The Afghan war has cost the U.S. $1 trillion. Occupying parts of Iraq and Syria has cost a similar amount. Resistance against U.S. rule continues in both nations. Mattis and his fellow generals really like these wars, but civilian Trump does not. As a candidate he vowed to end these “stupid” wars. Let’s hope he succeeds over the bitter objections of the Republican war party, neocons, and military industrial complex. Syria is an ugly little sideshow. By contrast, Afghanistan is a dark blot on America’s national honor. We watch with revulsion and dismay as the U.S. deploys B-52 and B-1 heavy bombers to flatten Afghan villages. We watch with disgust as the U.S. coddles the opium-dealing Afghan warlords and their Communist allies—all in the spurious name of “democracy.” 10
If Trump wants to make America great, he can start by ending the squalid Syrian misadventure and the butchery in Afghanistan.
Why Iran is Not the Winner in Syria By Shireen T. Hunter
AFTER DONALD TRUMP declared that he was pulling U.S. forces out of Syria, nearly all commentators declared that Iran would be one of the major beneficiaries—if not the major beneficiary—of the move. This is not surprising, since as a rule, U.S., Arab, and even European commentators have declared Iran the winner of nearly all U.S. actions in the Middle East and West Asia since the 1991 Persian Gulf War. No doubt, some U.S. policies have led to some strategic gains for Iran. The weakening of the Taliban, following the 2001 U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, initially relieved Tehran from the threat posed by the Taliban on its eastern frontiers. However, the extended U.S. military presence in Afghanistan and its political sway over subsequent Afghan governments has burdened Tehran-Kabul relations. Today there are U.S. forces less than 250 miles from Iran’s eastern border. Should the United States decide to use force against Iran, its presence in Afghanistan would enable it to attack it on several fronts. Moreover, America’s military and political presence in Afghanistan has made Afghanistan less responsive to Iran’s legitimate demands regarding the sharing of the Hirmand (Helmand) River and other matters of interest to Tehran. The same has been true of Iraq. Again the presence of U.S. forces in Iraq puts them in close proximity to the Iranian border and has increased Iran’s vulnerability to potential U.S. military action. Moreover, Iran has paid a heavy price in both money and lives in Iraq—including fighting the Islamic State without getting credit for it—and these costs have been greater than the benefits it has received from its relations with Baghdad. The statistics regarding Iran-Iraq trade do not reflect the reality, since Iraq often does not pay Iran for its imports of natural gas and electricity. Meanwhile, in order to retain its remaining influence in Baghdad, and partly because of the U.S. presence, Iran does not dare to challenge Iraq regarding these unpaid accounts. Even so, Iran often gets blamed for Baghdad’s problems, as it was in 2018 when the Iraqis blamed Iran for their electricity difficulties. Furthermore, now that Iraq is relatively calm (partly thanks to Iran’s help), it is the Europeans and Gulf Arabs who will reap the benefits of the eventual Iraqi reconstruction boom. Thanks to U.S. sanctions, Iran has no money to invest domestically, let alone in Iraq. A similar situation exists in Syria. To begin with, the U.S. withdrawal from Syria is not yet a reality. President Trump might change his mind. Moreover, the U.S. troops withdrawn
Shireen T. Hunter is a Research Professor at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service. Her latest book is Iran's Relations with Arab States: Dynamics of Conflict and Accommodation (Rowman & Littlefield, forthcoming May 2019). Published on Lobe Log Jan. 1, 2019
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from Syria reportedly will be moved to Iraq, closer to the Iranian border. In fact, it is conceivable that the U.S. is again thinking of a military attack on Iran and thus is redeploying some of its troops. President Trump’s statement that the U.S. is staying in Iraq to keep an eye on Iran shows that his announced withdrawal from Syria is not going to decrease U.S. pressure on Iran. Meanwhile, Arab states are lining up to go to Damascus and coopt Bashar alAssad with promises of money and investment and Syria’s return to the Arab fold. The United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Kuwait have already reopened their embassies in Damascus, and eventually so will Egypt and Jordan. Regaining Arab acceptance is vital for Syria in terms of its long-term security, for geographic and cultural reasons in addition to the economic rationale. If this means somewhat loosening Damascus’s ties to Tehran, so be it. Iran, meanwhile, has nothing concrete to offer Syria in terms of money and investment. In general, Iran-Syria relations since their early days have been an unequal partnership in Syria’s favor. Syria has al-
ways acted according to its own interests and has been unwilling to go out of its way to aid Tehran. In the 1980s and 1990s, Syria fought against Iranian influence in Lebanon. When the 1991 Madrid Peace Conference offered Damascus a hope that peace with Israel might be forthcoming and that it could regain the Golan Heights, Syrian leader Hafez alAssad ignored Iranian concerns about his attendance at the conference. If Syria has had to maintain its Tehran connection, it has been because neither Israel nor Arab states have made it worth Damascus’ while to cut its ties to Iran. Syria has been a bottomless pit into which Iran has poured its meager resources that could have been used for domestic development. Meanwhile, should there be a need to fil the vacuum created by the U.S. departure, most likely it would be Turkey that would do so. Any action in this regard by Iran would certainly trigger a strong and negative U.S. and European reaction, which given its current conditions Tehran can ill afford. Nor would Iran be in a position to challenge Ankara. At the moment, Iran needs Turkey’s good will and cooperation more (Advertisement)
than ever in trying to survive the impact of U.S. sanctions. Last but not least, it is very unlikely that Russia would want Iran to retain significant influence in Damascus. Instead, most probably, Moscow will try to leverage its Syrian success in negotiations with the U.S. on other issues, and cash in on Syria’s reconstruction if and when it comes. Why, then, are so many analysts clamoring that Iran has won in Syria? It is simple—to scare the U.S. either into doing something drastic in Syria, such as reversing its withdrawal decision or increasing its military presence with an eye toward ousting Assad or even initiating a conflict with Iran. Meanwhile, when Iran– or to be precise the Iranian hardline faction—claims victory all over the Middle East, it validates the claims of those who support greater use of U.S. military force in the region. A sober analysis shows that Iran has gained very little in exchange for all of its financial and human expenditures in the Middle East, including in Syria. It shows the limits of Iran’s influence over Arab politics. It also shows how self-defeating Iran’s foreign policy has been over the last forty years. ■
Palestinian Medical Relief Society, a grassroots communitybased Palestinian health organization, founded in 1979 by Palestinian doctors, needs your support today. Visit our Website <www.pmrs.ps> to see our work in action. Mail your U.S. Tax-Deductible check to our American Foundation: Friends of UPMRC, Inc PO Box 450554 • Atlanta, GA 31145 For more information call: (404) 441-2702 or e-mail: fabuakel@gmail.com MARCH/APRIL 2019
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Two Views
Iran: Israel and the Neocons’ Ultimate Target
ATTA KENARE/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
as India and China or, more importantly, can’t gain access to the money earned from its exports. Under these conditions, domestic pressures, especially from the Iranian hard-liners who opposed the JCPOA from the beginning, would mount on the government of President Hassan Rouhani to leave the JCPOA and resume its suspended nuclear activities. In fact, rumors have spread that Iran’s exit from the JCPOA and Foreign Minister Javad Zarif’s resignation are imminent. The government has since denied these rumors. Because Iran has not received any real benefit from the agreement, the hard-liners’ arguments may be making A woman walks past a currency exchange shop in the Tehran’s grand bazaar on Nov. 3, 2018. headway with the Iranian people. The lack of faith shown by the United States and now Europe in carrying out their side of the nuclear bargain would seem to vindicate those Iranians who argue that only nuclear weapons can provide for Iran’s security and shield it from potential attacks by By Shireen T. Hunter the United States, Israel, or both. Should the government of President Rouhani succumb to such ACCORDING TO PRESS REPORTS, Iran has all but despaired pressures, Iran hawks in the United States and some Iranian opof the European Union’s ability—or, perhaps more accurately, position groups—along with Israel, Saudi Arabia and the UAE— willingness—to work out a system of financial transactions that would lobby President Trump to take military action against Iran. could facilitate Tehran’s trade with Europe. Not only that, largely Such pressures could reach irresistible levels. Within the Trump adunder pressure from Denmark and Holland, the EU imposed ministration, National Security Adviser John Bolton, in particular, sanctions on Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and two individuals on would champion such a move, while Secretary of State Mike Pomcharges of plotting to kill leaders of the Ahwaz separatist movepeo is unlikely to put up any opposition. Bolton and other Iran ment in Europe. This group was involved in the bombings that hawks would argue that, as long as Iran is standing, the United took place in Ahwaz in September 2018. States cannot reduce the level of its military engagement in the MidThese developments seriously undermine the chances that dle East and Southwest Asia war zones because Iran would oththe Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the nuclear erwise fill the vacuum. According to this logic, before reducing its deal with Iran, will survive. Iran will be in an even more difficult overseas military engagements in Syria or Afghanistan, the United situation if it fails to maintain trade relations with countries such States must effectively disable Iran economically and militarily. Shireen T. Hunter is a research professor at Georgetown University’s The United States might feel pressured to attack Iran for other School of Foreign Service. Her latest book is Iran’s Relations with reasons. Iran is the last country on the list of regime change in Arab States: Dynamics of Conflict and Accommodation. Copyright © 2019 LobeLog. All rights reserved. the post-9/11 period that has thus far escaped American military
Don’t Rule Out the Possibility of War With Iran
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intervention, directly or through proxies. Iraq was invaded in 2003, Libya was attacked in 2010, and Syria has been devastated by civil war. For the foreseeable future, none of these states will be able to influence Middle East dynamics significantly, nor do they pose any military threat to Americaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s regional allies, notably Israel. In short, Iran is the last remaining link in this chain of dismantling state systems in the region. Moreover, at the time of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, some in the United States and in the region would have preferred that America attacked Iran first and then Iraq. These people will not feel safe until Iran is attacked. A main goal of security hawks in the United States, as described in the 1992 U.S. Defense Planning Guidance (which has never been superseded), has been â&#x20AC;&#x153;to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power.â&#x20AC;? The document lists Southwest Asia as one such region. In this region, Iran is the country best suited to become the hub of regional power. This concern about Iranâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s potential did not start with the Islamic revolution. Americaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s change of heart regarding the shah was partly because of his ambitions to turn Iran into a viable economic and military power. Any other viable regime in post-Islamist Iran, including a nationalist regime, would also want to develop the countryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s resources. This might be one reason why the current American administration favors the Mujahedin e-Khalq (MEK), rather
than any other opposition group, as the successor to the Islamist government. Reports are circulating that the United States has moved back some MEK fighters to Iraq, perhaps in anticipation of moving them into Iran. The MEK was willing to support Saddam Hussain and cede Iranâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Khuzestan province to Iraq. There is no reason to think that it wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t similarly follow U.S. bidding. The hawksâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; ideal scenario involves Iranâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s disintegration along ethnic and linguistic lines, or at least its transformation into a loose federation with a weak central power. Such goals, which canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be achieved through sanctions and destabilization efforts, would require military operations, though short of a full-scale land invasion. A massive air strike targeting Iranâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s vital infrastructure would suffice. For some years now, many analysts have recommended such an option. Amitai Etzioni, for instance, once said that the United States should confront Iran by bombing its civilian infrastructure or risk losing the Middle East. Key U.S. policymakers in the Trump administration share such views, as do key U.S. regional allies. There is one last reason why the U.S. might attack Iran. Many in America have not forgiven Iran for its 1979 revolution, the hostage crisis, and the defiant behavior it adopted. They believe that allowing Iran to get away with this behavior sends the wrong message to other potential challengers. In short, Iran is a rebellious satrapy that must be subdued.
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Of course, the current Iranian regime could self-dissolve and accept all the 12 conditions laid out by Secretary of State Pompeo. But Iran is unlikely to do so. Instead, Tehran would try to make potential military operations as costly as possible for the United States. Therefore, those in the United States—as well as in Europe and elsewhere—who do not want another devastating war in the Middle East should do all they can to end the current U.S.-Iran standoff. One possible way of avoiding disaster would be for the United States to suspend sanctions on Iran for a year in exchange for Iran agreeing to new and wide-ranging talks on all outstanding issues between the two states. Key European states could try to broker such a deal. Of course, for this suggestion even to be considered, Iran must indicate willingness to engage in broad and comprehensive talks with the United States, and be prepared to reconsider the most controversial aspects of its foreign policy.
Is Bolton Steering Trump Into War With Iran? By Patrick J. Buchanan
"STOP THE ENDLESS WARS!" implored President Donald Trump in a Jan. 13 Sunday night tweet. Well, if he is serious, Trump had best keep an eye on his national security adviser, for a U.S. war on Iran would be a dream come true for John Bolton. Last September, when Shi’i militants launched three mortar shells into the Green Zone in Baghdad, which exploded harmlessly in a vacant lot, Bolton called a series of emergency meetings and directed the Pentagon to prepare a menu of targets, inside Iran, for U.S. air and missile strikes in retaliation. The Wall Street Journal quoted one U.S. official as saying Bolton’s behavior "rattled people....People were shocked. It was mind-boggling how cavalier they were about hitting Iran." Bolton’s former deputy, Mira Ricardel, reportedly told a gathering the shelling into the Green Zone was "an act of war" to which the U.S. must respond decisively. Bolton has long believed a U.S. confrontation with Iran is both inevitable and desirable. In 2015, he authored a New York Times op-ed whose title, "To Stop Iran’s Bomb, Bomb Iran," said it all. He has urged that "regime change" in Iran be made a declared goal of U.S. foreign policy. When Trump announced his decision to withdraw the 2,000 U.S. troops now in Syria, Bolton swiftly imposed conditions: ISIS must first be eliminated, Iranian forces and allied militias must leave, and the Kurds must be protected. Yet enforcing such red lines would require a permanent presence of American troops. For how, without war, would we effect the removal of Bashar Assad’s Iranian allies, if he declines to expel them and the Iranians refuse to go?
Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of Nixon's White House Wars: The Battles That Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever. Reprinted by permission of Patrick J. Buchanan and Creator’s Syndicate, Inc. 14
Bolton has an ally in Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. In Cairo in early January, Pompeo declared it U.S. policy "to expel every last Iranian boot" from Syria. And though Hezbollah has been a "major presence" in Lebanon for several decades, "we won’t accept this as the status quo," said Pompeo, for Hezbollah is a "wholly owned subsidiary of the Iranian regime." But how does the secretary of state propose to push Hezbollah out of Lebanon peacefully when the Israelis could not do it in a month-long war in 2006? Pompeo’s purpose during his tour of the Middle East? Build a new Middle East Strategic Alliance, a MESA, an Arab NATO, whose members are to be Egypt, Jordan and the nations of the Gulf Cooperation Council. There are other signs a confrontation is coming soon. The U.S. has objected to Iran’s pending launch of two space satellites, saying these look like tests of missiles designed to deliver nuclear warheads. Yet Iran has never produced weaponsgrade uranium or plutonium and never tested an ICBM. Over the Jan. 12-13 weekend, Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu boasted of Israel’s latest strike in Syria: "Just in the last 36 hours, the air force attacked Iranian warehouses with Iranian weapons at the international airport in Damascus. The accumulation of recent attacks proves that we are determined more than ever to take action against Iran in Syria, just as we promised." Israel brags that it has hit 200 targets inside Syria in recent years. The boasting may be connected to Bibi’s desire to strengthen his credentials as a security hawk for the coming Israeli election. But it is also a provocation to the Iranians and Syrians to retaliate, which could ignite a wider war between Israel and Syrian and Iranian forces. What does the U.S. think of the Israeli strikes? Said Pompeo: "We strongly support Israel’s efforts to stop Iran from turning Syria into the next Lebanon." In short, forces are moving in this country and in Israel to bring about a U.S. confrontation with Iran—before our troops leave Syria. But the real questions here are not about Bolton or Pompeo. They are about Trump. Was he aware of Bolton’s request for a menu of targets in Iran for potential U.S. strikes? Did he authorize it? Has he authorized his national security adviser and secretary of state to engage in these hostile actions and bellicose rhetoric aimed at Iran? And if so, why? While Trump has urged that the U.S. pull out of these Mideast wars, Pompeo has corrected him, "When America retreats, chaos often follows." Is Trump looking for a showdown with Iran, which could result in a war that might vault his approval rating, but be a disaster for the Middle East and world economy and do for him what Operation Iraqi Freedom did for George W. Bush? One thing may confidently be said of the rhetoric and actions of Bolton and Pompeo: This is not what brought out the new populists who made Donald Trump president, the people who still share his desire to "stop the endless wars." ■
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Welcome Diplomatic Progress on Afghanistan
Special Report
By Paul Pillar
WAKIL KOHSAR/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
MUCH REMAINS TO BE NEGOTIATED, but the partial agreement reached between the United States and the Afghan Taliban is a positive development. Commendation for this progress is in order for the Trump administration and for U.S. envoy Zalmay Khalilzad, who is uniquely qualified by background and experience to have undertaken this assignment. Some of the chief objections voiced against this step toward extricating the United States from an interminable war are valid as far as they go, but they do not go far enough to evaluate fully where U.S. interests lie. The agreement will not necessarily end the war, at least not right away, but the war surely will not end in the absence of such agreement. And without An Afghan auto-rickshaw driver takes a woman wearing a burqa in Kabul on Jan. 30, 2019. such an agreement, the United States will move toward less rather than more use of military force—are continue to share in the costs. using Afghanistan as an opportunity to make a rare show of inYes, this agreement is probably a step toward a Taliban role in dependence from Trump. As with the prospective withdrawal of the Afghan government and, with it, a Taliban role in shaping troops from Syria, Trump’s position on Afghanistan has shown some governmental policies that Westerners would find distastesome of his familiar impulsiveness and disdain for orderly ful. But one must always weigh the alternative. Although the staprocess, but that is a different issue from the value of what has tus of Afghan women under Taliban-influenced policies, for exemerged from the U.S.-Taliban talks in Doha, Qatar. ample, has long been a legitimate concern, the daily lives of most Another reason is the sheer longevity of the U.S. war effort in Afghan women are no better and most likely worse in a war zone. Afghanistan. As has happened in other prolonged wars, sunk costs Then there is the issue of leverage from the presence of U.S. mistakenly come to be viewed as investments that must be paid off troops. But any such leverage has accomplished nothing in with something that can be described as victory. The longevity also changing the Taliban’s posture during 17 years of war, even has led some tactical U.S. objectives to be looked upon as if they when there was no expectation of an impending U.S. troop withwere strategic goals assumed to be important to the United States. drawal. The United States has the watches but the Taliban have In fact, the domestic political and social structure of the time, and that time has no limit. The Taliban can always outAfghanistan is simply not very important to the United States, wait the Americans, no matter how long the Americans stay. The and certainly not important enough for the United States to fight Taliban aren’t going anywhere; they’re already home. an endless war over it. That truth is understandably hard to acPerceptions of the new diplomatic development are unfortucept for many dedicated officials and specialists who, like nately colored in ways that detract from a clear-headed evaluaKhalilzad, have spent much of their professional lives in the purtion. One reason is that President Donald Trump is involved. This suit of Afghanistan-related objectives. means Democrats are primed to smell rats and to find points to The United States first got interested in Afghanistan after the criticize, while some Republicans—faced with an administration Soviet intervention in 1979, when Jimmy Carter’s national security Paul R. Pillar is non-resident senior fellow at the Center for Security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, saw lethal aid to Afghan insurgents Studies of Georgetown University and an associate fellow of the as an opportunity to stick it to the Soviet Union. The much bigger Geneva Center for Security Policy. This article was published Jan. 31 on Lobelog. Reprinted with permission. Continued on page 31 MARCH/APRIL 2019
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Special Report
The Demise of USAID Efforts in the West Bank and Gaza
By Larry Garber
HAZEM BADER/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
newly independent state. Equally important, with the explicit support of the Israeli government, USAID was designing major new roads in the West Bank, a desalination plant for the water-starved population in Gaza, and an industrial estate on the IsraeliPalestinian border to facilitate investment in the high-tech sector. These efforts came to a crashing halt in October 2000 with the onset of the second intifada. Inevitably, calls emerged to shutter the USAID Mission and to eliminate all assistance to the Palestinian people. However, the emerging policy consensus was that withdrawal would be seen as a concession to the perpetrators of terror and that U.S. interests, even during those bleak times, were better served A man points to a sign showing the project details of a school under construction, which was by continuing to support the majority of funded by the USAID, in the Palestinian village of al-Jabaa, near Bethlehem on Jan. 22, 2019. Palestinians, who were not implicated Construction began late last year but will now halt with only about a quarter of the work done and in the violence and who yearned for a the entire school unusable. better future for their children. Despite significant political and security constraints, USAID’s ambitious pre-intifada development TWENTY YEARS AGO, I was assigned to manage the U.S. programs were transformed into successful efforts to alleviate Agency for International Development’s (USAID) program in the the humanitarian consequences of the intifada reality. Funds West Bank and Gaza. At the time, the region was awash with went to build classrooms and health clinics, address water shortoptimism. Peace negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians ages and wastewater flows, and provide work opportunities for seemed poised to achieve a lasting solution to the long-standPalestinians who could no longer travel to Israel for jobs. The ing conflict, the economies on both sides of the Green Line programs facilitated continued engagement among Palestinian, were booming, and terror incidents were few and far between. Israeli, and U.S. leaders, and demonstrated the long-term U.S. Since the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993, the USAID procommitment to the Palestinian people. gram in the Palestinian Territories had become an integral comImplementing this multi-faceted program amidst the frequent ponent of the broader U.S. government peace-making strategy. and horrific terrorist attacks and the Israeli government’s military USAID supported efforts to build the requisite institutions of an responses was not a simple undertaking. Crossing between Isindependent and democratic Palestinian state. Programs sought rael and the Palestinian territories required obtaining the necesto strengthen key economic ministries, parliament, and the judisary permits from the Israeli authorities, and U.S. law required ciary, and to provide scholarships for study in the United States extensive vetting of Palestinian partners to ensure that they were to young Palestinians who would form a leadership cadre in their not affiliated with terrorist organizations. USAID’s major asset in Larry Garber, a former senior official at the U.S. Agency for Internafacilitating these efforts were the talented staff of Americans, Istional Development, served as USAID Mission Director for the West raelis and Palestinians who throughout the worst days of the inBank and Gaza from 1999-2004. Copyright ©2019 LobeLog. All rights reserved. tifada remained committed to a common goal and who ensured 16
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that the USAID mission remained an oasis of cooperation and mutual respect. A relative calm was restored in 2004. During the ensuing 15 years, USAID’s Palestinian programs grew dramatically, addressing critical health needs, building physical and institutional infrastructure, promoting the growth of key economic sectors, and, perhaps most important, providing Palestinians with hope for an improved quality of life. The Hamas takeover of Gaza in 2006 required a reorientation of efforts away from working with Hamascontrolled entities, as per U.S. laws, but this did not mean the cessation of programming in Gaza. And as had been true from the outset, the programs were carried out with the cooperation and support of the Israeli military authorities, who appreciated the political and economic significance of these efforts. Since 1993, annual assistance to the Palestinians on a per capita basis has been among the highest provided by the U.S. government to any country or region. However, for the past two years, the Trump administration has sought to use the assistance program as a stick to force Palestinian acquiescence to a unilaterally drafted peace plan rather than as a carrot reflecting mutual respect. Consequently, the USAID mission is now in its death throes. No program funds were appropriated for Palestinian programs for either 2018 or 2019. Moreover, the Anti-Terrorism Clarification Act (ATCA), which was adopted in 2018 and which goes into effect Feb. 1, allows victims of terror to sue recipients of U.S. assistance funds, including the Palestinian Authority (PA), in U.S. courts. Given pending judgments in the billions of dollars against the PA, on Dec. 26 PA Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah informed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that the Palestinians would no longer accept any funds from the United States, including security assistance to professionalize Palestinian security, which contributed to constructive Palestinian-Israeli security interactions for the past 15 years. USAID employees, many of whom have worked for the Mission for more than two MARCH/APRIL 2019
decades, are looking for new jobs. USAID’s implementing partners are dismissing their staff in response to stop work orders effective Jan. 31. Infrastructure projects are being terminated early, even at the risk of leaving behind dangerous work zones and wasting U.S. taxpayers’ dollars. The practical impacts are consequential, but more significant are the breaches of trust and the threats of destabilization in the region. Palestinians appreciate not only the new schools, rebuilt roads, advanced training and access to technologies, but also the thousands of constructive relationships fostered by these multitude of programs. USAID’s absence will reinforce Palestinian assumptions regarding the perceived biases of U.S. policy in the region. At some point, meaningful peace negotiations between Palestinians and Israelis
will once again resume, perhaps as in the Oslo peace process without direct U.S. mediation. As an inveterate optimist, I am convinced that there is a deal that can serve the mutual interests of both parties, and which would be of tremendous benefit to the United States, even if it’s absent from the negotiations. Shutting down USAID and terminating assistance programs will have detrimental short-term consequences and will make more costly, complicated, and time-consuming a resumption of efforts in the future. By contrast, approving an amendment to the ATCA to exempt humanitarian and development assistance provided through non-governmental organizations might contribute to a rebuilding of trust between U.S. officials and Palestinian counterparts, and counter the growing cynicism regarding U.S. intentions in the region. ■
Dear AUB community, The American University of Beirut (AUB) is an institution that puts its students first and is committed to ensuring they have the opportunity to complete their education whenever possible. Earlier in January, the university was informed by representatives of the U.S. government that students from the West Bank and Gaza would no longer be eligible for comprehensive scholarships under its U.S.-Middle East Partnership Initiative-Tomorrow’s Leaders (MEPI-TL) program and that their funding would cease effective January 31, 2019. It was explained that suspension of assistance to all projects in the Palestinian Authority and to citizens of those areas was an unintended consequence of the AntiTerrorism Clarification Act of 2018 (ATCA) passed by Congress on Oct. 3 last year. The MEPI-TL program has been in operation since 2007 after being launched by the State Department’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs’ Office of Assistance Coordination with the aim of supporting civic-minded, intellectually able, and professionally skilled students from around the MENA [Middle East and North Africa] region to become future leaders in their communities. AUB has 82 currently-enrolled students on the program, 16 of whom are from the West Bank and Gaza. In order to ensure that these outstanding Palestinian scholars are able to continue their education, AUB will secure the $1.2 million in funds necessary to ensure that they can complete their courses up to graduation without redirecting any of our already considerable financial aid commitments from other deserving and needy students. We are also working with our partners at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut and in Washington, DC to mitigate the impact of ATCA on the MEPI-TL program. At the university, we feel profound sense of obligation to all of our students and our decision to support Palestinian scholars of the MEPI-TL program is aligned with the values of AUB which are aspirational, egalitarian and enduring. Best Regards, Fadlo R. Khuri, MD AUB President WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
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United Nations Report
Obsessed with Palestine, The U.S. Defunds UNRWA
By Ian Williams
SAID KHATIB/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
Opinion at the U.N. is divided about whether this appointment is yet another calculated snub to the organization and the world order, or just additional example of the president’s penchant for capricious nepotism—after all, he clearly regards Fox as part of the family. In any case, it does not bode well for international order, even more so taken in conjunction with the administration’s abandonment of treaties and organizations. For example, at the end of January one of the U.N.’s international judges on the former Yugoslav Tribunal, German Christoph Flügge, cited John Bolton’s threats against judges on the International Criminal Tribunal if it investigated any U.S. serviceman for torture in Afghanistan. Bolton did not even deign Young Palestinian men transport bags of flour outside an aid distribution center run by the to rebut the allegations of misconduct. United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, on At the U.N., the U.S. and Israel often Dec. 20, 2018. After the U.S. pulled funding, the U.N. urged donor states to give $350 million accuse the world body of being one-sidin aid for Palestinians in 2019. edly obsessed with Israel, when, of course, the converse is the case. The U.S. is obsessed with IT SEEMS THAT WASHINGTON would have an uphill strugPalestine. In the wake of pulling out from UNESCO because it gle to find a less appropriate ambassador than John Bolton for recognized the Palestinian state, the latest idiocy comes dithe U.N., but Donald Trump—the best president ever—has acrectly from Israel, with an Israeli threat to close the UNRWA tually risen to the challenge. schools in East Jerusalem. These are U.N. premises and thus First, former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley did her protected under International Law, and indeed by a direct best as U.N. representative to alienate the world before dropagreement with Israel. But when the dog excretes, the tail gets ping out for motives which, although mysterious, almost cermessed up, so Israel and the U.S. both besmirch international tainly involved future political career options that the Israel law. lobby she pandered to so assiduously while at the U.N. would In the case of UNRWA, after the U.S. pulled its funding, help her obtain. other countries, more aware of what a collapse of the refugee She has now been replaced by Fox News anchor and State organization’s finances and services would do for Middle East Department spokesperson Heather Nauert, whose diplomatic stability, let alone the plight of the Palestinians, have rallied skills can be assessed by her inclusion of D-Day as an examaround to fill the gap. Although still inadequate, the additional ple of the warmth of the U.S.-German relationship, which is funding went a long way to avert the crisis left by Trump’s denot quite, but approaching, invoking Hiroshima and Pearl Harcision to defund UNRWA. bor to epitomize Washington’s ties to Tokyo. However it is instructive to see where the pressure came from to defund UNRWA. It was a cabal of ultra-Likudniks like U.N. correspondent Ian Williams is the author of UNtold: the Real Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and Israel’s combative U.N. Story of the United Nations in Peace and War (available from Middle East Books and More). Ambassador Danny Danon—aided and abetted by Nikki Haley 18
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in her capacity as the auxiliary Ambassador of Israel to the U.N. Both Haley and Danon have separate domestic political ambitions that far outweigh any of their professed concerns for Middle East peace, and the abolition of UNRWA is a cause that attracts demagogues and deranged ideologists more than rational Israeli policy makers. Less blinkered Israelis have recognized that UNRWA has for half a century been providing services in the Territories that should be paid for by the Occupying Power. If it were not for UNRWA, Gaza would be uninhabitable rather than just awful. But Kushner and Co. go beyond the Territories and have even tried to pressure Jordan to close down UNRWA in the refugee camps there. Apart from grandstanding for voters, their objection is ideological. UNRWA is the embodiment of the U.N.’s historic commitment to the Palestinians. As the Likudniks keep complaining, UNRWA is dedicated to the Palestinian refugees and their descendants, and is the repository of their claims to return or compensation. The likes of Kushner maintain that someone who claims descent from Moses has every right to “return” to Israel, and that all Jewish claims to property in mandatory Palestine must be honored, but that it is shocking and insupportable that the U.N. should have an agency that, even nominally, maintains the spirit and letter of the U.N. resolutions from the time of partition. This may seem to be restating the obvious, but Israeli hasbara [propaganda] as practiced at the U.N. by Ambassador Danon, apart from telling outright lies about Iran, consists of telling half truths about Israel and Palestine. All too often, one suspects, the Palestinians and their supporters assume that such simplistic distortions would not fool anyone. They are wrong! Danon and his team have run a continual well-crafted campaign beguiling dozens of ambassadors of smaller countries—which have the added incentive, reinforced by Haley’s clumsy threats, that making nice to Israel puts them on MARCH/APRIL 2019
Washington’s good side. And as a fringe bonus they appear to get frequent trips to sunny places as part of Israel’s hasbara campaign—so what’s the downside for a diplomat from a cash-strapped country desperate for U.S. approval? However, while some nations will always prudently pander to the U.S., there are signs that others are now rallying to counter U.S. sabotage of international agreements. European agreements to arrange non-dollar payments for Iranian oil point the way. While, sadly, countries rarely act out of principle alone, when principle and pragmatic economic concerns coincide as in this case, they will do.
HOLDING THE LINE ON WESTERN SAHARA
In this context, it is worth looking at the small band of countries still actively upholding the rights of Western Sahara. In January, The Green Glacier, a ship with more than 5,000 tons of fish lifted by Morocco from Saharan waters pulled into Cape Town, and shortly afterwards sailed back to Abidjan under threat of impoundment. Last year the South African courts auctioned off a seized shipload of Western Saharan phosphates which it effectively ruled had been stolen by Morocco from the occupied territory. Morocco, like Indonesia over East Timor, has spent decades and untold sums browbeating countries into accepting its occupation, but with limited success apart from France. Many other African countries apart from South Africa have also held the line, on the grounds of U.N. resolutions, World Court rulings and the African Union rule about not altering colonial boundaries. Even as we might despair of the efficacy of the U.N. in Palestine, the Western Sahara situation is a reminder of its residual power. Without a U.N. resolution, no matter how much Israel and Washington blusters, Binyamin Netanyahu and his successors cannot get clear title of the Golan Heights and East Jerusalem, let alone the settlements.
Ironically, the Sahrawis’ great hope at the moment is the arch enemy of the international law on which they base their case. John Bolton assisted former Secretary of State James Baker when the latter was the U.N. representative for Western Sahara in the late ’90s. It appears that Moroccan obfuscation and subterfuge might have exasperated him on a personal level. Certainly he has added pressure on Morocco to meet its promises and obligations and the current talks offer a glimmer of hope. But then it also helps that in his campaign against U.N. budgets, Bolton has for decades singled out the annual millions the U.N. spends on a mission designed to implement a referendum in the territory that Morocco has spent 30 years frustrating. If only he could muster the same exasperation against Israel for the costs the world community incurs paying for its persistent scofflaw behavior. ■ (Advertisement)
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Special Report
Why Should My Newspaper Pledge Not to Boycott Israel?
By Alan Leveritt
CREDIT BRIAN CHILSON / ARKANSAS TIMES
publishing industry, and we really needed the business. But at what price? It had never occurred to us to boycott anyone, but the idea that the state would force a publishing company to take a political position in return for business was offensive. We then learned the law offered to let us continue to do business without signing the pledge, so long as we accepted a 20 percent cut in our ad rates. I said, “Well, to hell with them.” We were not going to pay a 20 percent tax for the right to hold beliefs independent of the Arkansas Legislature, at least not withAlan Leveritt, publisher of the Arkansas Times, says he was disturbed by the conditions of a pledge not to out a fight. boycott Israel. So, with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union, we sued the state to have this law overturned on free LAST YEAR, letters from the state of Arkansas began drifting speech grounds. Our hearing to get an injunction against enacross my desk, demanding that our weekly newspaper, the forcement of the law was on Friday, Jan. 4. In other states where Arkansas Times, either sign a pledge not to boycott Israel or similar laws have been passed, citizens have sued because they forfeit all state advertising. support the boycott against Israel based on how that country is The letters were the result of an obscure, cookie-cutter law treating the Palestinians. We’re focused on Arkansas at the passed in 2017 by our Republican-controlled legislature. SpecifArkansas Times and have never editorially advocated for a boyically, it requires any company entering into a contract with a cott of Israel. But as journalists, citizens and taxpayers, we dispublic entity to certify that it “is not currently engaged in, and pute the right of the state to impose any ideological litmus test agrees for the duration of the contract not to engage in, a boycott on a publisher or other business, when the only consideration in of Israel.” awarding a state contract should be merit. Initially, we and our longtime state agency clients simply igWe’ve heard through the grapevine that the law has created nored it and went about our business of producing a newspaper. some absurd confrontations for the state. For example, many But when the University of Arkansas System began strictly enstate colleges and universities bring in touring musicians for conforcing the law last fall, it told us that we had to sign the anti-boycerts. Imagine demanding that a Rock & Roll Hall of Fame mucott pledge in order to continue running advertisements for the sician sign what amounts to a loyalty oath to the state of Israel University of Arkansas-Pulaski Technical College. before he can be paid. An architect from Fort Smith, Arkansas, At that point, we had a decision to make. Times are hard in the who was bidding on a state job said it well when he wrote his local newspaper that he has “no political axe to grind with either Alan Leveritt is the publisher of the Arkansas Times. Published Israel or the Palestinians, but this is a rather remarkable thing to January 3, 2019 on the ACLU website. Reprinted with permission from ACLU. require of a citizen to get a job.” 20
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Supporters of the law have argued that it is regulating action, not free speech. But political boycotts have long been recognized as free speech, going back to the civil rights boycotts of white businesses in Mississippi during the 1960s. If political boycotts are not protected, then neither is political speech. What other pledges might state legislatures require if this law is upheld? And what might the federal government, which
has considered passing a criminal antiboycott bill, come up with? Could legislatures in blue states penalize citizens or businesses for flying the Confederate flag? Might red state legislatures prohibit the state from doing business with anyone who boycotts Trump family businesses? Imagine similar scenarios where boycotts of tobacco companies or political parties are at issue. This law is a rabbit hole our country
EDITOR’S NOTE: On Jan. 24, U.S. District Court Judge Brian Miller dismissed the Arkansas Times’ lawsuit. The newspaper “has not demonstrated that a boycott of Israel, as defined by Act 710 [the anti-BDS state law], is protected by the First Amendment,” the judge said. “A boycott of Israel, as defined by Act 710, is neither speech nor inherently expressive conduct,” Miller insisted. In its 1982 NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co. ruling, the Supreme Court affirmed the rights of black Mississippians to boycott white-owned business as a means of protesting their second-class citizenship. In that case, the
OTHER STATE-LEVEL ANTI-SPEECH DEVELOPMENTS
Texas: Bahia Amawi, a veteran children’s speech pathologist who has contracted her services to the Pflugerville Independent School District for nearly a decade, had her annual contract offer rescinded last year after she refused to sign an anti-BDS certification. Under a 2017 Texas law, all state contractors are required to sign a pledge that they will not participate in a boycott of Israel. In December, Amawi filed a lawsuit against the state with the help of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) Legal Defense Fund. The next day, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a lawsuit on behalf of four other Texans who were denied employment with the state as a result of their refusal to sign the pro-Israel pledge. “This misguided law
MARCH/APRIL 2019
does not need to go down. Since when do American citizens have to pledge to act in the interest of a foreign power in order to do business with their own government? Since when does the state of Arkansas punish its own taxpayers in an effort to assist a foreign government with its domestic policy? As an American, I say it is none of their damn business what political beliefs we hold. We’ll see them in court. ■
court determined that boycotts “to bring about political, social and economic change” are protected under the First Amendment. However, Miller argued that the Claiborne case “does not hold that individual purchasing decisions are constitutionally protected, nor does it create an unqualified right to engage in political boycotts.” “We disagree with the district court’s decision, which contradicts two recent federal court decision and which would radically limit the First Amendment right to boycott,” said Holly Dickson, the ACLU’s Arkansas legal director.
seeks to undermine a form of protected expression that has been a part of our nation’s constitutional tradition since the founding,” said ACLU attorney Brian Hauss. The ACLU has successfully fought similar anti-BDS laws in Kansas and Arizona. Maryland: CAIR filed a lawsuit in January on behalf of Syed Saqib Ali, a software engineer and former state legislator. Ali alleges that Governor Larry Hogan’s 2017 executive order that requires the state to deny contracts to businesses that boycott Israel infringes on his First Amendment right to free speech and wrongly excludes him from bidding on government work. "Maryland's ban on contracting with anyone who participates in such boycotts constitutes viewpoint discrimination that chills constitutionally-protected political advocacy
in support of Palestine," the lawsuit states. Florida: Freshman Rep. Mike Caruso (RPalm Beach County) introduced a bill in the state House of Representatives in January that would require Florida’s public schools to adopt the State Department’s definition of anti-Semitism. Among other things, the bill would ban teachers and students from “applying double standards to the State of Israel” and from legitimizing “the work of a multilateral organization investigating Israel for peace or human rights violations.” The bill, which has two bipartisan co-sponsors, is nearly identical to one passed by South Carolina last year. The State Department’s definition of anti-Semitism was never intended to police speech domestically, and even the original author of the definition has said he opposes it being used to chill First Amendment rights. —Dale Sprusansky
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Special Report
News in Jeopardy: National, Local, Establishment and Insurgent By Delinda C. Hanley
STAFF PHOTO D. HANLEY
THE WASHINGTON REPORT gent and establishment media. on Middle East Affairs and its In one week in January, Buzbookstore, Middle East Books zFeed fired 15 percent of its & More, have been reader-supnews-gathering staff, and Veriported, independent authorities zon Media Group, which coon U.S. foreign policy since owns HuffPost, Yahoo and AOL, 1982. Launched by retired cut another 800 employees. diplomats, the magazine began Gannett Co., the largest newsas a kind of insurgency. Retired paper owner in the U.S., fired Ambassadors Andrew Killgore 400 employees at daily newspaand Edward Henderson, along pers it controls across the counwith my father Richard Curtiss try. Reporters for both print and vowed to change U.S. Ameridigital outlets are an endancan foreign policy. They gathgered species. ered like-minded readers and Digital news organizations writers who agreed that when it are clustered in New York, comes to the Middle East, Washington, Los Angeles, San American readers weren’t getFrancisco and Seattle. Some of ting the whole story. It began as their reporters never leave their a newsletter for subscribers. screens to do on-the-ground reVolunteers contacted people porting, says New York Times’ who’d written interesting letters Jill Abramson. That is not the to their local papers and pretty way the Washington Report opsoon they, too, turned into suberates. Our writers write stories scribers. Today our staff is from around the world, covering smaller and more over-worked local and global events. and dedicated than ever, with a According to another Washmanaging editor, Janet McMa- Barnes and Noble stopped carrying the Washington Report in ington Post article, this one by hon, who is trying her hardest hundreds of bookstores across the country. Paul Farhi, titled “An End of to retire. Salad Days for Digital News?” The Middle East Books & national digital news, which More bookstore started as a bookclub, with special rates for was supposed to replace mainstream press, is now facing the hard-to-find books for its members. Over the years, the magasame advertising crisis that first bedeviled print newspapers. It zine, as well as the bookstore, has begun to play a unique role turns out Google and Facebook collect 57 percent of all digitalin informing and building the communities we serve. Our misadvertising revenue in U.S., with other news companies left to sion has always been to cover the news and issues important fight for the scraps and crumbs. to Arab, Muslim, and Jewish American readers and others who In addition to gobbling up advertising, Farhi explains, “Google care deeply about peace and justice. and Facebook exercise power over the vast flows of internet Unlike most publications, we relied on a select number of adreadership through their algorithms, the computerized set of invertisers, usually other nonprofits who weren’t worried that we structions that determines what information is shown on their were “too political.” Thanks to the philanthropy of our readers, and platforms based on factors such as user demographics. Periodsticking to a tight budget, we’ve continued to provide news that is ical changes in algorithms can make or break a news organizastill hard to find in North America. tion by diminishing its news stories or boosting them to a mass Today, the news business is facing brutal layoffs in both local audience.” and legacy publications—digital as well as print editions—insurThe Washington Report’s digital edition and decades of stories stored on our easily-accessible archives are hit hard every time those algorithms are tweaked. The numbers of readers who find Delinda C. Hanley is news editor of the Washington Report on us in searches can plunge or surge. Our webmaster spends Middle East Affairs. 22
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nightmarish days combatting denial-of-service and other constantly evolving attacks. Returning to print media, Farhi warns, “The long, grinding hollowing out of newspapers has led to discussions about ‘news deserts,’ areas in which there is little or no media coverage at all.” Well, our readers know what that’s like. They’ve been wandering in a news desert for decades, searching for fair media reports on the Middle East and stories about their lives and struggles in this country. Community papers were the first to go. They’ve been purchased by Alden Global Capital, Gannett or Digital First Media, to name just a few. They’re usually controlled by a hedge fund, which “strip-mines its newspapers, drastically cutting newsroom staffs and squeezing profit from these operations with no apparent regard for journalism or their future viability,” according to The Washington Post’s media columnist Margaret Sullivan. A study published in the American Prospect magazine found the absentee owner often drives a paper into the ground. “By the time the paper is a hollow shell, the private equity company can exit and move on, having more than made back its investment.” Skilled, experienced, dedicated editors, reporters and photographers who have spent their careers watching how the government spends our tax dollars are left unemployed. Steve Cavendish, a former editor of the Nashville Scene and Washington City Paper, wrote, “In Tennessee, we’ve been watching the slow-motion destruction of our news institutions under Gannett for a few decades now, and the idea that things are about to get even worse is appalling. As badly as the country needs strong coverage of national news these days, the local news landscape is important, too. And what happened here mirrors what’s already happened in city after city.” Gannett bought up many of the small papers around Nashville and minimized or eliminated them, then eliminated redundancy and now stories go unreported, Cavendish concludes. The Washington Report is watching all these changes in news reporting with increasing concern. We don’t even know how to categorize our publication. Are we ethnic, local or global? A Jeffrey Bezos never tried to purchase the magazine— and who would sell it? Our readers are all co-owners. MARCH/APRIL 2019
BOOKSTORES ALSO GETTING SQUEEZED OUT
The same forces upending media, are shuttering local news shops and independent bookstores across the country. A big box bookstore comes to town or Amazon undercuts the prices of books and—poof— that bookstore where you used to browse for hours is out of business. Now Barnes & Noble bookstores has “delisted” the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs without saying why. This means the bookstore with the largest number of retail outlets in the U.S.—which sold 80 percent of our newsstand copies—will no longer carry this magazine in their stores. So a bookstore is putting the squeeze on a publication! That impact is devastating. As a direct result of Barnes & Noble’s decision, our long-time North American distributor stopped all their sales and marketing of the Washington Report to other bookstores. So there you have it. Consider this a report to our co-owners and a call for another insurrection. The Washington Report needs your help to survive the attacks coming from all directions and to continue to grow. These are some things you can do: 1. Please contact your Barnes & Noble and tell them you miss finding the Washington Report on their newsstands. While it’s great they’re carrying fashion and movie magazines, how about beefing up their current events shelves? 2. Advise young people in your orbit to
intern or volunteer for the magazine and bookstore. A semester with us in DC can be life-changing. We meet so many students whose parents so completely assimilated into America that they forgot to teach their kids Arabic or how to cook healthy, rich, Middle Eastern cuisine. They’re discovering their rich heritage in our bookstore. They’re buying cookbooks and learning Arabic (with the help of our books), and reading fabulous Arabic literature. Some of them are learning to be journalists (uh-oh) by writing for our magazine. 3. Come all ye out-of-work journalists and editors. We could use more experienced staff at this publication. We also need a publisher, a retired diplomat or business person, or—why not—a journalist! You could travel the country speaking at events or become a regular on the talk show circuit. 4. Our bookstore is ready for its next life as a bookstore/coffee shop. It’s already a neighborhood hub, book club meeting place, venue for book signings and film screenings. Help us pull in even more students from nearby universities by selling coffee and snacks as well as fabulous books. All we need is a little extra help from our co-owners to turn things around and make the most of a fabulous bookstore, magazine and constituency. Our angels came through in 2018 (see p. 72), and we hope you will again in 2019 because “together we can make a difference.” ■
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A Project of Middle East Children’s Alliance
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Israel and Judaism
Campaign to Criminalize Criticism of Israel: A Challenge to Free Speech, Jewish Values
By Allan C. Brownfeld
PHOTO CREDIT JEFF KOWALSKY/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
FREEDOM OF SPEECH and the right to dissent is under attack by Israel’s Washington lobby, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), as well as by most of the organized American Jewish community and casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, the Republican Party’s single largest contributor. The goal is to make it illegal to advocate a boycott of Israel in protest of its more than 50 years of illegal occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and its mistreatment of Palestinians. This effort is being conducted on both the federal and state levels. Already, 26 states have enacted such laws. In the last Congress, legislation introduced in the Senate, called the Israel Anti-Boycott Act, was co-sponsored by Sens. Ben Cardin (D-MD) and Rob Portman (R-OH). In a Dec. 20, 2018 editorial, The New York Times characterized the legislation as “clearly a part of a widening attempt to silence one side of the debate. That is not in the interest of Israel, the United States or their shared democratic traditions.” The growth of the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) movement, which is the target of this legislation and that in the states, is, in the Times’ view, a reaction to Israel’s move away from a peaceful settle- U.S. Vice President Al Gore (l) presents civil rights heroine Rosa Parks the Congressional Medal of Honor at a ceremony on Nov. 28, 1999 in Detroit, MI. Parks, who ment with the Palestinians, and includes many Jews died Oct. 24, 2005, was arrested in Montgomery, AL in Dec. 1955 for refusing to in its ranks. As the Times notes: “It is not only Israel’s give up her seat on a bus to a white man. Her arrest triggered a 381-day boycott of adversaries who find the movement appealing. Many the Montgomery bus system. devoted supporters of Israel, including many American Jews, oppose the occupation of the West Bank and refuse to votes shy of the 60 needed to overcome a filibuster. Republicans buy products of the settlements in occupied territories. Their right made it clear they weren’t giving up, and planned more votes in to protest in this way must be vigorously defended.” the days ahead. A rare Republican dissenter was Sen. Rand Paul Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is(R-KY), who declared: “I am not in favor of boycotting Israel...At sued a joint statement saying that “while we do not support the the same time, I am concerned about what the role of Congress BDS movement, we remain resolved to our constitutional oath to can and should be in this situation. I strongly oppose any legisladefend the right of every American to express their views peacfully tion that attempts to ban boycotts or ban people who support boywithout the threat of, or actual, punishment by the government.” cotts from participating in our government or working for our govThis legislation failed in the last Congress, but was introduced ernment. We must be very, very careful here to not let our dislike in the new Congress in January as part of a larger bill, which fell 3 for something cloud our judgment. America is the land of freedom of expression, and the hallmark of a truly free country is that it alAllan C. Brownfeld is a syndicated columnist and associate editor of lows expressions, speech and actions that we don’t agree with.” the Lincoln Review, a journal published by the Lincoln Institute for Indeed, America has a long history of embracing peaceful boyResearch and Education, and editor of Issues, the quarterly journal of the American Council for Judaism. cotts. It was founded amidst a boycott of English tea. Abolitionists 24
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boycotted goods produced by slaves. Rosa Parks led a boycott against segregated buses in Montgomery, AL, which lasted for 381 days in 1955 and 1956. More recently, a peaceful international boycott helped bring down apartheid in South Africa. In the case of NAACP v. Claiborne Co., the Supreme Court held in 1982 that the economic boycott of white-owned businesses by blacks was entitled to First Amendment protection. The court found that “a non-violent, politically motivated boycott” was political speech and was, therefore, protected. Consider the extremes to which the laws in 26 states now go in criminalizing criticism of Israel. The case of Bahia Amawi is typical. A children’s speech pathologist who has worked for the past nine years with developmentally disabled, autistic and speech-impaired elementary school children in Austin, Texas has been told she can no longer work with the public school district after she refused to sign an oath vowing that she “does not” and “will not” engage in a boycott of Israel, or “otherwise take any action that is intended to inflict economic harm” on that foreign country. A lawsuit on her behalf was filed in December in a federal district court alleging a violation of Amawi’s First Amendment right of free speech. Discussing the oath she refused to sign, Glenn Greenwald wrote in The Intercept on Dec. 21, 2018: “The language reads like Orwellian—or McCarthyite—self-parody, the classic political loyalty oath that every American should instinctively shudder upon reading...The received certification about Israel was the only one in the contract that pertained to political opinions or activism. In order to get a contract in Texas, then, a citizen is free to denounce and work against the United States, to advocate for causes that directly harm American children and even support a boycott of particular U.S. states—such as was done in 2017 to North Carolina in protest of its anti-LGBT law—to continue to work.” Greenwald pointed out that, “The sole political affirmation Texans are to sign in order to work with the school district’s children is to protect the economic interests not of the MARCH/APRIL 2019 2016
U.S. or Texas—but Israel. The anti-BDS oath is the result of an Israel-specific state law enacted on May 2, 2017 by the Texas State Legislature....when Gov. Greg Abbott signed the bill at a ceremony at the Austin Jewish Community Center, he said, ‘Any anti-Israel policy is an anti-Texas policy.’” The federal courts have agreed with those challenging these laws. In Sept. 2018, a federal court blocked Arizona from enforcing a law requiring state contractors to certify that they are not participating in boycotts of Israel. The court agreed with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) that the law was likely in contravention of the contractor’s free speech rights under the First Amendment. “A restriction of one’s ability to participate in collective calls against Israel unquestionably burdens the protected expression of companies wishing to engage in such a boycott,” U.S. District Judge Diane J. Humetewa wrote in her decision granting a preliminary injunction against the law. This was the second federal court to arrive at the same conclusion: A court in Kansas held that the First Amendment protects the right of citizens “to band together” and “express collectively their dissatisfaction with the injustice and violence they perceive as experienced by the Palestinians and Israeli citizens.” The ACLU declared that, “The Kansas and Arizona decisions sent a clear message: The First Amendment right to boycott is alive and well. But our work is far from over. Similar contract requirements are on the books in 24 other states. All of these laws violate the First Amendment.” Legal scholars on both the right and left agree that these laws criminalizing criticism of Israel are in violation of the First Amendment. Walter Olson, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute’s Center for Constitutional Studies, expressed the widely shared view that, “It is not a proper function of law to force Americans into carrying on foreign commerce they personally find politically objectionable, whether their reasons for reluctance be good, bad or arbitrary.” The idea that this legislation somehow is supported by most American Jews is at
odds with the growing division among mostly liberal American Jews and the increasingly right-wing Israeli government, which is actively promoting the anti-BDS laws. Editorially, the Dec. 8, 2018 issue of The Jewish News of Northern California described the laws as having “all the appearances of an overbearing government thought-police pressing down on the little guy, holding pay checks hostage to demand ideological support for a country two continents away. What possible business is it of Texas what a random speech pathologist does or doesn’t think about Israel? Condemnation has been swift and brutal and in many cases has crossed partisan boundaries.” While the organized Jewish community supports Israel’s occupation, the majority of American Jews oppose it, and support the creation of a Palestinian state. Many Jewish critics of Israel support the BDS movement, such as the increasingly popular Jewish Voice for Peace. Others, such as J Street, while opposing BDS, do oppose the anti-BDS legislation which criminalizes criticism of Israel. J Street notes that these laws could have a harmful effect by treating the settlements in the occupied West Bank as similar to or part of Israel proper. By embracing the anti-BDS laws, AIPAC, the American Jewish Committee and other establishment Jewish groups are not representing the thinking of the vast majority of American Jews. They are turning their backs not only on the First Amendment guarantees of the Constitution, but upon the Jewish value of free and open discussion as well. If Israel has a good case to make against the BDS movement, it and its American supporters should use our free speech guarantees to make that case. Only those without such a persuasive case would want to silence its opponents by criminalizing their free speech rights. That, it seems, is the path that Israel and its friends have chosen. In a battle against both the Constitution and the Jewish moral and ethical tradition, they are unlikely to succeed. ■
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GOP Rep. Seeks to Block Tlaib’s Palestine Congressional Delegation
By Juan Cole
ABBAS MOMANI/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
Ordinarily, the wealthy and powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee (which ought to have to register as a foreign agent but doesn’t because it is so wealthy and powerful) pays for a trip of these federal representatives to Israel, where they are introduced to Israeli politicians and given the Israeli story about the Palestinians. This is like visiting Columbia, South Carolina in the 1950s and asking the white state legislators there why Black South Carolinians are so poor and have such bad education and health statistics. As a result of such successful boondoggles and lobbying, the U.S. is now givThe uncle of Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib displays a picture of her in the village of Beit Ur al Foqa, in the ing $23,000 to each Israeli occupied West Bank on Nov. 8, 2018. Rashida Tlaib is the Detroit-born daughter of Palestinian immigrants family over the next 10 —the eldest of 14 children. years, $38 billion in total, even during the 35-day shutdown when federal employees were not being paid, and people THE NEWLY ELECTED Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, who in Flint, Michigan are still expected to drink lead-poisoned water. represents Michigan’s 13th District, is seeking to take a delegaIsrael is a wealthy country with a per capita income of $40,000 tion of congressional representatives to the Palestinian West a year in nominal terms, slightly better than that of France. The Bank, which is militarily occupied by Israel and where some only reason that the American public is forking over that kind of 600,000 Israeli squatters have usurped Palestinian land belongcash to the Israelis is that the Israel lobbies have given signifiing to the nearly 3 million Palestinians living there (another nearly cant campaign contributions to many in Congress and expect 2 million live in the Gaza Strip). them to put massive aid to Israel into the U.S. budget as a quid Tlaib represents not only part of Detroit but Dearborn Heights pro quo. and among her constituents are many Arab-Americans who Brian Babin, a congressman from Texas’s 36th district, is strongly support Palestine and resent Israel’s colonization project seeking to block Tlaib’s trip and that of her colleagues by atof stealing their land and resources and ultimately hoping to distempting to get the Democratic leadership on the Hill to pull the place them and make them refugees anew. money for it. Stopping powerful women from traveling, just as Juan Cole is professor of history at the University of Michigan. He Trump stopped Nancy Pelosi from going to Afghanistan, seems runs a news and commentary webzine on U.S. foreign policy and to be a new plank of the Republican Party platform. progressive politics, informed comment. His new book, MuhamBabin got nearly $6,000 for his 2016 campaign from pro-Israel mad: prophet of peace amid the clash of empires (Nation Books), has just been published. Copyright ©2019 Juan Cole. “industries,” according to this database, though such things are 26
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hard to measure because wealthy individuals may also be giving and then pressuring him. By the way, although $6,000 may not sound like much money, contributions on that scale can be extremely influential in tight races. You wouldn’t want the lobbyists to give it to your opponent—that would be like losing $12,000 to pay for radio and TV and internet ads. Babin has through his congressional career voted for positions similar to those of Trump 95 percent of the time. He may as well be Trump. He voted to remove sanctions from three Russian companies run by oligarchs close to Vladimir Putin. He supported Trump in calling Hillary Clinton a “nasty woman.” He opposes the U.S. refugee program, which is part of our country’s treaty obligations, on the grounds that once admitted, refugees accept entitlements and become a public charge, and that if Muslim refugees are let in they will engage in terrorism and oppress women. Of the 750,000 refugees admitted in the past 17 years, none has carried out a physical terrorist attack on U.S. soil. As for oppressing women, he is the one who thinks they are “nasty.” It is worth attending to Babin’s rhetoric. He complains that Tlaib’s planned trip will be “tax-payer funded.” But then so is Trump’s travel to what are essentially campaign rallies around the country. And that $38 billion Babin voted to give away to Israel is also taxpayer money, and it is hard to argue that he is working for the taxpayer. Then Babin worries that for a congressional delegation to go to the Palestinian West Bank it will harm relations between the United States and Israel. It is hard to see the logic here. U.S. congressional delegations have routinely gone to the West Bank in the past and it hasn’t hurt U.S.-Israeli relations at all, which are so warm that we are giving them $38 billion even after the visits to the West Bank. Babin says that Israeli feelings will be hurt if congressional representatives visit Israel’s “adversary.” The West Bank is under Israeli military occupation, so it is hard to see how visiting it is an affront to Israel. The junior partner MARCH/APRIL 2019
in the Israeli occupation is the Palestine Liberation Organization, the constituent parties of which dominate the Palestine Authority. The Palestine Authority was created as part of the Oslo Peace Accords and it recognized Israel in return for a pledge from Tel Aviv that Israel would withdraw from the Palestinian West Bank by 1998. Israel pocketed the PLO recognition and declined to withdraw and then flooded hundreds of thousands of Israel squatters into Palestine, taking land, water and other resources away from the Palestinians with whom the Israeli government had concluded the Oslo Accords. Nor is the Palestine Authority or just “Palestine” Israel’s “adversary.” It is a partner in a long-stalled peace process. Israeli authorities routinely cooperate on security with Palestine police and politicians. Babin’s discourse imagines the Palestinian West Bank to be an independent country that is an “adversary” of Israel, instead of being an occupied territory of Israel itself, which gets security help from a PLO that was fooled into recognizing its occupier.
What Babin’s odd allegations hide is that he wants the Israeli narrative on Palestine to be the only narrative to which the Congress is exposed, and he wants to prevent the representatives from seeing the horror of the occupation with their own eyes. The 215,452 Palestinians in al-Khalil (Hebron) are terrorized by the some 800 Israeli squatters who have gradually usurped property in the city and who have attacked and menaced local Palestinians backed up by the full might of the Israeli army, which invades Palestinian homes at will. Ironically, it is not clear that the Israeli authorities will let Tlaib into the West Bank. She practices Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) with regard to Israel, and the far right wing Likud government has been attempting to exclude people from entering Israel if they hold that position. Since Israel illegally occupies the West Bank, you can’t visit Palestine without going through Israel and the Israeli authorities. You might say that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu wouldn’t dare deport a sitting congresswoman. We’ll see.■
LEADING DEMOCRAT CRITICIZES REP. TLAIB’S TRIP PLANS Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, criticized Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s plans to organize a congressional delegation to Palestine in a January interview with Al-Monitor. “Instead of her talking about things, she’s new here, she ought to listen and learn and open her mind and then come to some conclusions,” Engel said. “If you’re going to be close-minded and have your views, no one’s going to change her views. But I would hope that once you’re elected to Congress, you would at least care to see the other side of the coin.” A prominent supporter of Israel, Engel has participated in many one-sided trips to Israel paid for by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s (AIPAC) educational arm, the American Israel Education Foundation. Tlaib was quick to respond to Engel on Twitter. “Yo [Rep. Engel] how are we ever going to obtain peace?” she wrote. “I hope you’ll come with me on the trip to listen and learn. My sitti (grandmother) will welcome you with an embrace & love. Please feel free to call me if you have anything to say. I am your colleague now.” Engel later insisted to The Hill that Al-Monitor mischaracterized his remarks. In an interview with The Intercept in Dec. 2018, Tlaib explained why she views a trip to Palestine to be so vital. “I want us to see that segregation and how that has really harmed us being able to achieve real peace in that region,” she said. “I don’t think AIPAC provides a real, fair lens into this issue. It’s one-sided.…[They] have these lavish trips to Israel, but they don’t show the side that I know is real, which is what’s happening to my grandmother and what’s happening to my family there.” —Dale Sprusansky
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Congress Watch
Amid Government Shutdown, 116th Congress Opens With AIPAC-Supported Bill
By Shirl McArthur
SAUL LOEB/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
and Reps. Patrick McHenry (R-NC) and Will Hurd (R-TX). After McConnell abandoned the Senate’s role as half of one of the three independent branches of government by declaring that he will only bring measures to a vote that Trump has said he will sign, Senate Democrats said they would not support any bill, including S. 1, until McConnell relented. So introducing this blatantly pro-Israel bill during the shutdown was likely an effort by Senate Republican leadership to paint Senate Democrats as somehow less pro-Israel, continuing Republican efforts over the past four years to inject partisanship into what had been generally non-partisan, blind congressional support for just about anything Israel wanted. Of the four Titles, the most controversial is the Combating BDS one, which Surrounded by family members, Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), wearing a traditional Palestinian would encourage states to adopt antithobe, takes the oath of office on her personal Qur’an, held by her mother, Jan. 3, 2019. BDS measures. The ACLU and other civil liberties groups have criticized it as an attack on the Constitution’s First Amendment guarantee of THE 116TH CONGRESS opened Jan. 3 during the partial govfreedom of speech. According to the ACLU, the BDS measure ernment shutdown brought about by President Donald Trump’s “sends a message to Americans who engage on issues of insistence on funding for his promised wall along the Mexican global importance that if they dare to disagree with their govborder. The first measure introduced in the Senate was S. 1, tiernment, they will be penalized.” tled “Strengthening America’s Security in the Middle East,” inTwo of the measures in S. 1 and H.R. 336 were also introtroduced by Sens. Marco Rubio (R-FL), Roy Blunt (R-MO), duced as stand-alone bills. S. 28 “to reauthorize the U.S.-JorCory Gardner (R-CO) and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell dan Defense Cooperation Act of 2015” was introduced Jan. 4 (R-KY). Its four Titles consist of the texts of four bills strongly by McConnell, with no co-sponsors, and H.R. 31, the “Caesar promoted by AIPAC, and previously described in this column, Syria Civilian Protection” bill, was introduced Jan. 3 by House that didn’t make it into law in the 115th Congress: the “Ileana Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Eliot Engel (D-NY). It now Ros-Lehtinen U.S.-Israel Security Assistance Authorization” bill has 58 co-sponsors, including Engel. Also regarding Syria, the (S. 2497 in the 115th Congress); the “U.S.-Jordan Defense Conew chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee operation Extension” bill (H.R. 2646 in the 115th); the “Caesar (SFRC), Sen. James Risch (R-ID), on Jan. 8 with two coSyrian Civilian Protection” bill (H.R. 1677); and the “Combating sponsors introduced S. 52, “to halt the wholesale slaughter of BDS” [Boycott, Divestment, and Sanction] bill (H.R. 2856). S. 1 the Syrian people, encourage a negotiated political settlement, passed the Senate by a 77-23 vote on Feb. 5. The House’s and hold Syrian human rights abusers accountable.” companion bill, H.R. 336, was introduced Jan. 8 by Foreign AfNew Iran sanctions bills were introduced. On Jan. 3 McCaul, fairs Committee Ranking Republican Michael McCaul (R-TX), with no co-sponsors, introduced H.R. 194 “to impose additional sanctions with respect to serious human rights abuses of the Shirl McArthur is a retired foreign service officer. He lives in the Washington, DC metropolitan area. Government of Iran.” And on Jan. 15 Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R28
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IL) and three co-sponsors introduced H.R. 571 “to impose sanctions with respect to Iranian persons that threaten the peace or stability of Iraq or the Government of Iraq.” Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) and six co-sponsors on Jan. 9 introduced H.R. 361 “to impose terrorism-related sanctions with respect to As-Saib Ahl AlHaq and Harakat Hizballah Al-Nujaba.” Three new bills were introduced on Jan. 3 attacking the U.N. Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX), with no co-sponsors, introduced H.R. 28, the “U.N. Voting Accountability” bill, which would cut off aid to countries not supporting the U.S. and Israel at the U.N. H.R. 204, introduced by Rep. Mike Rogers (R-AL) with two cosponsors, would “end membership of the U.S. in the U.N.” And Wilson, with six co-sponsors, introduced H.Res. 12, which would condemn UNESCO for efforts “to deny Judaism’s millennia-old historical, religious, and cultural ties to Jerusalem.”
OUTRAGE OVER KHASHOGGI ASSASSINATION BEARS LITTLE FRUIT
As reported in the previous Washington Report, the apparent murder of Saudi journalist and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2 prompted a barrage of congressional letters and bills expressing bipartisan congressional outrage. Since Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is widely suspected of being responsible for Khashoggi’s killing, perhaps the most important letter was that to Trump signed Oct. 10 by 22 senators, led by then-Chairman and Ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Sens. Bob Corker (R-TN) and Bob Menendez (D-NJ), which triggered an investigation under the Global Magnitsky Act. That act requires the president, upon receipt of a request from the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, to determine whether a foreign person is responsible for an extrajudicial killing, torture, or other gross violation of internationally recognized human rights against an individual exercising freedom of expression, and report to MARCH/APRIL 2019
the committee within 120 days with a determination and a decision on the imposition of sanctions on that person or persons. Some of the legislative measures would have condemned Saudi Arabia, withheld military aid, and prohibited nuclear cooperation with the Kingdom, but most would have terminated U.S. assistance to Saudi Arabia in its military intervention in Yemen. Even after it was widely reported that the CIA had concluded “with high confidence” that the Crown Prince ordered Khashoggi’s murder, none of the measures were passed by both houses of Congress before the 115th Congress gave way to the 116th on Jan. 3. Two were passed by the Senate on Dec. 19: S.J. Res. 54, introduced in February 2018 by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), which would “direct the removal of U.S. Armed Forces from hostilities in the Republic of Yemen that have not been authorized by Congress,” and S.J. Res. 69, introduced by Corker Dec. 13, “supporting a diplomatic solution in Yemen and condemning the murder of Jamal Khashoggi.” One such measure introduced in the 116th Congress is H.R 643, introduced Jan. 17 by Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA), with 20 co-sponsors, “to prohibit the provision of U.S. security assistance to the Government of Saudi Arabia.” Given Trump’s closeness to the Saudi royal family, especially Crown Prince Mohammed, it is not surprising that he continues to undercut the CIA’s conclusion and seems prepared to abandon the U.S. leadership role in the Middle East.
HUMAN SHIELDS, IRAQ AND SYRIA GENOCIDE BILLS BECOME LAW
As reported in the previous issue, S. 3257, the “STOP Using Human Shields” bill introduced in July by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), was amended in the SFRC to simply sanction “foreign persons that are responsible for the use of civilians as human shields.” The SFRC then took up H.R. 3342, the human shields bill passed by the House back in October 2017, replaced its text with the amended text of S. 3257, and sent it to the full Senate on Oct. 11, where it was passed by unani-
mous consent that same day. The amended H.R. 3342 was passed by the House on Dec. 11 and signed by Trump on Dec. 21 as P.L. 115-348. H.R. 390, the “Iraq and Syria Genocide Relief and Accountability” bill, introduced back in January 2017 by Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), was passed by the House in June 2017, but remained dormant until taken up by the Senate and passed, amended, on Oct. 11, 2018. The House agreed to the Senate amendment last Nov. 27, and Trump signed it as P.L. 115-300 on Dec. 11. Among other things, the bill says that the State Department and USAID may provide help, including financial and technical aid, to support efforts of entities, including nongovernmental organizations, investigating possible war crimes in Iraq or Syria. And the House on Dec. 11 passed the non-binding H.Res. 1165, introduced Nov. 30 by Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL) with 15 co-sponsors. It condemns “the Assad regime and its backers for their continued support of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Syria.” The House on Nov. 27 also passed H.R. 4591, the “preventing Iranian Destabilization of Iraq” bill, introduced by Kinzinger with 17 co-sponsors in December 2017, but which died in the Senate. All of the other measures introduced in the 115th Congress died with the start of the 116th Congress. However, many of them will no doubt be reintroduced in the new Congress. One hopes that among the reintroduced measures are the positive “Palestinian Partnership Fund” bills introduced in the House and Senate “to promote joint economic development and finance joint ventures between Palestinian entrepreneurs and companies in the U.S., Israel, and countries in the Middle East,” and the “Promoting Human Rights by Ending Israeli Military Detention of Palestinian Children” bill, introduced in the House by Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN), which would “require the Secretary of State to certify that U.S. funds do not support military detention, interrogation, abuse, or ill-treatment of Palestinian children.” ■
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Special Report
Egypt Begins Legal Crackdown on “Fake News” A NEW LAW that gives the state-run Supreme Council for Media Regulation (SCMR) the ability to judge the validity of news has now gone into full effect in Egypt. Under the law—passed by parliament last July and approved by President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in September—SCMR is authorized to sanction any journalist or news entity that spreads “false news.” SCMR commissioners are appointed by President Sisi. SCMR’s secretary general Ahmed Selim told the Washington Report that over 120 websites have thus far applied to legalize their status. Media outlets were required to apply by Jan. 31, 2019. “Websites that do not submit the required documents to legalize their status under the new law will be blocked,” Selim warned. In addition to traditional print media, the council also has the power to block news websites or social media accounts that engage in “fake news.” Selim said he defines fake or false news as “any content that is published or broadcasted from unknown sources and contributes to spreading hate speech among society.” No official legal guidance has been offered as to what constitutes false news, meaning that such determinations appear to be up to the discretion of the SCMR. The law has raised concerns among journalists, newspaper companies and civil society members who fear that it is yet another tool to silence dissent in Egypt. One concern is that the law has a very broad definition of who is considered a journalist, as even bloggers and social media accounts with more than 5,000 followers are defined as media outlets. Critics deem this provision unreasonable, believing that personal blogs, non-journalistic outlets and persons not working in journalism should be exempted. The law also places steep regulatory fees that most small news outlets cannot afford. News outlets are obliged to pay EGP 50,000 ($2,795) just to register for a media license, and up to EGP 2 million ($113,000) if their five-year license is approved. These requirements are applied on new websites planning to operate as a media outlet, as well as on websites that are already operational. Media outlets who fail to comply with the new media regulations will be subjected to license revocation and charged fines ranging from EGP 1 million to EGP 3 million ($55,900–$167,700). In an effort to avoid being extorted or charged a fine, some websites have decided to suspended their operations. Others that have already been shut down involuntarily by the government, including local newspaper Al Bedaya, don’t view the new law as an
Fatma Khaled is a free-lance writer based in Egypt. 30
By Fatma Khaled
opportunity to win back the approval of government officials. “Al Bedaya was blocked among a blockage wave in mid2017. Six months after the blockage we decided to suspend operations because we were losing money, as the website was inaccessible to the public,” Al Bedaya newspaper founder Khaled Elbalshy explained to the Washington Report. Elbalshy, who also co-founded Katib, a news website focused on documenting human rights violations in Egypt, said that the new law is simply a government tool to censor speech. “The law is another way to limit freedom of journalism, thwarting professional journalists from pursuing their careers in Egypt,” he said. Katib was blocked only nine hours after it was launched in June 2018. Unlike Al Bedaya, Elbashy said he is attempting to reinstate Katib, but efforts to get the site restored have been unsuccessful. This raises questions as to how SCMR interacts with other government agencies and how, or if, it plans to accommodate websites that are already blocked if they are willing to follow the provisions of the new law. “We applied to reconcile and legalize our status under the new law,” Elbashy explained. “We asked if the state would remove the blockage if we comply with requirements, but the council claimed that they are not responsible for the blockage and that we have to refer to the government body that passed the blockage decision. Thus, it was useless to proceed with the legalization process, as there was no guarantee that the website would be unblocked.” Selim of the SCMR, however, insisted that blocked websites that comply with all legal and financial requirements set by the law will be unblocked. He did not reveal details about the process or who will be in charge of lifting the blocks on websites. Many journalists and observers are not confident in the good will of the new law and its enforcers. “The law has been criticized intensely by many journalists and the Journalism Syndicate for requiring substantial fines and fees and verifying the right to block websites,” commented Mohamed Fawzy, editor in chief of Al Tahrir newspaper, one of the local papers that is currently legalizing their operational status under the new law. In November, France’s Reporters without Borders (RSF) criticized the new law in a released statement, specifically denouncing the “intolerable financial conditions and free speech parameters that aggravate the already oppressive climate online, including independent media.” Sophie Anmuth, head of RSF’s Middle East desk, said in the statement, “the implementation of this very coercive media law has
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a clear political objective—to silence the last independent voices. We are facing the probable extinction or exile of Egypt’s last independent media.”
A CONTINUING TREND
Sherif Mansour, Middle East and North Africa program coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), explained that the law simply builds on previous state repression. “President Sisi has previously warned the public against what he referred to as the ‘evil power’ of using social media to disseminate false news, however the new law allows authorities to monitor and control the media and decide violations based on their personal interpretations,” he said. Over 400 websites have been blocked in Egypt since 2017, according to a report by the Association of Freedom of Thought and Expression (AFTE). This includes news websites, human rights and civil society pages, independent newspapers and personal blogs. Some of the prominent websites blocked include RSF, Al Jazeera, Mada Masr, the
Huffington Post and Daily News Egypt, only to mention a few. According to the AFTE report, most of these blocked websites are news websites, which contradicts Article 71 of the Egyptian constitution, which states that it is impermissible to censor or suspend Egyptian newspapers and media outlets except in times of war or general mobilization. More than 40 journalists have been jailed between 2017 and 2018 alone, over charges of spreading fake news and criticizing the government, according to data from the CPJ. Egypt is ranked 161 out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2018 World Press Freedom Index. ■
Diplomatic Progress Continued from page 15
piece of history for Americans was the 9/11 terrorist attack, perpetrated by a group then enjoying hospitality from the Afghan Taliban. But that traumatic history should not be confused with terrorist threats today. The gloves came off long ago, and no
U.S. administration would now hesitate, as pre-9/11 administrations did, to use air power to strike against anything that resembled the earlier al-Qaeda presence in Afghanistan. The Taliban are not international terrorists, and they have a strong incentive not to endure a repetition of what happened to them when the United States responded to 9/11. Their promise in the new partial agreement not to host more terrorist groups is meaningful. There is nothing unique about Afghanistan as a possible haven for international terrorists. Such a haven is not necessary for a group to perpetrate death and destruction in the West, and to the extent a group desires a physical haven, there are ample alternatives to Afghanistan. Further negotiations on the political future of Afghanistan will encounter many bumps and points of controversy, especially as the Afghan government of Ashraf Ghani gets more directly involved. American critics of the process should keep in mind the big picture and where in that picture U.S. interests do and do not lie. ■
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Special Report
Turkish Local Elections Pose Challenge for The Opposition, as Well as for Erdogan
By Jonathan Gorvett
ADEM ALTAN/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
lenge: enthusiasm. “At the June 2018 elections, CHP supporters were so optimistic they would win, but the campaign ended in failure,” Yaprak Gursoy of Aston University’s Politics and International Relations Department told the Washington Report. “Now, CHP voters are very pessimistic, with many accepting defeat. There’s very little discussion and no excitement. Many people have lost hope.” At the same time, the ruling party continues to dominate the media and public discourse, with all the mainstream papers and TV channels supporting Erdogan and the AKP. Tough restrictions on media freedom have been a feature of Turkish life for several years now. The international Committee to Protect Journalists reTurkish President and ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) chairman Recep Tayyip ported in December that, while Erdogan Erdogan (c) addresses an AKP Party presentation of mayoral candidates for the upcoming has been a fierce critic of Saudi Arabia March 31 local elections at the Ankara Sports Hall on Jan. 31, 2019. for its killing of columnist Jamal Khashoggi, Turkey continued to jail more journalists than any other country in the world, with 68 in ON MARCH 31 Turks head to the polls, nationwide, for the prison at the time. first time since Recep Tayyip Erdogan became the country’s The country’s main ethnic Kurdish opposition party, Peofirst executive president under a new constitution. ples’ Democratic Party (HDP), has also suffered badly in reSome nine months after those fateful June 2018 general cent times. and presidential elections, the country’s 57 million registered Its former co-chairs, Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yukvoters will this time have the chance to elect some 22,000 sekdag, have been in jail since 2016, with their replacements, local councilors, along with 30 metropolitan and 1,351 district Pervin Buldan and Sezai Temelli, reporting that some 200 mayors. party members had been detained by the security forces in a The voting will be a test of how strong a grip on power the single week late last year, tying the arrests to the upcoming president and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) still local elections. hold on the country, after a period of economic crisis and interIn November 2018, party supporters—including jailed parlianational turbulence. mentary deputy Leyla Guven—began a hunger strike to protest Yet, while these two factors might ordinarily be expected to the solitary confinement of the also-jailed Kurdish Workers’ give the advantage to the opposition, the scale of the recent Party (PKK) guerrilla leader Abdullah Ocalan. Her health dandefeats inflicted on it by Erdogan and the AKP, along with gerously deteriorated, Guven was released on Jan. 25. their allies, the right-wing Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), Under these circumstances, however, the chances of the have left supporters of the largest opposition group, the cenHDP—which routinely wins local ballots in Turkey’s majority ter-left Republican People’s Party (CHP), facing a major chalethnic Kurdish southeast—being able to organize an open Jonathan Gorvett is a free-lance writer based in Istanbul. campaign have to be seriously doubted. 32
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ALLIANCE OF NECESSITY
In the past, the right-wing opposition to Erdogan has coalesced around the MHP, which split before the June elections over the issue of working with the AKP. While the majority faction, under veteran leader Devlet Bahceli, subsequently joined Erdogan’s government, another group left, under Meral Aksener, forming the “Iyi” or “Good” Party. The Iyi Party has now reached an electoral agreement with the CHP in 22 metropolitan districts and 27 provinces, under the “National Alliance” banner. The coalition will thus support Mansur Yavas, a CHP man, for mayor of Ankara—likely the one race that might generate some excitement among the opposition. Yavas narrowly lost—by 43.82 percent to 44.82 percent to the AKP’s Melih Gokcek—in the previous local election, back in 2014. The vote back then also had been mired in controversy, with allegations of ballot stuffing. Similar allegations are already circling around this year’s local elections, as well. According to CHP researchers, some 6,000 centenarians have been registered to vote around the country, including one first-time voter born in 1854. One district in Ankara reportedly had a population increase of 90.41 percent in the last six months, while in the southeast, the HDP found 1,108 voters registered at a single address. “Fake voters are springing up everywhere in Turkey,” Iyi Party vice chairman Hasan Seymen told reporters in January. Complaints were lodged with the Supreme Board of Elections (YSK), which subsequently found no wrongdoing—although all but 100 of the 6,000 centenarians were finally acknowledged by the YSK to be deceased.
NO SAFE SEATS
While an opposition victory in the capital, Ankara, would in some ways be a major psychological blow to the AKP, Istanbul is the greater prize in Erdogan’s political geography, as his rise to national office MARCH/APRIL 2019
started when he became mayor there back in 1994. The AKP currently controls the city under Mayor Mevlut Uysal, who replaced the victor of the 2014 election, Kadir Topbas, following his unexpected resignation in 2017. The AKP has a larger majority in Istanbul than in Ankara, however, with few predicting any upset this time. Meanwhile, another contest that will be closely followed is that in Izmir, Turkey’s third largest city and traditionally a CHP stronghold. However, says Gursoy, “Izmir is not the impregnable castle of the CHP. There is a possibility that the AKP may win there this time.” One reason for this is the demographic shift in many of Turkey’s larger metropolitan areas, as urban migration sees new districts building up around old centers. Many of those who move in are from rural regions, where the AKP and MHP have both been traditionally strong. Many of these newcomers see the CHP as an elitist, old-fashioned group that has little to say to them. Indeed, some districts may never see a CHP canvasser or have any grassroots contacts other than with the AKP, who have long practiced community-based politics among Turkey’s new urban dwellers.
“To many people, these kinds of remarks then seem to be completely validated when Donald Trump threatens to ‘devastate’ Turkey economically if it doesn’t do what the U.S. wants in Syria,” says Gursoy. At the same time, Turkey’s military adventures in neighboring Syria play well with Erdogan’s Turkish nationalist constituency—and particularly with his allies, the MHP. Thus, while the upcoming ballot will take place in conditions that should favor the opposition, there is little enthusiasm amongst many of their members for the contest. Turkish elections are, however, often unpredictable affairs, as those CHP supporters who forecasted a decisive victory in June 2018 know all too well. ■
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ECONOMIC WOES
These people have, however, been among those suffering the most in the country’s recent economic downturn. The Turkish lira devalued strongly in 2018, raising prices, and, according to Jason Tuvey of Capital Economics, “Turkey’s economy is in the midst of a deep recession. We expect GDP to decline by 2.5-5.0 percent year-on-year in the last three months of 2018 and in the first three months of 2019.” Yet Erdogan has been adept at attributing this recession to others—accusing the West in particular of engaging in “economic warfare” with Turkey, along with George Soros, whose name is an anti-Semitic dog whistle for many of Erdogan’s supporters.
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The Nakba Continues
Tensions Erupt Inside Palestinian Joint List Ahead of Israel’s April Elections
By Jonathan Cook
AHMAD GHARABLI/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
ers in Israel, potentially weakening their representation in the Israeli parliament and strengthening the rightw i n g b l o c under Netanyahu. The 1.7 million Palestinian citizens of Israel are the remnants of the Pa lesti nian population that was mostly expelled from its homeland in 1948 to create the state of Israel. Today, these Palestinians make up a fifth of the population, but face systemic discrimination. Vo t e r t u r n o u t among Palestinian citizens of Israel has been in steady decline for decades, reaching a low at the 2013 election, when just over half cast a ballot. A Palestinian from Jerusalem prepares to cast her vote during local elections on Oct. 30, 2018, in Shuafat, No Palestinian party has in east Jerusalem. Voter turnout among Palestinian citizens of Israel could help decide Netanyahu’s fate. ever been invited to participate in any of the complex coalitions that are the basis of Israeli governments. A POLITICAL COALITION representing Israel’s Palestinian miIn addition, the Palestinian parties’ use of the Knesset as a nority—currently the third biggest faction in the Knesset, Israel’s platform to call for an end to the Israeli occupation and for equal parliament—has been plunged into crisis by Prime Minister rights for Palestinian citizens regularly attracts the ire of Jewish Binyamin Netanyahu’s decision to call for a surprise general Israeli politicians. election for April. Israeli Minister of Public Security Gilad Erdan wrote a letter in Long-simmering ideological and personal tensions within the December to the Knesset’s ethics committee describing Odeh, Joint List, comprising Israel’s four main Palestinian parties, have the head of the Joint List, as “a criminal and a supporter of tererupted into a split over who should dominate the faction. rorism.” Knesset member Ahmed Tibi announced on Jan. 8 that he While launching his election campaign in January, former dewould run on a separate ticket with his small Ta’al party, after fense minister Avigdor Lieberman accused the Joint List of “treapolls showed he was more popular than the List’s current head, son” and called it “total lunacy” to let its representatives particiAyman Odeh. pate in the Knesset. The move is yet another blow to the coalition, which has been Separately on social media, he accused the Palestinian repbeset by acrimony since it was established four years ago. resentatives of being traitors secretly serving the Palestinian govThe latest divisions threaten to further alienate Palestinian voternment-in-waiting headquartered in Ramallah. “Joint List [legJonathan Cook is a journalist based in Nazareth and a winner of the islators] are a fifth column funded by the Palestinian Authority Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. He is the author of and acting in its name,” he wrote on Facebook. Blood and Religion and Israel and the Clash of Civilisations (available from AET’s Middle East Books and More). The creation of the Joint List in time for the 2015 legislative 34
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elections briefly boosted turnout, as Palestinian voters in Israel hoped it would give a stronger voice to their interests on the national stage. The List won 13 out of the 120 seats in the Knesset, but a January poll showed that only 44 percent of Palestinian voters thought it represented their interests, with 52 percent disagreeing. Tibi’s departure threatens to lead to further splintering of the coalition. At the time of writing, the southern Islamic Movement was reported to be considering breaking from the Joint List to join Tibi. That would leave a separate list comprising Hadash, a block of communist and socialist groups headed by Odeh, and national-democratic party Balad. Relations between the two have been fractious, as they compete for a similar pool of secular Palestinian voters. According to Tibi, the fact that his party, Ta’al, currently only holds a single seat in the Knesset is “clearly unjust.” He argued, “The composition of the List should be decided by the people, not decreed by the parties.” According to polls, a separate Tibi ticket would be likely to receive six seats, levelpegging with the remnants of the Joint List. Tibi said an overhaul of the List would make it more democratic and accountable, and revive flagging support from Palestinian voters in Israel. “The competition between two big lists will actually encourage people to come out and vote,” Tibi said. “Surveys show that we can get 12 seats when we run apart, but together we will drop to 10 or 11 seats. “The other parties don’t want change because they are afraid of the outcome.” The cause of the split was the refusal of the other factions to consider his plan for allotting seats on the basis of the parties’ popularity—either assessed through opinion polls or primaries. On social media, Odeh harshly criticized Tibi for the breakup, accusing him of prioritizing his “personal interests.” “Netanyahu wants to see the Joint List break up more than anyone else. The exMARCH/APRIL 2019
treme right wants to divide and conquer the Arabs,” Odeh tweeted. According to analysts, the split could indeed backfire, fuelling disenchantment. “Surveys show that people support the idea of the Joint List but want more, not less, unity from its parties. They want it better organized and more effective,” As’ad Ghanem, a political scientist at Haifa University, said. “If that trend doesn’t continue, a significant proportion are likely to stay home—or vote for Jewish parties on the basis that at least those parties have some influence within the Israeli political system.”
According to analysts, the split could indeed backfire
Ghanem also noted that Tibi had until now been a largely one-man outfit, trading on his former role as an adviser to late Palestinian national leader Yasser Arafat. “On paper, Tibi enjoys a lot of support, but that ignores the difficulty he faces widening his party’s appeal,” he said. “He needs to create a convincing list of candidates and establish a party machine capable of bringing out his voters to the polls.” A combination of low turnout and separate parties could mean one or more fail to pass an electoral threshold, dramatically reducing Palestinian representation in the Knesset. That would likely delight the Israeli right, including Netanyahu, who raised the electoral threshold before the 2015 vote in an undisguised bid to prevent Palestinian parties from winning seats. When the Palestinian parties responded by forming the Joint List, Netanyahu used scaremongering on polling day to rally his supporters. He warned Jewish voters that the Palestinian minority was “coming out to vote in droves.” Aida Touma-Suleiman, a legislator for the Hadash party, said those who preferred the Joint List to splinter were “gambling” that they would manage to pass the
threshold. “That’s a very dangerous position to adopt,” she said. Ghanem criticized the Joint List for failing to make an impact on the most pressing socio-economic issues faced by the Palestinian minority. Half of Palestinian families in Israel live under the poverty line, nearly four times the rate among Israeli Jews. He also accused the List of failing to effectively counter recent legislative moves by the Netanyahu government that have targeted the rights of Israel’s Palestinian minority. In 2016, the government passed an Expulsion Law empowering a three-quarters majority of the parliament to ban a legislator for holding unpopular political views. It was widely seen as a measure to silence Palestinian Knesset members. And last summer, Israel voted through the Jewish Nation-State Law, which explicitly gives the Jewish people alone a right to self-determination in Israel. Ghanem said the Joint List’s failure to offer a clear position on the last law, or mobilize Palestinian opinion against it, was especially glaring. “The problem is that the List has failed to develop a common political program. It is not enough to have a Joint List, it must have a joint voice too.” Touma-Suleiman, however, called much of the criticism of the Joint List unfair. “The Jewish Nation-State Law showed exactly what the Netanyahu government thinks of our rights. Anything we achieve is like pulling teeth from the lion’s mouth,” she said. “We are operating in a very hostile political environment.” Jafar Farah, the director of Mossawa, an advocacy group for Israel’s Palestinian citizens, who briefly put himself forward for a place on Hadash’s list for the April election before withdrawing, agreed with Tibi that the Joint List was suffering from a crisis of legitimacy. “Who speaks for our community when we address the Israeli public or speak to the Palestinian Authority or attend discussions in Europe?” he said. “That person needs to be able to say credibly that they represent the community.” Farah, however, noted that the reality of
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Palestinians in Israel was â&#x20AC;&#x153;more complicatedâ&#x20AC;? than that for most other national minorities. Israeli officials have strenuously objected to any efforts by the Palestinian minority to create its own internal parliament or seek self-determination. Nonetheless, he said, the Palestinian parties were making themselves irrelevant by focusing on a two-state solution in an era when Netanyahu and the right had imposed on the region their agenda of permanent occupation in the context of a single state. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t just accept the rules of a political game in which we operate in the margins of a Jewish democracy. It is not enough just to have a leader, we need to offer a new political vision. We have to be creative and bring a new agenda. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Jewish majority wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t come to our (Advertisement)
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aid. We have to lead the struggle and be ready to pay the price.â&#x20AC;? Ghanem said the Joint Listâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s failures, combined with the collapse of any peacemaking efforts to end the occupation, had encouraged a move away from ideological politics among many Palestinian voters in Israel. â&#x20AC;&#x153;People are instead increasingly focusing on their own personal concerns,â&#x20AC;? he said. He pointed to recent local elections in Nazareth, the largest Palestinian-majority city in Israel, where the main political parties bowed out and left the mayoral race to two independent candidates. The trend away from ideological politics was being reinforced, as elsewhere, by new media that offered people a wider set of perspectives. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Generally, people feel more confused, and want clear, strong figures like a Netanyahu or a Trump,â&#x20AC;? Ghanem said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Tibi can exploit that trend.â&#x20AC;? Tibi said it was vital for the parties to find a way to make alliances with center and center-left Jewish parties in the current climate. â&#x20AC;&#x153;It is not just about getting more Arab legislators into the Knesset,â&#x20AC;? he said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;It is about having more legislators who can have an influence, who can help shape the choice of the prime minister. That is imperative if we are going to bring down Netanyahu and the right.â&#x20AC;? Tibi said he hoped that, by rebuilding the credibility of the Palestinian parties, they would be in a position to form a â&#x20AC;&#x153;blocking majorityâ&#x20AC;? in the Knesset, similar to the situation in the early 1990s. Then, a newly elected center-left coalition headed by Yitzhak Rabin needed the support of the Palestinian parties to push through the Oslo Accords, against fierce opposition from the right, led by Netanyahu. Rabin did so through an arrangement with Palestinian legislators that they would back the coalition from outside the government. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We helped Rabin achieve his goals and in return the situation of our community improved, with more rights and higher budgets,â&#x20AC;? said Tibi. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We can be in that position
WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
again but only if we can regain the confidence of our community.â&#x20AC;? A poll in late January appeared to support him, showing that 80 percent of Palestinian voters favored his idea. However, a significant numberâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;twothirdsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;went much further, preferring that the Palestinian parties sit inside the governing coalition, whether of the left or right. Three-quarters also favored a quota system, securing positions in the government for Palestinian representatives. Tibi and others believe that, if the turnout among Palestinian citizens returns to the levels of the 1980s, the minority could elect several more legislators, potentially tipping the balance toward a center-left government. But for that happen, the Palestinian parties will need to overturn growing apathy and frustration from their voters, warned Ghanem. Salman Masalha, a Palestinian columnist for Haaretz newspaper, called the Palestinian members of the Knesset â&#x20AC;&#x153;a fig leafâ&#x20AC;? whose participation served only to â&#x20AC;&#x153;beautify the state to the world, making it look like a vibrant democracy.â&#x20AC;?. He argued for a boycott of the election, playing on Netanyahuâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 2015 election incitement: â&#x20AC;&#x153;Arab citizens must respond, â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;the Arabs are boycotting in drovesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; the scam of Israeli democracy.â&#x20AC;? A boycott of the national elections is the official platform of two factions: the small, staunchly secular Abnaa al-Balad (Sons of the Land) party and the popular northern wing of the Islamic Movement, under Sheikh Raed Salah, which the Netanyahu government outlawed four years ago. Ghanem observed that Netanyahuâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s fate, as he faces indictment on several corruption charges in the midst of the election campaign, could play a decisive role in the turnout of Palestinian voters. â&#x20AC;&#x153;If Netanyahu looks vulnerable, more [Palestinian voters] will come out in the hope that their parties will be able to support the center-left in challenging the right. But if he looks likely to win, as seems the case at the moment, then many will conclude that the situation is hopeless and stay home.â&#x20AC;? â&#x2013; MARCH/APRIL 2019
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Two Views
Rally attendees applaud Benny Gantz (c), former Israeli chief of staff of the IDF, as he stands on the stage during his first electoral speech in the Israeli coastal city of Tel Aviv on Jan. 29, 2019.
Netanyahu’s Challenges: Possible Indictment and Gantz Surging in the Polls By Yumna Patel
THE ISRAELI CAMPAIGN TRAIL is heating up as the April 9 elections draw closer. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is facing a fast-growing opposition, Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit has said he plans to decide whether to indict the PM before the election, and Palestinian lawmakers are scrambling to finalize their slates ahead of their primaries. Former Israeli military chief Benny Gantz, head of the new Hosen L’Yisrael Party (Resilience for Israel), is making strides in his election campaign, with polls placing him at a near tie with Netanyahu—something no other candidate or party has managed to do in recent years.
Yumna Patel is a multimedia journalist based in Bethlehem, Palestine. Follow her on Twitter at @yumna_patel. This article was published on Feb. 1, 2019 on Mondoweiss.com. Reprinted with permission.. 38
JACK GUEZ/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
Israeli Elections: Gantz vs Netanyahu, Bad Cop vs Awful Cop
Following Gantz’s first public speech in Tel Aviv in late January, Haaretz reported that if elections were held now, Gantz would receive 21 to 24 Knesset seats—eight seats up from the previous poll predictions. In a poll conducted by Israel’s Channel 12 news station asking who voters wanted as prime minister, 36 percent of those polled said Netanyahu while 35 percent said Gantz. Leaders of the centrist Yesh Atid Party (There is a Future) are reportedly considering forming a joint center ticket with Gantz’s party following the ex-military chief’s spike in the polls. If the two parties were to form a joint list with Gantz as their leader, polls predict they could win a plurality of 35 seats out of the 120-seat Knesset, compared to a predicted 30 to 31 seats for
Netanyahu’s Likud Party. Meanwhile, Attorney General Mandelblit said in a statement on Feb. 1 that he sees no legal reason to delay reaching a decision on recommending to indict Netanyahu on charges of bribery and corruption before the April 9 elections. In a letter to Netanyahu’s legal team, which has been pressuring Mandelblit to delay his announcement until after the elections, Mandelblit said postponing his recommendations would “be a violation of the principle of equality before the law” and “is not in keeping with the public’s right to know,” Haaretz reported. If Mandelblit were to announce his intention to indict Netanyahu before the election, polls suggest that Netanyahu could lose four Knesset seats. Coupled with Gantz’s rising popularity, an announcement from Mandelblit could spell disaster for Netanyahu and his right-wing coalition, which initially sought the snap election with hopes it would increase his chances of reelection.
WHERE EXACTLY DOES GANTZ STAND?
In the wake of Gantz’s official campaign announcement, Netanyahu’s Likud Party released a statement calling him “weak left.”
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Ultra-nationalist education minister and founder of the New Right Party in Israel, Naftali Bennett, called Gantz a “clear leftist” and said it would be “a danger to make him responsible again for Israel’s security.” But Gantz, who released a campaign video proudly featuring images of a post-2014 Gaza devastated by war boasting that as military chief he sent “parts of Gaza back to the stone age,” is a selfdeclared “centrist,” and is considered by analysts as center-right. In addition to his campaign video bragging about the number of Palestinians he killed in Gaza, Gantz pledged to “thwart the plots” of Iran across the region, and work against Iran “in the international arena, in the economic arena and in the military arena.” “And if you do not understand the message in words, you will understand it with painful and precise blows,” he said, directly addressing Iranian President Hassan Rouhani during his speech. Gantz also threatened Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, saying “I suggest you not test me again,” insinuating that the assassination of Hamas leaders would not be off the table under his government. While he pledged to “allow any humanitarian assistance” and promote economic development in Gaza, Gantz said he would not allow the entrance of millions of dollars of Qatari aid to Gaza, saying “I will not allow the payment of protection cash payments in suitcases to murderous gangs.” He also promised to strengthen illegal settlement blocs in the occupied Palestinian territory and the occupied Golan Heights, “from which we will never retreat.” “The Jordan Valley will remain our eastern security border. We will maintain security in the entire Land of Israel, but we will not allow the millions of Palestinians living beyond the separation fence to endanger our security and our identity as a Jewish state,” he said. “United Jerusalem will be built, will grow—and will remain forever the capital of the Jewish people and the capital of the State of Israel.”
Another Israeli Terrorist Vies to be Prime Minister By Jonathan Ofir
ISRAELI HISTORY IS FILLED with terrorists who became prime minister. While pre-state Jewish terror leaders of the Irgun and Stern Gang, Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir, are often noted as the obvious examples, master-ethnic-cleanser David Ben-Gurion should also be remembered as such, and there are those who have created their own terrorist legacy in state-terror, such as Ariel Sharon. Now comes another candidate: Benjamin (‘Benny’) Gantz. Gantz, former chief of general staff of the Israel Defense Forces (2011-2015), is challenging Binyamin Netanyahu for the prime minister post in the upcoming April elections, and doing it from the supposed “left.” Gantz commanded two of Israel’s large-scale onslaughts on Gaza after Hamas was elected in 2006: the 2012 “Operation Pillar
Jonathan Ofir is an Israeli musician, conductor and blogger / writer based in Denmark. This article was published on Mondoweiss on Jan. 22, 2019.
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of Defense” (“Pillar of Cloud” in Hebrew), and the biggest and most murderous onslaught to date, the 2014 “Operation Protective Edge” (“Mighty Cliff” in Hebrew), which according to the U.N. killed 2,251 Palestinians, including 1,462 civilians, among them 551 children. Israel basically exonerated itself from any wrongdoing in Protective Edge, but Gantz is being sued for war crimes (together with then-Israeli Air Force chief Amir Eshel) in The Netherlands, by Palestinian-Dutch citizen Ismail Ziada, who lost his 70-yearold mother Muftia Ziada, three brothers, a sister-in-law and a 12year-old nephew, in the 2014 bombing of his family house in alBureij refugee camp. The 2014 onslaught was more murderous than the one in 2008-9, “Cast Lead,” which the U.N. “Goldstone” report regarded as a “deliberately disproportionate attack, designed to punish, humiliate and terrorize a civilian population.” In Israel, those who punish, humiliate and terrorize, also brag about doing so. Hence, Gantz launched his campaign under the party Hosen L’Yisrael (Resilience for Israel), with a series of unbelievably violent and bellicose videos. One of them features aerial footage of pulverized neighborhoods in Gaza at the end of the 2014 onslaught (in black and white), with a headline saying that “parts of Gaza were returned to the stone age”. It boasts of “1,364 terrorists killed” (when the U.N. count for combatants was less than 800; thus Gantz counts close to 600 civilians as “terrorists”) and says that the result is “3.5 years of quiet.” The video contains the repeated slogan “only the strong wins” and ends like all of the clips with the slogan “Gantz—Israel before everything.” As Ali Abunimah notes, the latter could just as well be translated as the Trumpian “Israel first.” Another video uses real-time aerial footage of the Nov. 14, 2012 extrajudicial assassination of Hamas leader Ahmed Jabari. Gantz calls Jabari an “arch-terrorist,” but Aluf Benn, chief editor of Haaretz, called him “Israel’s subcontractor in Gaza.” Benn writes on the day of the assassination in 2012: “Israel Killed Its Subcontractor in Gaza”—The political outcome of the operation will become clear on Jan. 22 [elections], but the strategic ramifications are more complex: Israel will have to find a new subcontractor to replace Ahmed Jabari as its border guard in the south. Ahmed Jabari was a subcontractor, in charge of maintaining Israel’s security in Gaza. This title will no doubt sound absurd to anyone who in the past several hours has heard Jabari described as “an arch-terrorist,” “the terror chief of staff” or “our Bin Laden.” But that was the reality for the past five and a half years. Israel demanded of Hamas that it observe the truce in the south and enforce it on the multiplicity of armed organizations in the Gaza Strip. The man responsible for carrying out this policy was Ahmed Jabari. In fact, according to Gershon Baskin, who helped mediate between Israel and Hamas in the deal to release captured soldier Gilad Shalit: [H]ours before Hamas strongman Ahmed Jabari was assassinated, he received the draft of a permanent truce agreement with Israel, which included mechanisms for maintaining the cease-fire in the case of a flare-up between Israel and the factions in the Gaza Strip. Coming at the heels of various and systematic extrajudicial executions by Israel in Gaza, the Jabari killing was a high-level po-
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litical assassination that definitively shattered an earlier truce and the chances of a renewed one, and launched operation “Pillar of Defense.” But in Israeli Newspeak, those who murder are men of peace. Thus, another video presents Gantz the ‘peacenik’: “It is not a shame, that there would be yearning for peace,” he says. That’s really something. How revolutionary! Don’t be ashamed if you want peace —come out of the closet! The speech continues: Do we want to send our children to fight in another 25 years? No! But we might have to do it? Probably yes. In another 50 years? Probably yes. What will we tell them? That we did nothing? That we didn’t try? That we didn’t strive? That we didn’t examine? I’m not prepared to have a generation without hope that things could be different here. This is a kind of Netanyahu-Benny Morris cocktail. Netanyahu said in 2015 that “we will forever live by the sword.” But Benny Morris, the “leftist” (and genocidal) Israeli historian, has recently posited that peace talks would provide a useful façade for this belligerency, since [Israel] would
“retain the West’s sympathy”: Even if territorial compromise with the Palestinians is not realistic in this generation, as was also the case earlier, you have to play the diplomatic game—even if you know it won’t lead anywhere—in order to retain the West’s sympathy. You have to look like you’re pursuing peace, even if you’re not. Gantz’s version amounts to “Let’s show the soldiers we’re trying, while we assassinate right and left, massacre and pulverize neighborhoods back to the stone age, and talk peace.” Gantz’s “Only the strong wins” is a rather obvious echoing of Netanayhu’s recent fascistic advocacy made at the Dimona nuclear plant (newly-dubbed Shimon Peres Nuclear Research Center): The weak crumble, are slaughtered and are erased from history while the strong, for good or for ill, survive…the strong are respected, and alliances are made with the strong, and in the end peace is made with the strong. Netanyahu was obviously cited as echoing Hitler. So what if Netanyahu said “peace”? It’s quite clear that in the end, it’s
about a Spartan, eternal “living by the sword.” Will Gantz now get a pass for being a supposed peacenik because he challenges Netanyahu from the left? Gantz’s boast about killing many “terrorists” (most of the killed actually being civilians) is akin to Education Minister Naftali Bennett’s boast of having “killed lots of Arabs and there’s no problem with that.” For Gantz, not only is there no problem with that, it’s even an honor. So that’s Israel. Two options. Fascist and fascist. Good-cop-bad-cop, and even the good one is just awful. Although Gantz’s party is currently polling at some 13 seats of 120 (compared to Netanyahu’s Likud polling at over 30), it is expected that his party would serve as a basis for the formation of some kind of left-center challenge. And the two leaders are racing against each other. One poll found 31 percent of Israelis now believe Gantz is more suitable than Netanyahu for the prime minister post, compared with 42 percent who favor Netanyahu. Maybe more bellicose videos will enhance Gantz’s chances, for those Israelis who will forever live by the sword. ■
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ISRAEL’S “SYSTEM ATIC CAM PAIGN” A GAINST
C ISTIATHER VOICES” SPECIAL NS WITHHR“O
ERS NO FREEDOM IN ISRAEL FOR NON-ORTHODOX JEWS H SETTL O JEWIS T THE ISRAELIZ D L O ATION OF AMER LANDS S H CHURCICA
licy.org dAmericanPo IsraelLobbyan rmea.org www.w Club at the National Press • March 2, 2018 s erence Proceeding • Must-Read Conf Contributions • Pro-Israel PAC
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From the Diaspora
Now Chad, then Mali: Why African Countries are Normalizing with Israel
By Ramzy Baroud
BRAHIM ADJI/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
FORGET THE HYPE. Israel’s “security technology” has nothing to do with why some African countries are eager to normalize relations with Israel. What is it that Israel is able to offer in the technology sector to Chad, Mali and others that the United States, the European Union, China, Russia, India, Brazil, South Africa and others cannot? The answer is “nil,” and the moment we accept such a truth is the moment we start to truly understand why Chad, a Muslim-majority country, has just renewed its diplomatic ties with Israel. And, by extension, the same logic applies to Mali, another Muslim-majority country that is ready to normalize with Chadian President Idriss Deby (r) and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu sign documents after Israel. their meeting at the presidential palace in N’djamena on Jan. 20, 2019. Israel and Chad renewed diploChadian President, Idriss matic ties decades after they were ruptured. Deby, was in Israel last Novemits focus to preparations under way for another “historic visit,” ber, a trip that was touted as another Binyamin Netanyahu-enthat of Malian President Soumeylou Boubeye Maiga to Israel in gineered breakthrough by the Israeli government and its allied the “coming weeks.” media. Netanyahu is keen to schedule Maiga’s trip just before the In return, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu paid Deby a visit to April 9 date, when Israelis go to the polls to vote in the country’s N’djamena where they agreed to resume diplomatic ties. In their early general elections. joint press conference, Deby spoke of “deals” signed between Israel’s motives to normalize with Africa are inspired by the Chad and Israel, but failed to provide more details. same reasoning behind Netanyahu’s international outreach to Israel may try to present itself as the savior of Africa, but no South America and other regions in the global South. matter how comparatively strong the Israeli economy is, Tel Aviv Despite the Trump-Netanyahu love affair at the moment, Israel will hardly have the keys to solving the woes of Chad, Mali or has no faith in the future of the U.S. in the Middle East region. any other country on the African continent. The current Donald Trump administration, as the previous Israeli media is actively contributing to the fanfare that has acBarack Obama administration, has made clear and calculated companied Netanyahu’s “scramble for Africa,” and is now turning moves to slowly deploy out of the region and “pivot” elsewhere. Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and editor of palestine chronThis has alerted Netanyahu to the fact that Israel would have icle. His latest book is the last earth: a palestinian story (available to diversify its alliances as an American veto at the United Nafrom AET’s Middle East Books and More). Baroud has a Ph.D. in tions Security Council is no longer a guarantor to Israel’s regional Palestine Studies from the University of Exeter and is a non-resident dominance. scholar at the Orfalea Center for Global and International Studies, University of California. His website is <www.ramzybaroud.net>. For years, Netanyahu has pursued an alternative course, which march/april 2019
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has become the only path for Israel to escape its international isolation. Unfortunately for Palestinians, Israel’s new strategy of seeking separate alliances with U.N. General Assembly members seems to be paying dividends. Israel now hopes that other countries that have historically stood on the side of Palestinians—voting for Palestinian rights as a bloc at the U.N.— will follow the Chad and Mali examples. The struggle between Israel and Arab countries in Africa, according to Dan Avni—a top Israeli foreign ministry official during the 1950s and ’60s—is “a fight of life and death for us.” That statement was made during a time that the U.S. had not fully and ardently committed to the Israeli colonial project, and Israel was in a desperate need to break away from its isolation. Following the expansion of the Israeli colonial project in Palestine and other Arab countries after the 1967 war, the U.S. unconditional political, economic and military support for Israel has addressed many of Israel’s perceived vulnerabilities, empowering it to become the uncontested bully of the whole region. At the time, neither Africa mattered, nor did the rest of the international community. But now, a new Great Game is changing the rules once more. Not only is the U.S. losing its grip in the Middle East and Africa
—thanks to the rise of Russian and Chinese influences, respectively—Washington is also busy elsewhere, desperate to sustain its dwindling global hegemony for a bit longer. Although ties between Washington and Tel Aviv are still strong, Israeli leaders are aware of a vastly changing political landscape. According to Israeli calculation, the “fight of life and death” is drawing near, once again. The answer? Enticing poor countries, in Africa and elsewhere, with political support and economic promises so that they would deny Palestinians a vote at the U.N. It is no surprise that the governments of Chad and Mali are struggling, not only economically, but also in terms of political legitimacy as well. Torn in the global struggle for dominance between the U.S. and China, they feel pressed to make significant choices that could make the difference between their survival or demise in future upheavals. For these countries, an alliance with Israel is a sure ticket to the Washington political club. Such membership could prove significant in terms of economic aid, political validation and, more importantly, an immunity against pesky military coups. Considering this, those who are stuck discussing the Israeli “charm offensive” in
Africa based on the claim of Israel’s technological advancement and hyped water technology are missing the forest for the trees. It is important to note that it is not the road to Tel Aviv that N’djamena and Bamako are seeking, but rather the road to Washington itself. In Africa, as in other parts of the global South, it is often the U.S., not the U.N., that bestows and denies political legitimacy. For African leaders who enjoy no democratic credence, a handshake with Netanyahu could be equivalent to political life insurance. So, for now, Israel will continue to walk this fine line, usurping American resources and political support as always, while learning how to walk on its own, by developing a foreign policy that it hopes will spare it further isolation in the future. It is yet to dawn on Israeli leaders that, perhaps, a shortcut to breaking its isolation can be achieved through respecting international law, the rights of the Palestinian people and the territorial sovereignty of its neighbors. Diplomatic ties with Chad and Mali may garner Netanyahu a few more votes in April, but they will also contribute to the Israeli illusion that it can be an international darling and an apartheid regime, simultaneously. ■
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A Weakly Inflated Trial Balloon
Special Report By James J. Zogby
PHOTO CREDIT THOMAS COEX/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
IN MID-JANUARY a well-known Israeli journalist revealed what he said were “new details about the Trump administration’s Israeli-Palestinian peace plan.” His report, he said, came from notes he had obtained from an American Jewish leader who had been part of a small group of community leaders briefed by a “senior Administration official” just two weeks earlier. Since I had heard about the briefing and anticipated the “expected leak,” I began reading, preparing to be outraged. Instead I found my reaction to be somewhere between bored and amused by the content. At the same time, I was also alarmed, not so much by what was or wasn’t in the “plan,” but by what I suspected was the intent of the leak. Jason Greenblatt (l), the U.S. president's assistant and special representative for international After waiting almost two years for the negotiations, speaks to White House senior adviser Jared Kushner (r) during a press confer“Deal of the Century,” what the notes of ence in Jerusalem on May 22, 2017. the briefing contained was a wateredJerusalem, and fails to address Gaza, refugees or sovereignty. down version of what Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak had ofFor the Israelis, this plan gives too much; for the Palestinians, fered to Palestinian President Yasser Arafat almost two decades too little. That much is obvious. What, however, piqued my cuago, and less than what Secretary of State John Kerry offered riosity was a final comment in the Jewish leader’s notes in which two years ago. The elements of the purported deal included: a he observed that the White House official, who was the source Palestinian state on 85 percent of the West Bank with some of this plan, urged the Israelis not to reject it and let the Palesland-swaps to compensate Palestinians for the West Bank settinians be the rejectionist party. tlement blocs that will go to Israel; Israeli settlements outside of Since it was so patently obvious that the plan wasn’t a serious the blocs will not be evacuated, but “illegal outposts” will be; and solution to the conflict, there had to be, I thought, another reason Jerusalem will be a shared capital—Israel will have West for floating such a poorly inflated trial balloon. The only reason I Jerusalem and Palestinians will have some of the “Arab neighcould imagine that would account both for the leak and for the borhoods” in East Jerusalem—but the Old City and holy sites will caution to Israel not to reject it had more to do with why it might remain under Israeli control. There was no mention of Gaza or have been leaked in the first place—and that is to make the Palestinian refugees. Nor was there any provision for Palestinian Trump administration and the Israelis appear to be reasonable sovereign control over borders or resources. and eager to accommodate Palestinians so as to facilitate U.S. As I read the notes, I had difficulty understanding how, after and Israeli entreaties to Arab states to work more openly with Istwo years on the job, Trump’s team had come up with something rael. This would have the effect of subverting the Arab Peace Iniso embarrassingly unsurprising and inadequate. They must tiative (API). know, I thought, that there is no Israeli government on the horiThe API provided an Arab commitment to normalize relations zon that would be willing to cede control of 85 percent of the with Israel—but only after: Israel withdrew from territories occuWest Bank, and no Palestinian leader who could accept a deal pied in the 1967 war; there was an agreed upon solution to the that retains Israeli control over critical areas of occupied Palestinian refugee issue; and there was the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza with its capital in James J. Zogby is president of the Arab American Institute in Washington, DC. East Jerusalem. The “leaked deal,” on the other hand, would ask MARCH/APRIL 2019
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Dr. James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute, discussed the results of the 2018 Zogby Research Services Middle East Public Opinion Poll on Dec. 11 at the Middle East Institute in Washington, DC. The poll was conducted between Aug. 22 and Sept. 17, 2018 in eight Arab countries (Tunisia, Egypt, Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the UAE), and in Turkey and Iran. The Israeli occupation of Palestine remains a prominent concern among the people of the region, with respondents in six of the ten surveyed countries identifying it as their top foreign policy concern. Within Palestine, the poll found disillusionment with the so-called peace process. Asked what outcome to the conflict they support, half of Palestinians said they don’t believe a peace deal is possible, while the other half were evenly split between support for a two-state solution and a one-state solution. While officials in Riyadh and Abu Dhabi are developing increasingly close relations with Israel, the poll revealed that citizens of Saudi Arabia and the UAE are largely opposed to their governments normalizing relations with Israel, even if it means foregoing a stronger alliance against Iran. Roughly 60 percent of respondents in both countries said they oppose partnering with Israel against Iran, even if Israel ends the occupation and signs a peace deal with the Palestinians. The poll found that Tunisians and Egyp-
tians are the most pessimistic about the future of their countries, with 67 percent of Tunisians and 55 percent of Egyptians stating that their country is headed on the wrong track. Emiratis were by far the most optimistic, with more than 80 percent saying their country is headed in the right direction. One figure that stood out to Zogby was that 41 percent of Egyptians said they have no confidence in their military. The Egyptian military has traditionally been a source of pride and unity for Egyptians, and the institution regularly received approval ratings above 90 percent prior to the 2013 military coup that brought President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi into power. “The numbers in Egypt have gone south, and they’ve moved decidedly lower in every year since 2013, and yet I think people are in denial about it,” Zogby said. Egyptians also have a very low opinion of the United States, with just eight percent saying they have a favorable view of the country. This was the lowest favorability rate of the U.S. in the region, outside of Iraq, where the U.S. also only received eight percent approval. Zogby noted these numbers are concerning considering they are “the two countries where we [the U.S.] conceivably have the most at stake and we have the most presence, in terms of military shipments and military relationship.” Citizens across the Middle East are increasingly concerned about the humanitarian crisis in Yemen, the poll found. Notably, respondents in Saudi Arabia and the UAE, the two countries at the forefront of the Yemen war, showed a dramatic year-over-
year increase in their concern about the humanitarian situation. In 2017, only ten percent of respondents in both countries said the humanitarian crisis was their greatest concern about the war, while in 2018, 39 percent of Saudis and 43 percent of Emiratis cited it as their top concern. The poll also found greater region-wide acceptance that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has emerged victorious from his country’s civil war. Residents of the Gulf bitterly opposed Assad in 2017, as just two percent of Saudis and zero percent of Emiratis said they viewed a Syrian government headed by him as the best outcome to the conflict. This year, however, 29 percent of Emiratis and 24 percent of Saudis said they are willing to accept an Assad-led Syrian government. “I think there’s a dawning recognition that he’s not going away,” Zogby commented. Of interest, the poll found that the citizens of the Middle East largely support President Trump’s decision to pull out of the nuclear deal with Iran. In every country except for Egypt, a majority of respondents said they approve of the U.S. reneging on the agreement. “It very well may be that what the Trump administration is trying to do is on the right track, in terms of where Arab public opinion is,” Zogby said. Lebanon and Iraq, which both have a significant Shi’i population, were the only countries where a majority of respondents said they have a favorable view of Iran. Full results of the poll can be found at <zogbyresearchservices.com>. —Dale Sprusansky
Arabs to begin normalization based on an inadequate plan that Israel wouldn’t reject but would never implement. In the end, relations would be normalized, with the “rejectionist” Palestinians remaining under occupation, in limbo. In this context, it is important to recall that for President Trump the matter of Palestinian rights, per se, has never been a priority or even a concern. If anything, it was merely a pesky matter to overcome in order to achieve the “deal of the century” that brought the Arabs together with Israel, ostensibly to confront Iran and ex-
tremism. It appears that the administration’s thinking might be that if a real peace deal can’t be reached, then maybe, just maybe, it can be finessed by sleight of hand. Far-fetched? Possibly. But what other explanation can there be for something so trite being leaked at this time? The bottom line, however, is that this lame effort will fail, since it underestimates Arab leaders and ignores what they know about their region and their people. As our most recent polling demonstrates, despite all of the issues roiling the Middle East,
Palestine remains a priority concern across the region, and there is no tolerance among Arabs, in any of the region’s countries, for normalized relations with Israel until the terms of the API are met, in full. And even then, it will be a hard sell. There may be regional concern with Iran’s meddlesome behavior and the continuing threat posed by extremist ideologies. But what the Trump administration still hasn’t figured out is that normalized relations with Israel without real justice for Palestinians would only be a boon for Iranian propagandists and extremist recruiters. ■
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Special Report
Entrepreneurship in Gaza: A Glimmer of Hope but a High Risk of Failure
By Al-Orjwan Shurrab
PHOTO COURTESY GAZA SKY GEEKS
FROM THE TIME HE WAS A CHILD, Saleh El-Madani wanted to study industrial engineering. And in most places, it would be a pretty sure bet that the hard work and investment required to earn such a degree would pay off with a lucrative job. But ElMadani also knew that in the Gaza Strip, it wouldn’t be nearly enough. After all, the overall unemployment rate in the Strip is nearly 50 percent—70 percent for young adults. Starting his own business was always on his mind as he progressed through school. “Young men in Gaza must start thinking about a profitable project for themselves the moment they enter university, since there are so few jobs here,” he reflects. “I developed my idea early on, but there were still so many barriers facing me.” Entrepreneurship is both an opportunity and a challenge anywhere, but when the Gaza Sky Geeks (GSG), run by MercyCorps, helps entrepreneurs launch new ventures and find place in question is subjected to a pro- interested investors. longed (12-year) siege, in which many mament Program (UNDP) and the Bank of Palestine. terials vital to production are not allowed in and many finished The scope of the incubators varies according to their vision: products (not to mention people) are not allowed out, start-ups BTI and GSG both help new ventures launch as well as support face a particularly steep risk of failure. already-established projects that need financial or technical asTo support budding entrepreneurs like El-Madani, a number of sistance. PICTI and the UCAS incubator focus only on the forincubators have sprung up in the Gaza Strip to help them demer. velop business plans, secure funding, and market their products They all operate roughly the same way: Hopeful entrepreneurs and services—often leapfrogging over physical border walls to submit an online application for support and the incubators evalreach international buyers online. uate them based on creativity, potential demand for the product The four main incubators in Gaza are: the Palestine Informaor service, the commitment of the applicant(s), how significantly tion and Communications Technology Incubator (PICTI); Gaza the venture would contribute to the development of the local Sky Geeks (GSG), which is operated by the international NGO Palestinian economy and how many people could be served. MercyCorps and thus has received the most public attention; the Selected applicants, usually small teams, participate in boot Business and Technology Incubator (BTI), run by the Islamic Unicamps and workshops that help them develop necessary skills, versity of Gaza; and the UCAS (University College of Applied such as pricing and marketing. They also are introduced to poSciences) Technology Incubator. Funding comes from a range tential funding sources; some incubators finance selected proof sources, including the Islamic Bank, Oxfam, U.S. Agency for jects themselves and GSG also has arranged pitching sessions International Development (USAID), United Nations Developto interested investors. When new ventures are launched, the incubator helps them build networks with related local, foreign and Al-Orjwan Shurrab is a Gaza-based writer for WeAreNotNumbers.org, global businesses and NGOs. Mentoring by volunteers from local, a youth project that pairs international mentor-authors with youth in the Strip to share the human stories behind the numbers in the news. regional or international experts and fellow entrepreneurs helps MARCH/APRIL 2019
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PHOTO COURTESY GAZA SKY GEEKS
vices with the Palestinian new management teams Ministry of Internal Affairs anticipate and overcome in the West Bank and thus obstacles along the way. are prevented from openGSG recruits volunteer ing bank accounts in the mentors from around the name of their ventures. world, arranging travel to One strategy employed Gaza through its parent by Gaza Sky Geeks to (MercyCorps) as well as help its participants get relying on Skype sesstarted is to set them up sions. UCAS uses online as freelancers. Another is mentors from Jordan and to register new busisometimes sends particinesses in the United pants for executive trainStates, so they can opering with companies in ate using an American Turkey. bank account, says Abu “Jordan has many exOaida, the GSG mancellent specialists and ager. Still, failure is comsince not all of our particmon. ipants speak English, Incubators help young people who can’t leave Gaza meet the challenges of doing To date, GSG has this works out well,” says business with the outside world. funded six projects, and Doaa Seyam, project coordinator at UCAS. “And building good re- a donor, such financing often is delayed or 26 others were started but suspended for lationships with Turkey and other countries suspended due to political or “security” various reasons. Ten others are in reasons—forcing the projects to come to progress. UCAS has funded 58 ideas and helps get our youth out of this prison.” of those, eight have progressed. BTI has New businesses in Gaza face all of the an abrupt halt. One aspect of the siege which these in- supported about 10 new projects and 180 usual complications that bedevil startups elsewhere, ranging from personality con- cubators can help is loosening the mental already-established businesses. (BTI doesflicts among team members to lack of suf- restraints on youths’ minds and creativity. n’t track failure rates and PICTI says it “Most of the young generation have never doesn’t report any statistics.) ficient expertise in the field of focus. “It is critical that team members are en- traveled or even met a ‘foreigner’,” notes A CAUTIONARY TALE trepreneurial—meaning they have or can Seyam. “So, they don’t even know how to develop the knowledge needed to identify think ‘big.’” Nashwa Halouq’s project was funded by In fact, says Basel Qandeel, an engi- BTI for a year. Halouq, 26, who is married and exploit opportunities and are willing to take some risks,” explains Seyam. “They neer and executive manager of BTI, failure and has three children, developed a type itself is stigmatized, making youth afraid to of cheese made with all-natural ingredialso must be patient and adventurous.” Moamin Abu Oaida, community devel- take risks when their families often must ents which is designed to improve the opment and engagement manager for struggle to put enough food on the table. health of people who suffer from osteoGSG, adds: “Each team must have both “Their psychological health affects what- porosis, since it contains additional calexpertise and practical experience in the ever they do negatively.” cium and phytoestrogen. (Cows and goats BTI takes on the most difficult chal- are not commonly found and thus are extarget field among its members.” However, even when such ideal people lineups exist, lenges by focusing on production for the pensive in Gaza; in addition, the equipwhen they live in a place like Gaza, where Gaza market. Due to the high rate of ment to mass produce it is not available. both travel and trade are tightly restricted, poverty (80 percent) and unemployment Thus, natural cheeses are not widely avail(over 50 percent) in Gaza, residents have able.) the challenges are far greater. “Entrepreneurial projects conceived in very little purchasing power. Incubators The recipe was the graduation project Gaza are more likely to fail than in most that support service-based businesses, for Halouq and four of her colleagues, and other places,” says Omar Altabatiby, out- such as those related to communications they secured a patent before earning reach officer for PICTI. “Their problem is and IT, avoid this obstacle by working on- sponsorship from BTI. However, the prodelivery and being able to compete with a line and connecting with international mar- ject needed $20,000 to implement and BTI fair price when their own cost of doing kets. could provide only $4,000 for the maAnd then there are challenges related to chines and ingredients. business is so high relative to their inthe internal political divisions. Gazans are comes.” “Our project has faced many obstacles Even when seed money is secured from not able to register their products or ser- since the very beginning, starting with the 46
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funding,” she explains. “Another problem was finding a good production facility. We were given the opportunity to locate in Oxfam’s building, but it was in Rafah in the south of the Gaza Strip—far from the center of Gaza and the larger market we needed to serve. We succeeded in providing customers a natural, tasty cheese, and it could have really helped reduce the risk of osteoporosis that is so common here even among young women. But the lack of funding and the overall situation in Gaza prevented success.” Halouq is not giving up, however. Her team is working on securing a patent for the cheese with the Turkish government and will continue to work to secure more funding.
STORIES OF SUCCESS
Art Line The project developed by El-Madani, now 25, provides advice to already existing businesses, drawing upon the marketing and development expertise he built while taking related courses. By using textmessaging technology, he figured he could
provide advice easily and cheaply. He applied to the UCAS Technology Incubator and became one of its funded projects, receiving an initial grant of $5,000—about 70 percent of what was needed. Today, his business, called “Art Line,” employs six and has expanded to online consultation to serve customers outside of Gaza. About half of his 20 or so clients are from the Gulf countries. “This change came about thanks to the support my project receives from the mentors at UCAS. Providing our services through text messaging restricted our audience to inside the Gaza Strip, which could never be a stable market,” ElMadani says. However, he faces other challenges, most notably the shortage of electricity and the associated lack of a reliable internet connection. “Although the team for my project began with a lack of sufficient experience and we were not funded 100 percent, the siege is the only ongoing challenge we are not able to overcome. As a result, we are not yet successful. My goal is to achieve strong financial performance.”
Future Engineers Club In 2017, the proposal for a Future Engineers Club was selected for support, along with 15 others out of 1,080 applicants, by the Business and Technology Incubator. Abdul Rahman Awad, 24, graduated with a degree in mechatronics engineering (which combines a focus on electronics and mechanics). For two years while he was studying, Awad and his friends ran a summer camp of sorts, training children ages 6-15 in basic skills related to computer engineering and electronics. The opportunity to turn the camp into a business came in 2017, when BTI launched SEED2 to support and fund small projects. BTI funded the school with $7,000 and continues to follow up with the team, providing mentoring by specialists from Jordan and Gaza. Awad’s four-member team developed an educational game called Smart Kit; the plastic and magnetic pieces are produced by a local company and now sold in both Gaza and the West Bank. “The siege was our motivation to ‘think out of the box,’” Awad says. ■
Help make sure that the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs will be here for the next generation. By remembering the Washington Report in your will, you can: • Make a significant gift without affecting your current cash flow; • Direct your bequest to a vital purpose— educating readers about U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East; • Receive a charitable estate tax deduction; • Leave a legacy for future generations. Bequests of any size are honored with membership in the American Educational Trust’s “Choirmasters,” named for angels whose foresight and dedication ensured the future of the Washington Report and Middle East Books and More. For more information visit www.wrmea.org/donate/bequests.pdf, contact us at circulation@wrmea.org, write: American Educational Trust, PO Box 91056 • Long Beach, CA 90809-1056, or telephone our new toll-free circulation number 888-881-5861 • Fax: 714-226-9733 MARCH/APRIL 2019
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Two Views
Who Really Cares About Unifying the Palestinian State?
MAHMUD HAMS/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
(now sent via the United Nations) for the needy and infrastructure projects. In return, Hamas promised to restrain Friday protesters and rein in the Islamic Jihad group. Israeli live fire on Feb. 1 wounded 32 Palestinian protesters and tear gas canisters wounded two paramedics, so it is doubtful Israeli soldiers have been told to stand down. What Gaza really needs—in addition to cash—to address critical needs and restore daily life is rarely discussed in the media. Gaza, which is twice the size of Washington, DC, is almost completely sealed off by walls and Relatives of 30-year-old Palestinian Ahmed Abu Jabal, shot by Israeli snipers during border demonstra- borders. Of its population of two tions, mourn during his funeral in Gaza City on Feb. 4, 2019. million people, only a few hundred are allowed to cross the borders each month. Unemployment has risen exponentially, and is now the highest in the Arab region at over 50 percent, according to the World Bank. Israel, however—which, through its blockade, controls By Mohammed Omer Gaza’s borders and economy—believes any improvement in Gaza’s economy merely strengthens the power of Hamas. IN GAZA, WAR always looms on the horizon—any month, And for its part, the PA fears that empowering Hamas will week, day or even moment might see an Israeli attack. widen the division between Gaza and the West Bank, making Gazans walk on fragile ground. it difficult to attain a viable state. Since weekly protests began in March 2018 along the border It is Gaza’s people who pay the price for these calculations. to pressure Israel to end its long-term economic blockade on “The situation gets worse and worse every day,” said Dr. Gaza, Israeli sharpshooters have killed and maimed tens of Ibrahim Mummar, a university professor in Gaza. “In fact, there thousands of Palestinians. According to the U.N., 300 Palestiniis nothing to hope for—everything remains broken, damaged ans were killed and 6,000 people were wounded in 2018. Some and bombed. Every positive effort is made to fail,” he added. 29,000 others, including 1,800 women, were hurt by tear gas or In addition to open borders, Gazans need drinking water and rubber bullets. The 12-year blockade, intended to crush the Isa functioning power supply. According to the United Nations, lamic movement administering the Gaza Strip, has restricted 97 percent of Gaza’s water is contaminated and undrinkable. growth, quality of life and freedom of movement for Gazans. Mobility across open borders is essential to achieve not only Hamas and Israel reached a short-term “quiet for quiet” deal the jobs and economic growth Gaza needs to survive, but also on Jan. 25, to continue monthly transfers of money from Qatar the opportunity for the younger generation of entrepreneurs to Award-winning journalist Mohammed Omer reports regularly on the Gaza Strip. Follow him on Twitter: @MoGaza. expand and prosper. Gaza is celebrated by the region’s pri-
War-Weary Gazans Need Freedom to Thrive
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vate sector for its young high-tech generation. It’s a recognized hub that can produce information technology (IT) services to the Gulf and Europe (see p. 45). Gaza’s young people can only fully connect with the world economy and provide office e-support to Gulf businesses and Europe in the absence of such obstacles as closed border fences and daily hourslong power outages. It’s no surprise that the new generation of Palestinians cares less about political factions, perceiving as it does that neither Hamas nor Fatah responds to its wider needs. But even a strawberry farmer needs an open border in order to export his products to Russia, Europe and the Gulf. One of the main ironies of the Gaza Strip issue is that neither Israel nor Hamas wants an escalation to the conflict. Hamas, after all, has experienced the massive destruction caused by Israel’s repeated assaults and endured the slow reconstruction that followed, which has caused the party to become unpopular. Israel knows that launching yet another war on Gaza will only bring it more global condemnation. The Hamas leadership wants an end to Israel’s protracted and punitive blockade, as well as a long-term cease-fire, but it also wants to maintain its own control of Gaza. For its part, Israel fears that a long-term hudna [truce] will only empower Hamas. Perhaps that is why there is no serious Israeli or Hamas mediator able to move beyond the current short-term quiet-for-quiet deal. Any talks must of course include the PA, Hamas and Israel. Gaza needs a framework backed by the international community with both a short- and long-term strategy for economic stability along with economic initiatives, and the political arrangements needed to avert conflict and achieve the reunification of Gaza and the West Bank. Ultimately, only freedom of movement will bring economic growth to Gaza, and that freedom requires opening Gaza’s doors to the world. Instead of the constant fear that war could come any day, every day, Gazans need peace of mind and peace of life.
As Abbas Ages, Fatah Moves to Consolidate Power By Ramzy Baroud
FIVE YEARS AFTER spear-heading what is inaptly referred to as a “government of national reconciliation,” Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah has finally resigned. “We put our government at the disposal of President Mahmoud Abbas and we welcome the recommendations of the Fatah Central Committee to form a new government,” Hamdallah tweeted, shortly after Abbas had ordered him to dismantle the government.
Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and editor of Palestine Chronicle. His latest book is The Last Earth: A Palestinian Story (available from AET’s Middle East Books and More). Baroud has a Ph.D. in Palestine Studies from the University of Exeter and is a non-resident scholar at the Orfalea Center for Global and International Studies, University of California. His website is <www.ramzybaroud.net>.
mArCh/APriL 2019
Since the Palestinian Authority was founded in 1994, 17 governments have been formed, and every single one of them was dominated by the Fatah party, the largest faction within the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Fatah’s monopoly over Palestinian politics has wrought disasters. Neither did the PA deliver the coveted Palestinian state, nor did Fatah use its influence to bring Palestinian factions together. In fact, the opposite is true. Most of these 17 governments were short-lived, except that of Hamdallah, which has governed for five years, despite the fact that it failed in its primary mission: healing the terrible rift between Fatah in the Israeli Occupied West Bank, and Hamas in Israel-besieged Gaza. Moreover, it also fell short of bringing PLO factions closer together. Thus far, the second largest PLO faction, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) refuses to participate in a future government that will also be dominated by Fatah. Palestinian divisions have never been as pronounced as they are today. While all Palestinian factions, Hamas and Islamic Jihad included, bear part of the blame for failing to unify their ranks and form a single national strategy to combat Israeli colonialism and occupation, Abbas bears the largest share. Even before becoming a president of the PA in January 2005, Abbas has always been a divisive political figure. When he was the PA’s prime minister, between March and September 2003, under the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, Abbas clashed with anyone who would challenge his often self-serving political agenda, including Arafat himself. His constant clashing with Arafat at the time made him a favorite in Washington. Abbas was elected on a weak popular mandate, as Hamas and others boycotted the presidential elections. His first, and only term in office expired in 2009. For a whole decade, neither Abbas nor any government of his has operated with the minimum requirement of democracy. Indeed, for many years the will of the Palestinian people has been hijacked by wealthy men, fighting to preserve their own interests while undeservingly claiming the role of leadership. The 2006 Hamas victory in the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) elections was a reminder to Abbas (but also to Israel and the United States) of how dangerous free elections can be. Since then, there has been much talk about the need for new elections, but no sincere efforts have been made to facilitate such a task. Logistical difficulties notwithstanding (for Palestine is, after all, an occupied country), neither party wants to take the risk of letting the people have the last word. Palestine and her people are not only trapped by Israeli walls, fences and armed soldiers, but by their inept leadership as well. The 2007 Fatah-Hamas clashes which led to the current extreme polarization have split Palestinians politically, between the West Bank, under Abbas’ authoritative control, and Hamas, in besieged and struggling Gaza. While Israeli leader, Binyamin Netanyahu, often complains of the lack of a “Palestinian partner,” his government, with the aid of Washington, has done its utmost
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to ensure Palestinian division. Several agreements between Fatah and Hamas have been signed, the latest, which appeared most promising, was achieved in October 2017. Palestinians were cautious, then, but also hopeful as several practical steps were taken this time to transfer legal responsibilities from Hamas to the Hamdallah government, whether in the various Gaza ministries, or at the Rafah-Egypt border. Then, just when the wheels began turning, raising hopes among ordinary Palestinians that this time things were truly changing, Rami Hamdallah’s convoy was attacked as it crossed the main entrance to Gaza, via Israel. Some sinister force clearly wanted Hamdallah dead or, at least, it wanted to send a violent message providing the political fodder to those who wanted to stall the political progress between the two main Palestinian parties. Hamas quickly claimed to have apprehended the culprits, while Fatah, without much investigation, declared that Hamas was responsible for the bomb, thus stalling and, eventually,
severing all reconciliation talks. This was followed by clearly orchestrated steps to punish Gaza and push the people in the besieged and war-devastated Strip to the point of complete despair. First, Abbas refused to pay money to the Israeli company that provides some of Gaza’s electricity needs—thus leaving Gaza in the dark; then he significantly slashed salaries to Gaza workers, among other measures. In response, tens of thousands of Gazans went to the fence separating besieged Gaza from Israel protesting the Israeli siege, which, with Abbas’ latest collective punishment, has become beyond unbearable. Indeed, Gaza’s ongoing “Great March of Return,” which began on March 30, 2018, was a popular response to a people fed up with war, siege, international neglect, but also horrific political tribalism. Since the march began, more than 200 Palestinians have been killed and thousands maimed and wounded. Abbas is now 83 years old with increasingly debilitating health. His supporters (Advertisement)
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within Fatah want to ensure a political transition that guarantees their dominance, because political monopoly offers many perks: wealth, privilege, power and prestige. For Fatah, Hamdallah and his “reconciliation” government have ceased to serve any purpose. Additionally, a unity government with other Palestinian groups at this crucial, transitional period seems too risky a gamble for those who want to ensure future dominance. The tragic truth is that all such politicking is happening within the confines of Israeli military occupation, and that Israeli fences, walls, trenches, illegal Jewish settlements and Jewish-only bypass roads encircle all Palestinians, from Gaza to Jericho, and from Jerusalem to Rafah; that no Palestinian, Abbas included, is truly free, and that all political titles hold no weight before the power of a single Israeli sniper firing at Palestinian children at the Gaza fence. Palestinians do need their unity and urgently so, not expressed in mere political compromises between factions, but the unity of a people facing the same brutal and oppressive enemy. ■
Edited by Muhittin Ataaman
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Special Report
Ten U.S. Churches Now Sanction Israel— To Some Degree, and with Caveats
By Steven Sellers Lapham
SUMMER IS THE SEASON when many Christian denominations in North America hold a major conference to reaffirm their faith, discuss issues of the day, attend workshops, and review and set policies. At these meetings in 2018, six U.S. churches passed resolutions that strongly affirmed the human rights of Palestinians, about 5 million of whom live under Israel’s military occupation today. Some of these statements advanced earlier efforts by these same churches. A total of ten major U.S. denominations have gone a step beyond statements of affirmation; they are now materially participating, to some degree, in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which aims to hold Israel accountable to international law (see sidebar). These are the Alliance of Baptists, Church of the United Brethren in Christ, Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), Mennonite Church USA, Presbyterian Church (USA), Roman Catholic Church, Unitarian Universalist Association, United Church of Christ, United Methodist Church, as well as the World Communion of Reformed Churches (a confederation that overlaps some of the above). The context in 2018 could not have been more compelling. The U.N. had forecast that Gaza could become unable to sustain human life by 2020 as a result of Israel’s siege (blockade of ingress/egress of people and resources by land, sea, or air). During the Great March of Return last year, along the fences and wall—the “cage”—that separates Gaza from Israel and Egypt, Israeli snipers shot thousands of Palestinian demonstrators. According to Amnesty International, Israeli sharpshooters killed 150 Palestinians at the protests and wounded at least 10,000 others. This overwhelmingly nonviolent campaign also included many celebrations of Palestinian culture, but the casualties were terrible. In May alone, as President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu feted the opening of the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem, at least 58 Palestinians were killed and more than 2,000 wounded. The Israel-Palestine conflict seems to have entered another period of heightened state-sanctioned violence—this time in an
era of instant news images created by on-the-ground participants. For example, an unauthorized video taken through an IDF sniper’s rifle scope as he tracks and then shoots a Palestinian man dominated the news cycle in Israel for a day after it went viral. The video and its impact were generally ignored by the U.S. media, but shared by U.S. Christians who follow events in the Middle East. The assertive Christian church statements of 2018 are the culmination of years of educating and organizing by concerned individuals in the various denominations. Many U.S. denominations have, in previous years, published statements on this issue, developed curricula for congregational study on the Middle East, or responded to the Kairos Document, a manifesto of hope for liberation authored by Christian Palestinians in 2009. These statements may also suggest that the enormous sacrifice of predominantly youthful Palestinians at the fence has elevated their campaign of nonviolent resistance in the eyes of much of the world to the historical significance of the South African struggle to end apartheid, of India’s struggle for independence from colonial British rule, and of the civil rights movement in the United States. Whether these statements and actions by major U.S. Christian denominations will lead to any dialog with Zionist-friendly Evangelical churches in America, which claim 20 million members, remains an open question. Most of the latter have taken an unconditional pro-Israel-at-any-cost stance. In the political sphere, few observers would deny the fact that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which can tolerate no criticism of Israel, is the most powerful foreign lobby in Washington, DC. Unless some conditions are placed upon the $3.8 billion dollars that the U.S. gives annually to Israel, the institutional violence in the occupied territories is not likely to lessen. Israel is the only recipient of U.S. military aid that is not required by law to spend it on American-made weapons. Church and institutional endorsements of Rep. Betty McCollum’s (D-MN) bill may indicate one way forward. The “Promoting Human Rights by Ending Israeli Military Detention of Palestinian Children Act” (which is slated to be reintroduced in 2019) was endorsed last year by the American Friends Service Committee, Amnesty International USA, Arab American Institute, Center for
Screening an investment portfolio reflects an organization’s ethical stances.
Steven Sellers Lapham is a volunteer with Unitarian Universalists for Justice in the Middle East; Voices from the Holy Land Film Series; and Freedom 2 Boycott in Maryland. MARCH/APRIL 2019
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Constitutional Rights, Church World Service, Churches for Middle East Peace, Defense for Children International-Palestine, Friends Committee on National Legislation, Global Ministries of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and United Church of Christ, Jewish Voice for Peace, Mennonite Central Committee, Presbyterian Church (USA), the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights, United Methodists for Kairos Response (UMKR), United Methodist General Board of Church and Society, and Unitarian Universalists for Justice in the Middle East. In sum, more than 80 million churchgoing Americans belong to congregations that have endorsed sanctions to some degree against Israel for its violation of the human rights of Palestinians in the occupied territories and Jerusalem. We would be remiss not to mention the efforts of Jewish organizations that are critical of Israel’s occupation and support the BDS movement. Jewish Voice for Peace, with 75 U.S. chapters and 13,500 members, is perhaps the largest, but there are others, such as Americans for Peace Now, and the International Jewish AntiZionist Network. These groups were, in the summer of 2018, actively protesting the policies of the Trump-Netanyahu axis and organizing to uphold the right of Palestinians to resist occupation and participate in shaping their future. As the group If Not Now states, “We will be the generation that ends our [Jewish American] community’s support for the occupation.”
TEN CHURCHES
1. The Alliance of Baptists, with 65,000 members, passed a resolution in 2017 opposing “efforts by Congress and state legislatures to punish entities that engage in Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) or that provide sanctuary for immigrants.” In 2016, the Baptists “affirmed the use of BDS strategies and comprehensive education and advocacy programs to end the 49-year Israeli military occupation of Palestinian land.” 2. The Church of the United Brethren in Christ, with 23,000 members, took a stand 52
in 2006, when the Brethren Benefit Trust divested “from ownership of Caterpillar Corporation and any other company that sells products that are used routinely as weapons of destruction or death in Israel and Palestine.” Recently, the Brethren joined others in divesting from HP Inc. (Hewlett-Packard Company). Early in 2010, members of On Earth Peace (a Church of the Brethren agency) were arrested, jailed, and deported as they tried to enter Israel. 3. The Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) has 76,000 members. The American Friends Service Committee (the humanitarian services arm of the church) took a position in 2012 in support of BDS and the right of people to use economic activism tactics as tools for change in Israel and Palestine, after having passed a divestment screen (screening an investment portfolio reflects an organization’s ethical stances) in 2009. The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), the 1947 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, was the main provider of aid for Palestinian refugees forced from their lands and homes in 1948. The Friends Fiduciary Corporation investment firm, serving over 300 Quaker institutions in the U.S., has dropped its holdings in HP Inc. and Veolia Environment. Those actions were the result of a preexisting investment screen, and are explicitly not part of BDS. 4. The Mennonite Church USA, which has more than 75,000 members, approved a resolution by a majority of 98 percent in 2017 calling on “individuals and congregations to avoid the purchase of products associated with acts of violence or policies of military occupation, including items produced in [Israeli] settlements.” The church explained, “The Palestinian people have suffered injustices, violence, and humiliation, including…life under Israeli military occupation and in refugee camps throughout the Middle East.” 5. The Presbyterian Church (USA), which represents 1.5 million Americans, voted overwhelmingly in support of the international BDS campaign in 2018. Members voted on a slate of resolutions put forth by the Israel Palestine Mission Net-
WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
work (IPMN). The church also opposed congressional and state anti-BDS legislation, instead calling on Americans to “defend and advocate for the constitutional protection under the First Amendment for all United States citizens.” 6. The Roman Catholic Church has 70.4 million members in the U.S., making it the largest denomination in the nation. The Catholic Conference of Major Superiors of Men voted in March 2016 to “join the boycott of settlement products and companies profiting from settlements.” The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has not made a similar statement. Pax Christi, a Catholic peace and justice organization, is a leader on this issue. 7. The Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) has 155,000 members. Its Socially Responsible Investing Committee adopted a human rights investment screen in 2016 focusing on conflict zones. Human rights violations by Israel in the occupied Palestinian territories came under scrutiny. As a result, the UUA divested from HP Inc., Motorola Solutions, and Caterpillar Inc. A resolution specifically mentioning Palestine and calling for a broader, secure, and long-lasting commitment to screening out investments in corporations complicit in human rights violations in Palestine/Israel was not adopted by the delegates to the 2016 UUA General Assembly. 8. The United Church of Christ (UCC), with 850,000 million members, voted in 2018 to divest from companies profiting from Israel’s military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The UCC Christ Palestine-Israel Network (UCC PIN) stated that the resolution was “the culmination of a process that began in 2005 to end the Church’s complicity in Israel’s nearly half-century-old occupation and other abuses of Palestinian human rights.” The 2005 resolution stated, “economic leverage can be used to support the development of Palestine and Israel as two independent, secure, economically viable states.” 9. The United Methodist Church (UMC), with an estimated 7 million members, divested from five Israeli banks on the grounds that they contribute to Israel’s ocMARCH/APRIL 2019
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cupation of Palestinian land. Bank Hapoalim, Bank Leumi, First International Bank of Israel, Israel Discount Bank and Bank Mizrahi-Tefahot are among 39 companies blacklisted in 2018 by the UMC pension fund for failing to meet the guidelines of a human rights investment policy. An Israeli construction company, Shikun & Binui, was also excluded for involvement in settlement building. The pension boardâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s assets in 2014 were valued at $20.9 billion. 10. The World Communion of Reformed Churches (WCRC), has 232 member churches on six continents. In 2017, WCRC called on its members to â&#x20AC;&#x153;examine their mission, education, and investment relationships with Israel and Palestine in light of the witness of Palestinian Christians and to respond as they understand the Reformed communionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s commitments to human rights and the protections of international law.â&#x20AC;? The WCRC is the largest association of Reformed churches in the world, with 11 member denominations in
the U.S., including two (UCC and Presbyterians) appearing on this list. Readers might wonder: Where do the Episcopal Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America stand on these issues? Both denominational conventions passed resolutions in 2018 expressing strong concern for Palestinian human rights, although both stopped short of supporting any BDS action. The Episcopal Church, with 3 million members, rejected a resolution at its General Convention in 2015 to withhold financial investment in the occupied territories of Palestine under Israel control. In July 2018, however, the General Convention approved Resolution D027, which condemns the use of lethal force by Israel against unarmed Palestiniansâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;and by Palestinian forces against civilians. The Convention had previously approved B021, supporting the resumption of humanitarian aid to Palestinians; B003, regarding the status of Jerusalem as shared Holy City; and D018, reflecting on the de-
terioration of negotiations toward a twostate solution. The Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA), with 3.5 million members, overwhelmingly approved a resolution in 2016 calling on the U.S. government to halt all aid to Israel [$3.8 billion per year] if the building of settlements continued. It also demanded that Israel â&#x20AC;&#x153;end its occupationâ&#x20AC;? and recognize a Palestinian state. In 2018, ELCA condemned the use of lethal force by Israel against unarmed Palestinians and by Palestinian forces against civilians. Contrary to some reports, ELCA does not technically participate in divestment against Israel, as there was a 2007 Assembly action prohibiting it. In 2016, however, the ELCA Assembly voted to develop a human rights social criteria investment screen that is based on the teachings of the church and, in the case of Israel and Palestine, to base this screen on the concerns raised in the 2009 â&#x20AC;&#x153;ELCA Churchwide Strategy for Engagement in Israel and Palestine.â&#x20AC;? â&#x2013;
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Islam and the Near East in the Far East
Malaysia: An Unusual Monarchy
By John Gee
MOHD RASFAN/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
order in which they would reign was set at independence according to the seniority of the sultans at the time: how long they had been rulers of their own states. That became the fixed order, regardless of the length of reign of succeeding sultans when their turn came. The system of a rotating monarchy is unique to Malaysia. The king is appointed by a gathering of the sultans known as the Conference of Rulers. Muhammad V was the sultan of the northern state of Kelantan before becoming 16th king of Malaysia, and he retains his original title. The 15th king of Malaysia, Sultan Muhammad V (r) prepares to deliver his address during the opening His resignation statement said ceremony of the parliament in Kuala Lumpur on July 17, 2018 while Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir that he intended to return to Mohamad (l) looks on. his home state “to safeguard and develop Kelantan for the betterment of the public.” A CASUAL OBSERVER might be forgiven for assuming that Muhammad V had been king for only two years, but had already Malaysia is a republic. Its royalty hardly ever receives a mention in come in for criticism before his marriage. In June 2018, following the international media, but that changed, briefly, at the beginning the election of a new government in Malaysia, incoming Premier of January, when Sultan Muhammad V resigned. Mahathir Mohamad complained that the sultan had delayed apThe statement issued from the national palace gave no reason pointing him to office, despite his clear electoral majority and the for the sultan’s move, but it was widely considered to be a result of standard procedure in a constitutional monarchy—a claim denied his belief that he had lost the support of a majority of his fellow sulby the palace. Dr. Mahathir’s media adviser also accused him of tans following his marriage to Oksana Voevodina, a former Miss excessive spending during his reign, saying that he’d gone through Moscow. Although she was said to have converted to Islam, con257 million ringgit ($62 million) since his appointment 16 months servative Malay Muslims were reported to have been unhappy at earlier. the stories and images of Voevodina’s career as a model. Under the rotation system, the next king was to be the sultan of Malaysia consists of 13 states and three federal territories. Nine Pahang, a large conservative east coast state that extends deep of the states (all in the Malayan peninsula) are monarchies, headed into the Malay peninsula’s interior. There was a snag, however: he by a hereditary sultan. Their families retained their status as state was 88 years old and receiving intensive medical treatment, so that rulers when Malaya was under British rule. Since they were equal many questioned his ability to assume the monarchy. The royal in status, it would have been unacceptable to choose one family to council of Pahang resolved the problem by nominating the old sulbe hereditary rulers of independent Malaysia, and so it was decided tan’s 59-year-old son, Tengku Abdullah Sultan Ahmad Shah, to that the sultans would take it in turns to rule for five years each. The succeed him. His father was expected to abdicate to clear the way for a smooth succession. He has already had one term as king, John Gee is a free-lance journalist based in Singapore, and the from 1979 to 1984. Tengku Abdullah acted as regent in those years author of Unequal Conflict: The Palestinians and Israel. 54
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and has again undertaken the role of regent for the past two years. A special meeting of the Conference of Rulers was held on Jan. 24 to formalize the choice of Malaysia’s new king.
MALAYSIAN GOVERNMENT YIELDS TO PROTEST AGAINST HUMAN RIGHTS CONVENTION
Malaysia’s opposition parties finally found a cause around which to rally support against the government that came to power last May, after Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad addressed the U.N. General Assembly in September and said that Malaysia would ratify all those human rights conventions to which it had not already acceded. These included the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD). A number of Malay and Muslim organizations quickly came out in opposition to the ratification of the ICERD, saying it was against the Malays and against Islam. The Islamist party, PAS, and the former ruling party, UMNO, in tatters since last year’s election, threw their support behind protests against ICERD ratification, causing the government to back down in November and an-
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nounce that it would not ratify the convention. Nevertheless, an anti-ICERD rally planned for Dec. 8 (the nearest Saturday to Human Rights Day) in Kuala Lumpur went ahead, attracting 55,000 participants—a large turnout, though rather less than the 500,000 that UMNO and PAS had said they would muster. Organizers dubbed the gathering a thanksgiving rally, following the government backdown. Among those attending to show support was former Malaysian Premier Najib Razak, soon due to face trial on corruption charges. One fear among many Malays was that the official state policy of discrimination in favor of the Malay majority would become unlawful if ICERD were ratified. This policy has given preference to Malays in spheres such as civil service employment and university admission, and required firms launched by members of other communities, such as Chinese or Indians, to include Malay partners. The policy has been rationalized as redressing Malays’ previously disadvantaged status. The claim that ICERD is against Islam looked shaky given that, out of the 57 countries in the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, only Brunei and Malaysia have not
signed the convention, though some have entered reservations about particular clauses. When an anti-discrimination convention was originally discussed in the U.N. in the 1960s, Muslim countries had objected to creating one that would have banned discrimination on religious as well as racial grounds, and so ICERD was framed to combat racial discrimination alone. On that basis, the great majority of Muslim states felt able to ratify it. Nevertheless, PAS and UMNO clearly felt that there was support to be gained by playing on religious as well as national feelings among some Malays, the majority of whom did not vote for the present government. They allege that it is insensitive to Muslim views, and may be expected to continue to fudge differences between specifically Malay national and Muslim religious concerns in their bid to recover lost support among Malay Muslims. ■
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mocratic leaders. And each and every one of you Muslims Celebrate Congressional should be proud at Victories at CAIR Reception this moment. We An exuberant crowd celebrated the victo- have fire power in ries of the first female Muslim members of Congress.” Omar and Tlaib Congress, Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), at a Jan. 10 reception both ran progreshosted by the national office of the Council sive campaigns, foon American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) at cusing on issues Arlington, VA’s Hyatt Crystal City Hotel. Fel- such as immigralow Muslim Rep. André Carson (D-IN), in tion, keeping families together, racial office since 2008, was also in attendance. “Our young women are now believing and social justice, that their place is on the House floor, that affordable health (L-r) Nihad Awad and Reps. Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar. their place is in the White House, that their care and education. “These political leaders managed to gal- errant debris left by visitors. Thanks to place is serving others,” said Tlaib, the daughter of Palestinian immigrants. “I don’t vanize the hopes and aspirations of people, their efforts, the Mall appeared unaffected want us to be silent when the president of and are now public servants who happen to by the shutdown. When not engaged with shutdown rethe United States calls Mexicans ‘rapists.' be proud American Muslims,” noted CAIR lated projects, the worldwide group of 10 to Don’t wait until he comes after us. Speak national executive director Nihad Awad. —Elaine Pasquini 20 million members founded in 1889 by up now. We are all in the same element of India-native Mirza Ghulam Ahmad helps in fighting against racism and bigotry.” Muslim Youth Group Assists During times of need as situations arise to make “I am delighted at this particular time in for a better world. Other activities they purour nation’s history for there to be two un- Federal Government Shutdown apologetic, unbought progressive leaders Several volunteers from the international sue include feeding the homeless and the from the Muslim community who are Ahmadiyya Muslim Community’s Youth As- annual planting of hundreds of thousands —Phil Pasquini women representing us in Congress,” Omar sociation turned out Jan. 12 to clean up of trees. told the enthusiastic audience of some 500 trash along the National Mall in Washingguests. “By our sheer presence in Con- ton, DC. The group was busy across the ARAB AMERICAN ACTIVISM gress, we say as Muslim women that we are country in January, taking on community in charge of our lives and our destiny. We service projects to help maintain national NAAWA Confronts Rep. Steve King’s decide where and how we show up.” parks and other federal facilities that were Legislative Director Carson praised the qualities of Tlaib and affected by the 35-day partial government Omar. “Rashida and Ilhan are fighters,” he shutdown. On Jan. 17, members of the National Arab enthused. “They are smart, powerful, ready; The volunteers—some wearing bright American Women’s Association (NAAWA) they represent the next generation of De- yellow “Muslims for Loyalty” vests—picked met with Suanne Edmiston, legislative diup trash along the Mall rector to Rep. Steve King (R-IA), to voice and looked for exces- their objections to his remarks about white sive garbage that may supremacy, and to speak about the many have piled up due to contributions the Arab-American commuthe shutdown. While nity has and continues to make to this the DC city govern- country. ment took on the task “We are here to voice our dismay for of removing garbage what the congressman said concerning from federal trash re- white supremacy,” said NAAWA chairperceptacles during the son Dr. Najat Arafat Khelil. “We are very shutdown, the volun- upset, dismayed and insulted—and we teers found plenty to joined some of the Republican members in do while strolling down Congress asking for the congressman to Members of the Ahmadiyya Youth Association walk along the the Mall towards the resign." National Mall looking for trash. Capitol by removing Khelil, the first woman to receive a doctorSTAFF PHOTO P. PASQUINI
STAFF PHOTO PHIL PASQUINI
MUSLIM AMERICAN ACTIVISM
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PHOTO COURTSEY GROWING PALESTINE
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people—we are dutyate degree in nuclear bound to sustain them,” physics in the state of Itraish told the room full Texas, went on to point of Palestinian Ameriout the contributions of cans and their supportrenowned Arab Ameriers. Living in the U.S., cans, including Donna “we always hear about Shalala, the newlythe American dream, elected U.S. Representabut Palestinians dream, tive for Florida’s 27th contoo,” she said. gressional district, and In the 1930s and ’40s, former energy secretary a massive misinformaSpencer Abraham. tion campaign convinced Before finishing their many that Palestinians remarks, Edmiston didn’t farm—that theirs abruptly interrupted the was barren land until women to say, “I do not (L-r) Dana Barakat, Rula Khoury, Jihan Andoni, Ghada Barakat, Amal David and Najat Jewish farmers made believe this conversaArafat Khelil speak with Suanne Edmiston, legislative director for Rep. Steve King. the desert bloom. “But tion will really be productive, unless we clarify a few things.” Growing Palestine got started a year ago. that was fake news,” Itraish said. “The Jaffa The legislative director denied that Rep. Six of us got to talking about the plight of orange existed long before the land was King was a racist. “All of these things that farmers who struggle to hold onto their stolen; as did cheese from Nablus; figs from are being promulgated about him are lies,” land in “Area C” of occupied Palestine, El-Bireh; grapes from Hebron; barley from she averred. Itraish said. They’d each visited farmers Gaza; wheat from the Galilee; and pomeIn rebutting the women’s demand for and were struck by their ingenuity and per- granates from Haifa.” Growing Palestine will help promote King’s resignation, she stated: “It’s only the severance. Palestinian farmers face chalcongressman’s constituents that can make lenges like the inability to sell their produce sustenance farming by funding projects that determination.” King defeated his De- in markets beyond their villages, the high to capture solar energy, collect rain mocratic challenger by three points in the price of water and a lack of electricity. water, recycle sewage water and set up November election. They were especially inspired by the non- composting systems. It also plans to help When asked about the congressman’s violent resistance practiced by Daoud the Palestine Heirloom Seed Library previews on Islam and Judaism, Edmiston in- Nasser and his family, who farm their Tent serve plants once famous throughout the stead reflected on her personal faith. “I am of Nations, 100 acres on the outskirts of region that are in danger of dying out, including special varieties of cucumber, a Christian. I think that Judaism stops short Bethlehem. of the full truth. Of course I believe that! I’m “Through hot wars and cold peace, our marrow and watermelon. Growing Palestine will send teams of a Christian; it’s what Christians believe!” farmers endure. Their harvests sustain our American volunteers to work with PalestinThe women suggested to Edmiston that ian farmers starting this summer, from a future meeting would be helpful. In the June 1 to 22, who will “come home as ammeantime, NAAWA calls on Congress to bassadors, to advocate for Palestinians.” take further action to censure Rep. King. Itraish concluded, “We Palestinians are —Elaine Pasquini of the land; it’s in our blood and in our Growing Palestine Holds hearts. We are all fellaheen (farmers)!” Inaugural Event Diners bought Palestinian holiday gifts, including olive oil from Middle East Books A new all-volunteer non-profit, Growing & More. They also purchased Palestinian Palestine, held a packed holiday hafla at fruit trees, which will be planted on one of Maggiano’s restaurant in Tyson’s Galleria in the participating farms. Board member McLean, VA on Dec. 16, 2018. Proceeds Nora Burgan challenged the audience, from the fundraiser, co-sponsored with the saying, “If each Palestinian in the diaspora National Arab American Women’s Associplanted one tree, we could plant all of ation (NAAWA), were used to support Palestinian farmers. (L-r) Organizers Anaya Farah, Nora Burgan, Palestine in one year.” Burgan encourBoard member Nadia Itraish welcomed Zeina Azzam and Nadia Itraish wearing aged listeners to apply for the summer program. She said that she often finds herthe overflow audience and explained how their Palestinian thobes. MARCH/APRIL 2019
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WAGING PEACE A Think Tank Discussion... About Think Tanks
A group of think tank scholars gathered at the Middle East Institute (MEI) in Washington, DC on Jan. 31 to reflect on how their industry functions and ways it can better serve the common good. The title of the public event was “The Role of Think Tanks in Shaping Middle East Policy.” Brian Katulis, a senior fellow at the leftleaning Center for American Progress, said think tanks are “suffering from an existential crisis” due to the fact that the U.S. government increasingly lacks a coherent policy planning process. Unaware what the U.S.’ strategic goals are, he said think tank scholars are unsure how to best provide analysis that meets the needs and objectives of policy makers. This issue, he said, has become pronounced under the Trump administration, but has been metastasizing under successive administrations. 58
Katulis also raised alarm at what he believes is a growing trend toward think tanks engaging in advocacy rather than analysis. This, he said, is connected to another problem: think tank analysts reacting instantaneously to breaking news and drawing conclusions before the dust settles and all the facts are known. Analysts are often “too reactive to events, to the latest policy decision in an administration, or the latest thing that happened on the ground,” he said. Think tanks should focus on long-term analysis rather than in the moment punditry, he opined. “We as think tankers devalue what it is that I think we should be doing when we don’t distinguish what we do versus what the media does.” He cited philosophical “tribalism” as another growing issue in the think tank community. Impassioned scholars, he said, increasingly don’t want to debate or work with those who hold differing views on contentious issues. “In the last couple of years it has become much more pronounced and very personal, and I understand why,” he commented. “These issues are very emotional and the stakes are very high.” During the question-and-answer session, audience members asked multiple questions about the extent to which think tanks reflect the biases of their donors, be they wealthy individuals or foreign governments. MEI president Paul Salem said that it’s important for think tanks to be clear about their objectives and goals, transparent about their funding sources, and to make sure their scholars never feel pressured to reflect the views of donors. “Certainly scholars must always enjoy the freedom to
do whatever they want and express whatever views they wish,” he said. At the same time, he acknowledged that think tanks have an inherently awkward and uncomfortable business model. “It’s a difficult business model,” he said. “You’re customer is the public, but you’re providing services for free—that’s the point. The customer is what you see as the public good, the public interest…but the funding has to come from some other source.” Money is a reality think tank leaders have to constantly think about, Salem said. “Most think tanks have to be continuously worried about fundraising.” In order to prevent being beholden to one group or individual, he said it’s important for organizations to have a diverse group of donors. “Diversification is your goal always, so that you’re always able to walk away from any source if it’s a problem,” he said. Randa Slim, a senior fellow at MEI, said secrecy surrounding donors is what fuels public skepticism about the industry. “It’s less the source of funding and more about transparency,” she stated. “When people need to find out about a source of funding from WikiLeaks or they need to find out from hacked emails, that’s the problem.” When think tanks are transparent about where they get their money from, members of the public are empowered to make their own determinations about the objectivity of organizations, she said. One audience member noted that analysts from one-sided think tanks (such as the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, which is heavily funded by ardent Zionists) are often presented as objective commentators by mainstream journalists. “I think the responsibility is on journalists to be careful about who they’re talking with
(L-r) Paul Salem, Steven Kenney, Alistair Taylor, Randa Slim and Brian Katulis reflect on the role of think tanks in policymaking.
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PHOTO COURTESY THE MIDDLE EAST INSTITUTE
self disillusioned by the U.S. political scene, “but when I go to Palestine I always get inspired.” There are four Palestinian Americans working on Growing Palestine’s Committee who were born in the U.S., she added. “So when David Ben-Gurion said, ‘The old will die and the young will forget,’ he was wrong,” Burgan concluded. Another board member, Zeina Azzam, described Palestine’s rich cultural heritage. She read “With the Land” by the major Palestinian poet Rashid Hussein (19361977), which talks about the land of Palestine and what it means to Palestinians on many levels. Azzam also read her own poem titled “Khayr” about the concept of goodness (khayr) that pervades the Arabic language, as well as Palestinian expressions about the bounty of the land and the goodness all around us. Music and dabke dancing capped off the successful inaugural event. For more information email: <growing.palestine@ gmail.com> or visit <www.growing-pales tine.com>. —Delinda C. Hanley
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and as much as possible presenting the full case if they’re quoting somebody as an expert,” Katulis said. However, Katulis urged against the tribalistic instinct to dismiss the views of those on the other side of a debate, even if they represent a biased organization. “To me, if you can take head-on their substantive positions—with the understanding of who might be supporting them or what their particular advocacy agenda is—I actually think that [their presence] enriches the debate,” he said. —Dale Sprusansky
Should U.S. Withdraw from Syria?
STAFF PHOTO PHIL PASQUINI
On Jan. 18, one month after President Trump announced his intention to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria, the SETA Foundation in Washington, DC—which has a close relationship with the Turkish government— convened a group of experts to discuss the regional implications and possible consequences of this controversial decision. “My thesis remains that there are legitimate reasons and overwhelmingly positive reasons for the United States to be getting out of Syria,” Retired Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, now a defense consultant, told the audience. “While ISIS may not be defeated, it has been degraded. The caliphate is gone. Its ability to operate as a military force no longer exists, although they are still a threat and no one doubts that. However, they are not an existential threat to the United States, and once something is not an existential threat to the United States, it is someone else’s problem.” Noting that the U.S. had one reason for being in Syria—to defeat and destroy ISIS—the general argued that signs of mis-
sion creep inside Syria were beginning to materialize. “There was talk about training 40,000 local recruits,” he explained. “That is a multi-year prospect. If there is any kind of post-Syria political resolution, if we were there, no doubt we would be signing up for peace enforcement operations.” Commenting on the plethora of mixed messages from administration officials about the pullout, Kimmitt pointed out that the military takes orders from the president, and stated: “There is that great quip from an unnamed defense official, ‘We don’t take orders from John Bolton.’” According to Hassan Hassan of the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy, the U.S. position of going into Syria was flawed from the beginning. “I think the original sin of this campaign is that it was predicated upon the idea that you could ignore the Syrian conflict and fight ISIS, which is really just a symptom of this whole conflict,” he argued. “So you ignore what others aspire to do inside Syria and what their objectives are.” Kadir Ustun, executive director of the SETA Foundation, moderated the panel and offered concluding remarks from the Turkish perspective. “For the last several years, Turkey has been pressuring the U.S. to stop collaborating with the YPG [Kurdish People’s Protection Units, which are considered hostile by Ankara],” he said. Turkey claims the YPG is trying to achieve its own political autonomy rather than simply fighting ISIS. “There are many Kurdish groups in the region and Turkey is allied with quite a few of them. For Turkey the matter wasn’t the Kurds, but it was specifically the YPG and its partnering with the U.S. military which
(L-r) Kadir Ustun, Retired Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, Hassan Hassan and Andrew Tabler discuss the U.S. military withdrawal from Syria. MARCH/APRIL 2019
translates into much bigger political support,” Ustun said. “The U.S., while acknowledging many of Turkey’s concerns, went — from Ankara’s perspective—into a stalling pattern. It wasn’t clear what the U.S. ultimately wanted to do, but in the meantime the YPG kept enlarging its influence and legitimizing itself in the eyes of the West.” Noting, “A lot of this will have to be figured out going forward,” Ustun optimistically added, “The willingness now of the U.S. to work with Turkey is giving the country confidence.” —Elaine Pasquini
American-Iranian Journalist Swept Up as Material Witness
Protesters assembled Jan. 25 at the U.S. Federal Court Building in Washington, DC to hear African-American Iranian TV journalist Marzieh Hashemi, 59, a dual U.S.Iranian citizen, speak about her arrest by the FBI at St. Louis Lambert International Airport on Jan. 13 while waiting to board a flight. She claims her detention was a “kidnapping,” as she was taken involuntarily over her objections and placed in shackles. Initially, her trip to the U.S. was to visit her family and to work on a Black Lives Matter documentary in St. Louis. Hashemi’s arrest on a “material witness” charge was protested by Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs who called it a “violation of freedom of speech.” (In their most recent report on Iran, Human Rights Watch notes that “space for free speech and dissent remains highly restricted [in Iran], and authorities continue to arrest and charge journalists, bloggers and online media activists for exercising their right to freedom of expression.”) After her detention, Hashemi was transferred by the FBI to Washington, DC, where she was held without charge under a “material witness” warrant meant to compel her to testify in proceedings before a grand jury. During her detention, the producer and on-air presenter for the English-language service of the Iranian state-run Press TV, allegedly had her hijab forcibly removed to be photographed for mug shots and was initially denied both halal and vegetarian food. She also stated that she had been subjected to harsh interrogation and, after ob-
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Forces] aims at people’s legs jecting to a request to collect and there are many amputaher DNA, a sample was tions,” he noted. “The idea is to forcibly taken from her. maim them for life.” Three of her adult children Since President Trump cut were also subpoenaed in the aid to help the Palestinians, almatter to appear, with only one Ahli Arab Hospital is suffering. son having to give testimony. Last month, one of the oldest The nature of the inquiry, as outpatient buildings collapsed with all grand juries, remains and must be rebuilt, and the sealed. hospital is depending on solar Hashemi was released withpower, which the diocese proout charges after being comvided five years ago. pelled to appear before the On his final day in Gaza last court for a fourth and final summer the Israeli military time. Since she is a journalist, Marzieh Hashemi speaking at the U.S. courthouse about her recent dropped 90 bombs in five she was told, “Make sure this arrest and detention. hours around the hospital. doesn’t get out,” a warning she said was issued to keep her detention a se- wounded more than 1,400, many with rub- “They didn’t hit the hospital,” the doctor explained. “In 2014 they hit all the hospitals cret. Instead, the journalist wanted to “take ber bullets. “Now you hear the term rubber bullets all which they claimed were protecting terrorit to the media so that the world knows.” When she contacted major media out- the time,” Cobey said. “But rubber bullets ists, which wasn’t true.” Cobey uses the words “Israeli terrorists,” lets, she was told “they were not interested are steel bullets painted with a coat of rubin her story,” and when they have reported ber. They will go right through your skull as although, he explained, “people say you can’t use that word for Israel. Well, a guy on her case, they preface her as working fast as anything.” The Israeli military also uses dumdum or named Begin who led the Irgun fighting for Iranian state television, a narrative used to diminish her credibility. She is speaking expanding bullets which, under the Hague force in 1948 prided himself on being the out now to “put pressure on the American Convention of 1899, are prohibited in inter- biggest terrorist there is; it was his badge of honor,” after bulldozing Palestinian towns government, that we don’t step down, we national warfare. At the urging of the late Francis Sayre, and cities and helping drive out 750,000 have to speak out.” She also espoused that “You have one life, make it count,” adding “I dean of the Washington National Cathedral, people, Cobey reminded his audience. The doctor also uses the word “apartheid” Cobey first went to Gaza in 1964 between will always stand against oppression!” —Phil Pasquini his junior and senior years of college. He for the Israeli government. “People should worked as a volunteer for the United Na- realize Israel is an apartheid government, so Surgeon Lends Skills to Helping tions Relief and Works Agency for Palestine every time I use the word ‘Israel' I try to say Palestinians Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) for ‘the apartheid government of Israel’ to drive Orthopedic surgeon and long-time human three months. He returned in 2000, and wit- into people’s minds that it is an apartheid rights advocate Dr. James Cobey pre- nessed gross human rights violations of the government, nothing less.” sented his lecture “An Orthopedic Sur- Geneva Convengeon’s Gaza Experience” on Jan. 20 at tions that he deWestmoreland Congregational United scribed in a widely distributed report. Church of Christ in Bethesda, MD. Cobey’s current As a member of Physicians for Human Rights, the Washington, DC-based doctor project is to send shared the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize for his 2 0 0 p o u n d s o f work with the International Campaign to stainless steel rods, necessary for reBan Landmines. Responding to an American Friends of pairing broken leg the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem re- bones, to the al-Ahli quest for medical help and equipment for Arab Hospital in their hospitals in Gaza last year, the doctor Gaza run by the arrived there in July after the Great March Episcopal Diocese of Return protests, in which Israeli snipers of Jerusalem. “The Dr. James Cobey speaks on Palestinian suffering under the Israeli killed more than 200 Palestinians and IDF [Israel Defense occupation.
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mileage will increase incrementally through September and October, when our races take place. If you’re not a “racer,” don’t worry: for many of us, the race is a capstone event that’s less about speed than it is about fulfillment. We have runners at all levels: fast and slow, beginners and veterans. All that matters is a desire to work to improve educational opportunities for Palestinians. Even so, our runners include some outstanding achievers. Some of us have become certified coaches through a program run by the Road Runners Club of America. Several Iqraa runners have qualified for the prestigious Boston Marathon, probably the most elite of American marathons because of its time-based qualifications. Iqraa runners reflect a diverse background and all are welcome. Iqraa is nonsectarian and non-political. We’re united by our love of “Running for a Brighter Palestine!” All the funds we raise are administered by United Palestinian Appeal, which has a four-star rating, the highest assessed by Charity Navigator. Our runners and volunteers have raised over $250,000 for UPA since 2008, all for education projects. To train, we partner with the Marathon Charity Cooperation (MCC), an umbrella group of locally-based charities, many with an international focus, like ours. MCC and its charity partners provide training and race day support for all our runners. This in-
To help the Palestinians, “we need to let our government know that we are doing the wrong thing,” Cobey said. “If legislators don’t vote for the AIPAC [the American Israel Public Affairs Committee] agenda they won’t win the next election,” he argued. “AIPAC says if you don’t follow our rules you will lose the next election.” To counter AIPAC's influence, Cobey urged his audience to adhere to BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions). “The Israelis are afraid of it because it is making a difference,” he said. He related the statement of a congressman who voted for an anti-BDS bill even though he knew it was unconstitutional and would be overturned in the courts—he needed money from AIPAC to get re-elected. “That’s our American government,” Cobey lamented, quoting Will Rogers' statement “We have the best Congress money can buy.” “The only reasonable solution [to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict] is one country,” Cobey stated. “And we must change our government because as long as this government is in power, Israel will keep its apartheid system.” —Elaine Pasquini
I can’t think of a more fulfilling thing I do than the 11 years—going on 12—I’ve spent running for Iqraa. There are two things that make this lifestyle choice so rewarding. First, there’s the cause. As an Iqraa runner, you run with a purpose, as our runners generate scholarships for university students in Palestine. Our slogan reflects our desire to improve educational opportunities for Palestinians; Iqraa, means “read” in Arabic. Second, there are the friendships. Those of us who’ve committed to run down this path together have bonded because good work shared among willing hands has that effect. Here are a few more things you need to know about Team Iqraa as we begin our 12th season on Saturday, May 4 (and invite you to join us). When training starts on May 4, the first run will be one mile for half-marathoners and three miles for marathoners. The MARCH/APRIL 2019
PHOTO COURTESY K. CAMPBELL
Iqraa: Twelve Years of Running for a Brighter Palestine
cludes coaches, running advice, pace groups, food, drink and shelter on race day. Iqraa has established itself as a permanent fixture on the Washington, DC running and volunteer-philanthropy scene. This year, we’re running the Prince William HalfMarathon on Sept. 29 and the Marine Corps Marathon on Oct. 27. However, runners can also pick other races that are compatible with our May-October training schedule. In 2018, Iqraa raised over $22,000, enough to fund about 22 scholarships for university students in the Mahmoud Darwish scholarship program with UPA. At roughly $1,000 per scholarship, the contributions we generate go a long way. We would love to have more runners, so we can support more of these deserving students. UPA works with eight universities to facilitate scholarships, including five in the West Bank—Birzeit, Al Quds, Dar al Kalima, An Najah and Palestine Polytechnic; and three in Gaza, including Al Azhar, University of Palestine and University College of Applied Sciences. UPA will host information sessions for anyone who wants to run for Iqraa—particularly beginning runners—in spring 2019. Most of the info sessions will be in April, both on weeknights and during the early afternoon on Saturdays. If you’re interested, email <kirkcruachan@yahoo.com>. We look forward to running for a brighter Palestine with you! —Kirk Campbell
Iqraa is looking for runners for a brighter Palestine in 2019. All the funds raised are administered by United Palestinian Appeal (UPA), which has a four-star rating, the highest assessed by Charity Navigator. WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
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Guantanamo Prison at Seventeen
Seventeen years after President George W. Bush opened the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, 40 Muslim men remain in indefinite detention at the facility, even though five have been cleared for release. On Jan. 11, Amnesty International USA and the Congressional Progressive Caucus co-sponsored a briefing at the Longworth House Office building on Capitol Hill to address the status of the infamous prison and its aging population. Former detainee Mohamedou Ould Slahi spoke via Skype from Mauritania, alongside his friend and former Guantanamo guard Steve Wood. Slahi penned his best-selling book Guantanamo Diary while in the detention camp for 14 years. Although never charged, Slahi was suspected of being involved in a plot to bomb the Los Angeles airport in 2000. “I have been working to rebuild my life, but now I am a prisoner in my own country,” he lamented, as he is still denied a Mauritanian passport two years after his release. Pardiss Kebriaei, senior staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, described the state of the 40 remaining prisoners. “I see an aging and increasingly sick population, many in chronic pain and weakness,” she said. “Today they are middle aged, in their 40s and 50s. The oldest man in Guantanamo is 71.” A long period of incarceration accelerates physical decline, she noted, and indefinite detention causes a chronic heightened state of anxiety. In addition, she said, “in Guantanamo we are talking about an already tortured population. I am talking specifically about the forms of torture that have been documented by the Senate that occurred in CIA sites before they were brought to Guantanamo. “The prison is unequipped to deal with medical emergencies that may occur with an aging population,” Kebriaei continued. “Highlighting the cruelty and inhumanity of the prison for these men is the inability to 62
have effective or meaningful family communication or relationships.” Dr. Maha Hilal, co-director of the Justice for Muslims Collective, noted, “Guatanamo has always existed as one of the most visible and symbolic sites of institutionalized Islamophobia.” She also expressed concern that under CIA director Gina Daphne Eviatar (seated) listens as Mohamedou Ould Slahi (r) and Steve Wood (l) describe their experiences at the Guantanamo Haspel, who oversaw prison via Skype. the first CIA black sites, the torture inflicted on prisoners may be- for Middle East Peace (CMEP), a broadly come even more brutal. ecumenical organization with members Daphne Eviatar, director of the Security from 28 different denominations across the with Human Rights program at Amnesty In- theological spectrum. ternational USA, has observed the military During her talk, Cannon argued that commissions at the detention center, which there are not two narratives regarding the she said have made no progress. “At this situation in Israel and Palestine, but only point, they are considered a failure,” she one true dichotomy: those who are for claimed. peace and those who are not. To those who Many of the prisoners have never been only care about the State of Israel, Cannon charged with any crime and, despite being remarked, “If you can’t care about the cleared for release by multiple national se- Palestinians for their sake, care about them curity agencies through a process that for the sake of Israel.” President Barack Obama put in place in Cannon dove into her academic back2010, remain in prison. ground to unpack the history of restora“We are urging Congressional over- tionism, the Zionist Christian ideology that sight and refusal to fund any transfers [of ad- the Jewish people needed to be restored to ditional prisoners to the facility] or expansion the land of Israel in order to facilitate the of the prison,” Eviatar said. “This is the second coming of Christ. U.S. allegiances time to put a spotlight on this issue.” and relationships throughout the Middle —Elaine Pasquini East are deeply rooted in this theology, she said, citing the current evangelical-backed administration as an example. BOOK TALKS Evangelicals are at the forefront of the pro-Israel charge among U.S. Christians, Rev. Mae Cannon Offers Christian Cannon explained. The 1967 Arab-Israeli Perspectives on the Holy Land war was a significant turning point in evanOn Jan. 10, Rev. Dr. Mae Cannon dis- gelical moral and political support for Israel, cussed her recent book, A Land Full of she said, however, decades later we are God: Christian Perspectives on the Holy still here, Christ hasn’t returned, and U.S. Land, at the University of Denver’s Josef policy remains deeply one-sided. A Land Full of God: Christian PerspecKorbel School of International Studies. Cannon, who considers herself an advo- tives on the Holy Land seeks to educate cational academic—mixing her academic Americans, mainly Christians, by providcareer with strong advocacy work in the ing an accurate history of events in Israel United States and Middle East—is cur- and Palestine and explaining how the rently the executive director of Churches restorationism theory is theologically inSTAFF PHOTO P. PASQUINI
HUMAN RIGHTS
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MUSIC & ARTS\ “A Bridge Over Blood” Focuses on Friendship
Nigerian-American filmmaker Ose Oyamendan visited Middle East Books & More on Dec. 19 to discuss his latest film. “A Bridge Over Blood,” is about friendship across the Gaza-Sderot war zone and the people who are “caught in between the horrendous conflict.” Oyamendan said, “It’s a story never told by the media, which just want to hear about bombs and dying.” For the past five years, this award-winning filmmaker, based between Lagos, Los Angeles and London, along with Israeli cinematographer/co-producer Roman Shumunov, have been trying to tell the story of a small group of Israelis and Palestinians who care about life on the other side and meet as friends. In 2010 Oyamendan left Los Angeles where his fellow Californians’ biggest worry is getting a cold latte. It was hard to get to Sderot, much less Gaza, he admitted. Israelis at the airport asked, “Why are MARCH/APRIL 2019
now saying they are “twin souls.” Despite pressure from their families, their friendship continues. The trailer shows Roni watching the Great March of Return protests from her vantage point in nearby Sderot. She telephones another friend, Ahmed, who is coping with tear gas at the Friday protest in Gaza. “We’re not going anywhere. They’re not going anywhere. So let’s do what makes sense and make a better future for our children,” Roni tells the film crew. “A Bridge Over Blood,” is in post production and requires funds for distribution and outreach, Oyamendan said. For more information please visit <www.abridgeover blood.com>. —Delinda C. Hanley
Helen Zughaib’s Syrian Migration Series
Opening night for Helen Zughaib’s “Syrian Migration Series,” at the Jerusalem Fund Gallery in Washington, DC on Jan. 25 was so jam-packed that this admirer returned for a quiet closer look. That was a lucky break since gallery curator Dagmar Painter was available to talk about Zughaib’s deeply moving show. Inspired by Jacob Lawrence’s Migration Series from 1940-1941, a 60-painting record of the migration of African Americans from the rural south to the industrial north, Zughaib begins her series with the initial “Arab Spring” uprising in Tunisia in 2010 that soon spread across the Middle East. Her paintings depict the ravages of the never-ending Syrian civil war and the displacement of millions of refugees. Zughaib’s focus is not overtly political,
you even trying to go? People get killed there.” They were right, Oyamendan said. Families in Sderot have their lives interrupted as they rush to bomb shelters. In Gaza, where there are no bomb shelters, the only way people know an Israeli bomb is coming is when they see it in the sky. Once, according to Oyamendan, Palestinians and Israelis were friendly neighbors living in Gaza and Sderot, which are twin towns, separated by only a few hundred yards. But, today they are only united by hate, grief, death and losses. Tired of the unending violence, a few dozen friends on either side of the wall, who rarely have physical contact, are trying to be friends, Oyamendan said. Israeli volunteers from Humans Without Borders meet Palestinian patients who have obtained permits and escort them to Israeli hospitals. This program helped Roni, a 70-something Israeli grandmother and Maha, a young Palestinian, meet and they “just clicked.” They laugh Ose Oyamendan shows a trailer from his latest film. STAFF PHOTO D. HANLEY
correct. Her book brings in Israeli and Palestinian voices to provide multiple viewpoints on the single narrative of the land. An edited volume, A Land Full of God contains 30 chapters featuring contributors from all sides of the political spectrum, including former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s speech on Gaza in 2014 and Pope Francis’ 2014 speech in Bethlehem. Chapters cover topics relating to history, theology, human rights, politics and more. The Jan. 10 talk concluded with a vibrant opportunity for questions and answers. One question arose again and again in multiple ways: as individuals, what tools could we employ to change U.S. policy in the Middle East? Cannon urged attendees to talk to members of Congress, observing that if they believed they could vote differently on Israel, they would. A Land Full of God: Christian Perspectives on the Holy Land is available from Middle East Books and More. —Craig Sanders
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Painter said. She doesn’t take sides in Syria’s ghastly civil war. She’s more concerned about depicting the victims, especially women and children in this 25-painting series. Beneath each of Zughaib’s gouache and ink paintings is a thumb nail of the Lawrence work that inspired Zughaib’s interpretation. “Every time I look at these paintings, I see new things,” Painter marveled. “Each painting stands on its own but they’re also connected to Lawrence’s works in interesting ways.”
As the protests became increasingly violent, more people began to leave Syria for neighboring countries, including Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey.(Gouache on board, 12x18, framed 18x24.) Lawrence’s migrants are escaping poverty in the Jim Crow South, carrying their possessions in sacks, escaping possible lynching or starvation. Zughaib’s refugees may echo the same flow and movement across the canvas, but her migrants are fleeing war. They’re leaving behind good jobs, homes and comfortable middle class lives and heading toward poverty in camps. Zughaib’s colorful figures, carrying briefcases or suitcases and wearing hats or ribbons, subtly smash the stereotypical migration. 64
PHOTOS COURTESY JERUSALEM FUND GALLERY
Heavy bombing killed thousands of people.
“It’s interesting to poke around each painting to see how Helen changed the images,” Painter continued. She pointed to one painting of migrants that Zughaib captioned “Heavy bombing killed thousands of people.” Zughaib transformed the birds flying over Lawrence’s African American migrants to war planes above the Syrians. Gazing at an image of a doctor examining a sick child lying in a tent, Painter noted that normally we see only the backs of Zughaib’s figures. Only occasionally do we see the face of a child, like this sick girl, and it’s nearly always Zughaib’s own face,
often showing a tear, a hair bow or a tiny shoe. Her women and children migrants are vulnerable and hard to ignore...and they keep coming. These paintings are deeply personal to Zughaib, who was born in Beirut, Lebanon and permanently displaced herself in 1975 due to the Lebanese civil war. For nearly eight years her work has concentrated on the Arab Spring, its shattering aftermath and the refugees who continue to flee to the Arab world, Europe and the United States. For more information and images please visit <www.thejerusalemfund.org>. —Delinda C. Hanley
Many people tried to go to Europe and Turkey, seeking refuge from the war.
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March/April 2019 issue 12/11/18 8:55 AM Page 65
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bookreview_66.qxp_Book Review 2/7/19 10:18 PM Page 66
B •O •O •K •S Jerusalem: The Home in Our Hearts By Saliba Sarsar, Holy Land Books, an imprint of Noble Book Publishing, Inc., 2018, paperback, 211 pp. MEB: $19.
Dr. Saliba Sar sar’s memoir, Jerusalem: The Home in Our Hearts, is a paean to the highest potential of human nature as illustrated by the deeds of men and women in Palestine whom he has personally known. It is a saga of unstinting generosity, persevering hope, and resilience in the face of crushing adversity. This Palestinian-American professor of political science has woven together the stories of three generations of his family and their friends with the sweeping historical developments in Palestine that shaped their lives. In the course of the narrative, this memoir portrays life in Jerusalem and its environs during various periods stretching from the Russian immigration of the late 19th century, through the traumas of 1948 and 1967, to the turn of the millennium. This gripping real-life drama opens with a bang—literally. Caught in the crossfire of the Six Day War of 1967, ten members of the Sarsar family huddle in two interior closets of their home, and we, the readers, are drawn into their terror. When the family flees and its members are separated in the chaos, we, too, wander through the wartorn landscape with 11-year-old Saliba and his 18-year-old brother Michel as, footsore and famished, they search for shelter. It is a relief to learn that the boys were shielded by the hospitality of an Orthodox
Carole Monica Burnett edits translations of ancient and medieval texts for the Catholic University of America Press. Having retired from adjunct teaching at graduate schools of theology in the DC and Baltimore areas, she is active with Friends of Sabeel North America and a local refugee resettlement project. 66
Reviewed by Carole Monica Burnett Christian monastic community and then by the generosity of a couple who opened their home to the boys. Even this hiatus from gunfire, however, was broken by a belligerent Israeli soldier holding a gun to Michel’s head, threatening immediate death. Why? The teenager had inadvertently violated the curfew—of which he had not been informed—by delivering bread to elderly ladies. Life under Jordanian rule had been stable, although somewhat repressive, between 1948 and the upheavals of 1967. The Sarsar family resided in the mostly Muslim neighborhood of Al-Thawri, or Abu Tor, which is located on a hill south of the Old City of Jerusalem, adjacent to the Valley of Hinnom. Their identity as belonging to the tiny Christian minority there posed no impediment to their harmonious relationships with their neighbors. After its account of the ordeal of the Six Day War, the narrative shifts into flashback mode to chronicle the family’s multi-ethnic origins. Prior to the 1942 wedding of Dr. Sarsar’s parents, the young couple and their various relatives had been Jerusalem residents. Dr. Sarsar’s father, an orphan born to a Russian refugee fleeing the Bolsheviks, lived in two foster homes in Jerusalem before being adopted; during this process his first name evolved from Ivan to Hanna and finally to George. His mother, Evelyn, was in effect an orphan since her Palestinian Arab mother died after childbirth, and her Greek father made himself scarce during her childhood (although not later). It was the unwavering love of her grandmother and her aunt—the redoubtable Futun, who was also George’s adoptive mother—that nurtured and guided Evelyn to adulthood. Although the young Saliba was initially shocked to learn that his lineage was only one-quarter Palestinian Arab, it became clear that his hybrid genealogy reflects the broad diversity of Jerusalem itself, which is a cosmopolitan mosaic of contrasting ethnic and religious identities. It should be noted here that the book’s chart of family relationships, which is included among the 5 maps and 27 pho-
WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
tographs, enhances the reader-friendly format of the book. Chapters 3–7 trace the growth and progress of the Sarsar family as it deals with the end of the British Mandate, the era of Jordanian administration, and annexation by Israel. The historical information that the author provides on political, economic, and military developments is helpful and not excessive: it aids in understanding the narrative without hindering the flow. Chapter 8 profiles the family’s neighbors and friends, and Chapter 9 consists of endearing, up-close portraits of Dr. Sarsar’s parents, grandmother, and seven irrepressibly resilient siblings, who all manage to succeed in their professions in spite of limited financial resources and Israeli expropriation of property. Finally, Dr. Sarsar describes briefly and modestly his own ascent from poverty to professorship. The book’s conclusion, or Afterword, is a powerful note of encouragement to all of us to cling to hope and to persevere in the uphill effort to create a better world, a “culture of peace” in which the “habits of peace” can flourish and where the interdependence of human beings is embraced. Not only are these concluding thoughts exceptionally moving, but Dr. Sarsar has touched this reader’s heart throughout the book with his own original poetry. Beginning each chapter is a poem that captures the essence of what follows. For example, Dr. Sarsar prefaces his inspiring afterword with these poetic lines (page 163): Where there is faith, where there is resilience, the future we seek is near. Despair’s depths are sharp; the peak of hope is wondrous. Rising from conflict and war, the Holy City is eager to embrace all of us—Jew & Arab; Israeli & Palestinian Jewish, Christian, Muslim, and other. Let empathy caress our negative minds. Let the sun mend our broken hearts. Let lively music enlighten our way. The ascent awaits our steps; the promise awaits to be kept. ■ MARCH/APRIL 2019
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• EAST • BOOKS • AND • MORE MIDDLE Literature Films Pottery Solidarity Items More *
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WINTER 2019 The Future of Terrorism: ISIS, al-Qaeda, and the AltRight, by Walter Laqueur and Christopher Wall, Thomas Dunne Books, 2018, hardcover, 272 pp. MEB: $17. Bringing reason to a topic usually ruled by fear, Laqueur and Wall show the structural features behind contemporary terrorism: how bad governance abets terror; the link between poverty and terrorism; why religious terrorism is more dangerous than secular; and the nature of supposed “lone wolf” terrorists. Fear alone provides no tools to combat the future of terrorism. This book does.
Black Power and Palestine: Transnational Countries of Color, by Michael R. Fischbach, Stanford University Press, 2018, paperback, 292 pp. MEB: $22. Fischbach uncovers the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict’s role in African-American activism and the ways that distant struggle shaped the domestic fight for racial equality. Black Power shows how transnational connections between African Americans and Palestinians deeply affected U.S. black politics, animating black visions of identity well into 1970s. Black Power and Palestine allows those black voices to be heard again today.
What Is Russia Up To in the Middle East?, by Dmitri Trenin, Polity, 2017, paperback, 144 pp. MEB: $12. In this hardhitting essay, a leading analyst of Russian affairs offers a clear and nuanced analysis of Russia’s involvement in the Middle East and its regional and global ramifications. Russia, he argues, cannot and will not supplant the U.S. as the leading external power in the region, but its actions are accelerating changes which will fundamentally remake the international system in the next two decades.
A Concise History of Sunnis and Shi’is, by John McHugo, Georgetown University Press, 2018, paperback, 352 pp. MEB: $25. Definitive, insightful and accessible, A Concise History of Sunnis and Shi'is is an essential guide to understanding the genesis, development and manipulation of the schism that for far too many people has come to define Islam and the Muslim world. McHugo, an Arabic linguist, historian and international lawyer, explains how in recent decades the “centuriesold” rivalry has resulted in violence with no end in sight.
Live and Die Like a Man: Gender Dynamics in Urban Egypt, by Farha Ghannam, Stanford University Press, 2013, paperback, 236 pp. MEB: $21. The January 2011 revolution gave renewed urgency to the fraught topic of gender in the Middle East. Through her daily encounters and interviews, Ghannam develops life stories that show how men work to realize a “male ideal.” Ghannam counters the prevalent stereotypes of Middle Eastern men frequently reproduced in media, and opens new spaces for thinking about their effects on both men and women.
Beirut Rules: The Murder of a CIA Station Chief and Hezbollah’s War Against America, by Fred Burton and Samuel Katz, Berkley, 2018, hardcover, 400 pp. MEB: $25. Beirut Rules is the pulse-bypulse account of William Buckley’s abduction, torture and murder at the hands of Hezbollah. Drawing on never-beforeseen government documents as well as interviews with Buckley’s co-workers, friends and family, Burton and Katz reveal how the relentless search for Buckley in the wake of his kidnapping ignited a war that continues to shape the Middle East to this day.
Halal Food: A History, by Febe Armanios and Boğaç Ergene, Oxford University Press, 2018, hardcover, 400 pp. MEB: $25. Food trucks announcing “halal” proliferate in many urban areas but how many non-Muslims know what this means, other than a cheap lunch? Here Middle Eastern historians Febe Armanios and Boğaç Ergene provide an accessible introduction to halal (permissible) food in the Islamic tradition, exploring what halal food means to Muslims and how its legal and cultural interpretations have changed in different geographies up to the present day.
Baladi: A Celebration of Food from Land and Sea, by Joudie Kalla, Interlink Publishing, 2018, hardcover, 256 pp. MEB: $25. A follow-up to her debut Palestine on a Plate, Joudie Kalla introduces readers to more of the Middle East’s best kept secret—Palestinian cuisine. With stunning photographs to accompany each recipe, the book is interspersed with shots of the landscapes, streets and people of Palestine, reflecting the rich culinary culture running throughout the whole country.
When Women Ruled the World: Six Queens of Egypt, by Kara Cooney, National Geographic, 2018, hardcover, 400 pp. MEB: $20. Female rulers are a rare phenomenon—but thousands of years ago in ancient Egypt, women reigned supreme. Celebrated Egyptologist Kara Cooney examines the lives of six female pharaohs, delivering a fascinating tale of female power. She also explores the reasons why women have seldom been allowed to lead through the ages, and why we should care.
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needs to get a grip on reality. Nevertheless, the Senate wants to perpetuate the status quo forever. In words attributed to Talleyrand, the Senate—like the Bourbon kings—“have learned nothing and forgotten nothing.” Nigel E. Jeffries, Charleston, WV
NO REASON TO SUSTAIN ENDLESS U.S. WARS
NO SHAME IN “SURRENDER”
To The Washington Post, Feb. 1, 2019 I read former ambassador Ryan Crocker’s Jan. 30 op-ed, “The U.S. is surrendering to the Taliban,” with sympathy for his frustration. But I believe he weakened his argument by making an analogy to Vietnam. It is true that at the Paris peace talks the United States negotiated a kind of surrender, but the alternative was to continue a war that had lost the support of the American people, seemed to have no purpose and was costing thousands of American lives and billions of dollars. If we look at Vietnam today, and the U.S. relationship with Vietnam, few would regret that “surrender.” That is not to say that we should necessarily expect a similar development with Afghanistan. Nevertheless, I think the lesson of Vietnam might teach us that failure to achieve our objectives need not result in tragedy and can be better than continued stalemate. Peter Samson, McLean, VA
ENDING WARS IS NOT PROMOTING ISOLATIONISM
To The New York Times, Feb. 1, 2019 Re “President Draws Bipartisan Swipe From the Senate” (front page, Feb. 1): If the Senate is the “world’s greatest deliberative body,” I would hate to see the worst. America has been militarily involved in Afghanistan for more than 17 years. In that time, we are no closer to stabilizing a war-torn region. America has nearly 800 foreign bases across the globe. Any senator who seriously thinks that withdrawing from Syria and Afghanistan is akin to turning isolationist MARCH/APRIL 2019
To the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Dec. 29, 2018 I’m going to praise President Donald Trump for a second. He’s right: We’ve been fighting other countries’ wars for too long. It’s time they stepped up for themselves. Notably, Trump’s action goes against the advice of his generals, who said, “Mr. President, we just need a little more time.” Enough. We’ve been at war in the Middle East and Afghanistan for more than 17 years. Most high school kids have never known an America at peace. Think about that for a second. How much more time do we need? We fight one, then the next, then the next, and so on. You know the saying, “When you’re a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.” Sadly, we are making more enemies, not fewer, by engaging in perpetual wars. And we are draining our treasury while doing it. Yes, I am liberal, but I do not wish for the president’s failure. His failure is our nation’s failure. Pray for peace. Michael Evangelista-Ysasaga, Fort Worth, TX
ARE DEMOCRATS THE NEW PROWAR PARTY?
To the Bowling Green Daily News, Feb. 5, 2019 Our major political parties have regularly been identified as being either “hawkish” (Republicans) or “dovish” (Democrats). It has become so deep-rooted that Republicans have regularly campaigned against Democrats as being weak on defense, while Democrats accuse the Republicans of being militaristic and jingoistic. But recent polls show that this party division may be reversing. President Donald Trump’s recent order to withdraw all our troops from Syria triggered bipartisan outrage in Washington’s pro-war establishment. Official Washington, which includes the elites of each party, was clearly opposed. “But while official Washington united in
opposition, new polling data from Morning Consult/Politico shows that a large plurality of Americans support Trump’s Syria withdrawal announcement: 49 percent support to 33 percent opposition.” But what is most startling about these polling numbers is the remarkable reversal among party voters. “Of people who voted for Clinton in 2016, only 26 percent support withdrawing troops from Syria, while 59 percent oppose it. Trump voters overwhelmingly support withdrawal by 76 percent to 14 percent,” according to The Intercept. This Democrat/Republican reversal regarding war issues holds for the voters in the recent 2018 elections and on the question of withdrawing from Afghanistan. A recent poll reported in The Huffington Post had a comparable party reversal on the general questions of war and militarism. The Democrats have become the “hawk” party, and the Republicans the less hawkish party. The political left has labeled their new found militarism “responsibility to protect” or R2P. It also goes under the title “liberal interventionism.” Then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was a champion of R2P, often criticizing President Barack Obama for not being aggressive enough, and it took antiTrumpism to get her party to come around to her way of thinking. I expect the 2020 Democrats to be pushing hawkish R2P military policies, especially regarding but not limited to, the Middle East. Edward Wolfe, Bowling Green, KY
SENATE’S FIRST BILL VIOLATES THE FIRST AMENDMENT
To the Longview News-Journal, Feb. 7, 2019 My letter does not concern President Trump or the wall or any of that. My letter concerns a bill, S. 1, that just passed in the U.S. Senate with over 70 senators from both parties voting for it. It is the so-called Combating BDS Act. What it means is you could be discriminated against if you refuse to sign a clause that says you will not support boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) on the state of Israel for its blatant apartheid policies and war crimes against the Palestinian people. You may think, “Well I don’t care about the indigenous people of Palestine or Israel,” but this is a blatant attack on your freedom of speech guaranteed by our Constitution. There is much ado about possible
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Russian interference in the U.S. presidential election. However it can’t hold a candle to the power and influence of the Israeli lobby, and we should not tolerate the loss of free speech to any foreign power. And our two strict constitutionalists Sens. Cruz and Cornyn, went along with this attack on our Constitution. Let them know that you are calling them on that. Jerry King, Longview, TX
LEADERS MUST SHOW TOLERANCE, NOT HATE
MLK AND THE PALESTINIANS
To The New York Times, Jan. 22, 2019 Re “Time to Break the Silence on Palestine” (column, Jan. 20): I applaud Michelle Alexander in laying out a very articulate case for speaking up for Palestinian rights. I speak as an American Jew in saying that supporting the Palestinian struggle for rights is about the most “Jewish” thing I can do, as it aligns with values of universal justice. Fortunately, in greater numbers, Jewish communities are realizing this as a critical issue with which we must honestly wrestle. Speaking out, as Ms. Alexander has, can be difficult, as it will open up all sorts of attacks and criticism. But if we have
IndextoAdvertisers Alalusi Foundation . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 Al-Mokha Coffee. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 American Friends of Birzeit University . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 American Muslims for Palestine American Near East Refugee Aid (ANERA) . . . . . . . Inside Back Cover Amphorae Publishing . . . . . . . . . . . 36 Insight Turkey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 Israel Lobby and American Policy . 37 Kinder USA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Mashrabiya . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 Middle East Children’s Alliance . . . 23 Mondoweiss. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 Museum of the Palestinian People 42 Palestinian Medical Relief Society (Friends of UPMRC) . . . . . . . . . . . 11 United Palestinian Appeal (UPA) . . . . . . . . . Inside Front Cover 70
learned anything from Martin Luther King’s legacy, in this world of many injustices, we need to speak up for the causes that are, as Ms. Alexander says, “the great moral challenges of our times.” Working for Palestinian rights goes hand in hand with working against racism, poverty, xenophobia and sexism. Thank you, Ms. Alexander, for reminding us so eloquently that we cannot be silent when such injustices occur. Maxine Fookson, Portland, OR
BDS IS THE WAY TO PEACE
To The Guardian, Jan. 25, 2019 Your editorial (“If one can kill with impunity then can one lie without consequence?,” Jan. 23) is welcome in its robust criticism, but fails to follow on by asking what the international community can do to restrain Israel’s continuing war on the Palestinians. With the U.S. endorsing and funding Israel’s actions, and in the absence of any willingness on the part of European governments to do more than gently admonish while continuing in practice to collude, civil society has only one course of action. The worldwide growing calls for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions are powerful non-violent means of putting pressure on the Israeli state (which has had to set aside substantial sums to fund its propaganda war against the BDS movement) and of making Israeli citizens conscious of the opprobrium in which its government’s policies are held. Is it not now time for the Guardian to support our movement? Some of us are old enough to remember the role of civil society’s BDS movement against apartheid South Africa and how eventually governments were shamed into imposing sanctions and compelling change. We should take inspiration from that victory. Hilary and Steven Rose, London, England
WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
To the South Florida SunSentinel, Jan. 25, 2019 As a Muslim American, I strongly condemn a Florida Jewish commissioner verbally attacking Muslim Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib. Muslims and Jews share similar values. We support peace, and strive for justice and harmony. In fact, the main principles of both religions are to be kind and to spread peace. Hallandale Beach Commissioner Anabelle Lima-Taub called for Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan to be removed from office because she might “blow up Capitol Hill.” These types of remarks fuel prejudice and suppress harmony. I would urge commissioner Anabelle LimaTaub to strive for tolerance, understanding, and affection. The last thing we need is more hate and bigotry in this country. Maria Nadeem, Hallandale Beach, FL
RECRUITING FOR PEACE
To The Seattle Times, Jan. 7, 2019 Re: “The Army, looking for recruits in Seattle, finds it a hard sell”: The article failed to identify the veterans organization that does the counter-recruiting in Seattle High Schools. This “counterrecruiting action team” is the local chapter of the national veterans organization Veterans For Peace. We are providing additional information to students the military is targeting for recruitment. We share our military experience, and we tell students what the recruiters won’t tell them. We use our own “Military I.Q. Test” to engage students to help them understand the risks and downside of military service. Despite the Army’s new pitch to make military service appear benign and exciting, students are still going to have second thoughts about joining the military when they get all the facts about life in the military, the true costs of war and how our military is being used around the world. While the Army’s new marketing ploy to liberal cities may garner some attention, it won’t make much progress on its recruitment goals until it faces the hard facts and reality of today’s military. Dan Gilman, Seattle, WA, Veterans for Peace MARCH/APRIL 2019
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O• B • I • T • U • A • R • I • E • S Ambassador Carleton S. Coon Jr., 91, died in Warrenton, VA on Dec. 3, 2018. Born in Paris in 1927, Ambassador Coon served briefly in the U.S. Army at the end of World War II, and then graduated from Harvard in 1949. He joined the U.S. Foreign Service shortly thereafter and was posted in Damascus, Delhi, Tabriz, Morocco, and, finally, Nepal where he served from 1981-1984. After retiring from the Foreign Service in 1985, Coon became involved with the American Humanist Association where he eventually served a five-year term as vice president. He also wrote and pursued intellectual interests in human evolution—a curiosity he inherited from his anthropologist father—as well as musical pursuits, composing a number of chamber and piano works. Ambassador Coon and almost 90 U.S. diplomats signed a letter initiated by the Washington Report in 2004 to President George W. Bush urging him “to reassert American principles of justice and fairness” to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. While neither the White House nor the State Department agreed to meet with the diplomats, the Palestinian American Congress invited the delegation to visit the West Bank and meet with President Yasser Arafat. Their visit included witnessing Israeli checkpoints, the apartheid wall, harassment by settlers, all designed to make life intolerable for Palestinians. He’d recently celebrated his 50th wedding anniversary with his wife Jane Abell Coon, who was also a career Foreign Service Officer and an ambassador in her own right. He is survived by his five children, 13 grandchildren, and 12 greatgrandchildren.
Amos Oz, 79, died on Dec. 28, 2018 at home in Tel Aviv after a short bout with cancer. Born Amos Klausner in Jerusalem to a family of Eastern European Jews who migrated to British-occupied Mandate Palestine, Amos would go on to pursue a prolific writing career and accumulate a long list of accolades and honors. He was awarded the Knight’s Cross of the Legion d’Honneur, the prestigious MARCH/APRIL 2019
German Goethe Prize, named Officer of Arts and Letters in France, and won several Israeli literary prizes. A longtime advocate of the two-state solution, Oz grew critical of Israeli occupation despite having participated in the 1967 and 1973 Arab-Israeli wars. He would eventually help found the wellknown Peace Now movement committed to realizing a two-state solution and criticizing Israeli settlement expansion. The famed novelist produced almost two dozen works of fiction, and hundreds of articles and essays over the course of his prolific career. His final book, Dear Zealots: Letters from a Divided Land, addressed rising extremism in Israeli society. He is survived by his three children.
Prince Talal bin Abdulaziz, 87, died on Dec. 22, 2018 in Riyadh after several years of illness. The prince was a senior member of the ruling al-Saud family and father of Saudi billionaire Alwaleed bin Talal. Born to King Abdulaziz ibn Saud (his 20th son) and an Armenian woman, Munaiyir, Prince Talal was notable for his record of dissident activity as well as his support for political reforms and greater rights for women in Saudi Arabia. “The Red Prince,” as he would come to be known, spearheaded a group of princes allied with Egypt’s then-President Gamal Abdel Nasser to push for constitutional reforms. His activity in the “Free Princes Movement” and an escalation in rhetoric during the height of an EgyptianSaudi regional cold war would result in the eventual revocation of Prince Talal’s passport and a period of self-imposed exile. With the ascent of King Faisal to the throne, however, Prince Talal would eventually recant his previous activity and return to the Kingdom. In 2011, Prince Talal stepped down from his post as a member of the Allegiance Council which is responsible for managing future succession to the Saudi throne. Lamin Sanneh, 76, died in New Haven, CT on Jan. 6 following a stroke. Remembered globally as a leading expert on re-
Compiled by Amin Gharad ligion and global Christianity, Dr. Sanneh is celebrated for having influenced contemporary discourse on both Islam and Christianity in Africa. In his memoir, Summoned From the Margin: Homecoming of an African, he describes his youth as being engrossed in existential questions around God and suffering—a period he credits as having propelled not only his personal spiritual journey, but his scholarly trajectory as well. Born into a large rural Muslim family in Gambia, Dr. Sanneh converted to Christianity in his teens and eventually became a practicing Roman Catholic. His scholarship boasts a body of more than 20 books and hundreds of articles as well as a series of teaching posts at the University of Ghana, Harvard University, and Yale, where he remained active for the last three decades of his life. Dr. Sanneh is survived by his wife, Sandra, and their children and grandchildren. Mohamed Ben Khalifa, 35, an Associated Press photojournalist, was fatally wounded by shrapnel while covering clashes between militia groups in Tripoli, Libya on Jan. 20. Since Libya’s uprising and ensuing civil war, almost 20 journalists have been killed, with dozens more disappeared or unaccounted for or forced to flee the country. Friends and co-workers lauded Ben Khalifa both for his rapid rise to fame as Libya’s most prominent photojournalist and his concern for preserving the dignity of his subjects. They recalled his compassion, good humor, kindness, and all around decency Described by family members as having been “obsessed” with photography and cameras since childhood, Ben Khalifa went on to study the fine arts and formally began his professional photography work in the wake of the 2011 Libyan uprising against Muammar Gaddafi. His reporting focused extensively on tracking political and militant conflicts in the country, as well as the plight of the wounded, internally displaced persons and migrants. He is survived by his wife, Lamia, and 6-month-old daughter, Rayan. ■
WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
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AET’s 2018 Choir of Angels
following are individuals, organizations, companies and foundations whose help between Jan. 11, 2018 and Jan.8, 2019 is making possible activities of the tax-exempt aet library endowment (federal id #52-1460362) and the american educational trust, publisher of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. some angels helped us co-sponsor the conference “the israel lobby and american policy.” others donated to our “capital Building fund.” We are deeply honored by their confidence and profoundly grateful for their generosity.
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Anonymous, San Francisco, CA Maher Abbas, Uniontown, OH Jeff Abood, Silver Lake, OH Catherine Aborjaily, Westfield, MA Rev. Fahed Abu-Akel, Atlanta, GA Rizek & Alice Abusharr, Claremont, CA Miriam & Stephen Adams, Albuquerque, NM Michael & Jane Adas, Highland Park, NJ James C. Ahlstrom, Stirling, NJ Aglaia & Mumtaz Ahmed, Buda, TX Qamar Ahsan, Flint, MI Ali Akbar, Oakland, CA Ahmad Al-Absy, Omaha, NE Saleh Al-Ashkar, Tucson, AZ Dr. & Mrs. Salah Al-Askari, Leonia, NJ Dr. Subhi Ali, Waverly, TN Joe & Siham Alfred, Fredericksburg, VA Mazen Alsatie, Carmel, IN Arthur Alter, Santa Barbara, CA Hamid & Kim Alwan, Milwaukee, WI Nabil & Judy Amarah, Danbury, CT Ruby Amatulla, Dhaka, Bangladesh Edwin Amidon, Charlotte, VT Nazife Amrou, Sylvania, OH Louise Anderson, Oakland, CA Dr. Ali Antar, Bristol, CT Mr. & Mrs. Thomas Are, Stone Mountain, GA Dr. Robert Ashmore, Mequon, WI Salim Bahloul, Blackburn South, Australia Shukri Baker, Beaumont, TX Rev. Robert E. Barber, Parrish, FL Elizabeth Barlow, Augusta, MI Allen & Jerrie Bartlett, Philadelphia, PA Mohammed & Wendy Bendebba, Baltimore, MD Linda Bergh, Syracuse, NY Dr. Ann Bragdon, Houston, TX John V. Brown, Los Altos, CA James Burkart, Bethesda, MD Liza Burr & John Landgraf, Saint 72
Paul, MN Prof. Mireya Camurati, Williamsville, NY Lynn & Aletha Carlton, Norwalk, CT Ouahib Chalbi, Coon Rapids, MN Patricia Christensen, Poulsbo, WA Carolyn Cicciu, Goffstown, NH James Cobey, Washington, DC John Cornwall, Palm Springs, CA John Dirlik, Pointe Claire, Canada Dr. George Doumani, Washington, DC Sarah L. Duncan, Vienna, OH Ibrahim Elkarra, San Francisco, CA Kassem Elkhalil, Arlington, TX Ghassan Elkhatib, Belton, MO Preston Enright, Denver, CO Barbara Erickson, Berkeley, CA Mary Esposito, Cape Elizabeth, ME Albert E. Fairchild, Bethesda, MD Steve Feldman, Winston Salem, NC E. Aracelis Francis, St. Thomas, VI Bill Freij, Plymouth, MI John Freitas, Fresno, CA Donald Frisco, Wilmington, DE Michael Gillespie, Maxwell, IA Sherif Gindy, Macomb, MI Sam Gousen, Arlington, VA Barbara Gravesen, Lady Lake, FL Douglas Greene, Bowling Green, OH William Grimstad, Woodland Park, CO Iftekhar Hai, S. San Francisco, CA Alice Hall, Duxbury, MA Dixiane Hallaj, Purcellville, VA Erin K. Hankir, Nepean, Canada Delinda C. Hanley, Kensington, MD Shirley Hannah, Queensbury, NY Angelica Harter, N. Branford, CT Mr. & Mrs. Sameer Hassan, Quaker Hill, CT Joan & Edward Hazbun, Media, PA Clement Henry, Moorestown, NJ James Hillen, North Vancouver, Canada M.D. Hotchkiss, Portland, OR Dr. Sami Husseini, Ithaca, NY Zaher & Juhaynau Husseini, Dallas, TX Mr. & Mrs. Azmi Ideis, Deltona, FL Souhail Israwi, Downey, CA
Washington RepoRt on Middle east affaiRs
Mustafa Issa, Montreal, Canada Mary Izett, Walnut Creek, CA Rafeeq Jaber, Palos Hills, IL Dr. Raymond Jallow, Los Angeles, CA Bilquis Jaweed, West Chester, OH Ronald Jaye, Watsonville, CA Janis Jibrin, Washington, DC Richard Johnson, Glendale, CA Mark Kaidy, Westminster, MD Dr. Nadim Kassem, Roseland, NJ Mr. & Mr. Basim Kattan, Washington, DC Stephen Kaye, New York, NY Nazik Kazimi, Newton, MA Brian J. Kelly, Albuquerque, NM Charles Kennedy, Concord, NH Susan Kerin, Rockville, MD Ismath J. Khan, Bloomfield Hills, MI M. Yousuf Khan, Scottsdale, AZ Dr. Mohayya Khilfeh, Chicago, IL Abdalhakim Khirfan, Flint, MI Eugene Khorey, West Mifflin, PA Dr. Nabil Khoury, Bloomfield, MI Tony Khoury, Sedona, AZ Carl Kleinholz, Elyria, OH Loretta Krause, Southport, NC Edward Kuncar, Coral Gables, FL Ronald Kunde, Skokie, IL Matt Labadie, Portland, OR John Lankenau, Tivoli, NY Mary Ann Laret, Sarasota, FL David F. Lent, Hanover, NH## Marilyn Levin, Ashland, OR William Lindberg, Edina, MN William Lofthouse, Ashland, OR Phillip M. Lombard, Whitehall, MI Joseph Louis, Los Gatos, CA J. Robert Lunney, Bronxville, NY Anthony Mabarak, Grosse Pointe Park, MI Marilyn MacConnell, Lancaster, PA Allen J. MacDonald, Washington, DC Donald Maclay, Springfield, PA Jane Hamilton Mader, Portland, OR Farah Mahmood, Forsyth, IL Richard Makdisi & Lindsay Wheeler, MaRch/apRil 2019
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Berkeley, CA Dr. Asad Malik, Bloomfield Hills, MI Ted Marczak, Toms River, NJ Joseph A. Mark, Carmel, CA Martha Martin, Kahului, HI Stephen Mashney, Anaheim, CA John Matthews, West Newton, MA Carol Mazzia, Santa Rosa, CA Shirl McArthur, Reston, VA Alex & Peggy McDonald, Burke, VA Alex & Peggy McDonald, San Francisco, CA Gwendolyn McEwen, Bellingham, WA Raymond L. McGovern, Arlington, VA Bill McGrath, Northfield, MN Prof. John Mearsheimer, Chicago, IL Aspasia Merza, Garden City, NY Robert Michael, Sun Lakes, AZ Tom Mickelson, Neshkoro, WI Ernest Miller, Phoenix, AZ Dr. Yehia Mishriki, Emmaus, PA Shehad Mohammed, Orland Hills, IL John & Ruth Monson, La Crosse, WI Mr. & Mrs. Jan Moreb, Gainesville, FL Ann Murphy, Tacoma, WA Isa & Dalal Musa, Falls Church, VA Raymond & Joan Musallam, Wilton, CA Joseph Najemy, Worcester, MA John Najemy, Albany, NY Stephen L. Naman, Atlanta, GA Jacob Nammar, San Antonio, TX Mary Neznek, Washington, DC Mr. & Mrs. W. Eugene Notz, Charleston, SC Kamal Obeid, Fremont, CA Rawhi Omar, Crestwood, KY Akram M. Omari, San Francisco, CA Edmund Ord, Oakland, CA Khaled Othman, Riverside, CA Edmond & Lorraine Parker, Chicago, IL A. Karim Pathan, Cary, NC Ruth Persky, Los Angeles, CA Jim Plourd, Monterey, CA John Prugh, Long Beach, CA Cheryl Quigley, Toms River, NJ Mazin Qumsiyeh, Bethlehem, Palestine Beatrice Rames, Mesa, CA Doris Rausch, Columbia, MD Kenneth Reed, Bishop, CA Paul Richards, Salem, OR Neil Richardson, Randolph, VT Brynhild Rowberg, Northfield, MN Hameed Saba, Diamond Bar, CA Dr. Mohammed Sabbagh, Grand
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Blanc, MI Denis Sabourin, Pattaya, Thailand Walter & Halina Sasak, Northborough, MA Dr. Abid Shah, Sarasota, FL Bernice Shaheen, Hilton Head, SC# William Shaheen, III, Grosse Ile, ME Dr. Ajazuddin Shaikh, Granger, IN Richard J. Shaker, Annapolis, MD George Shalabi, Prairie Du Sac, WI Carl Shankweiler, Valley View, PA Lewis Shapiro, White Plains, NY Kathy Sheridan, Mill Valley, CA Dr. Mostafa Hashem Sherif, Tinton Falls, NJ Andy Sherman, Ardmore, OK Zac Sidawi, Costa Mesa, CA Sisters of St. Francis, Tiffin, OH David Skerry, Medford, MA Deborah Smith, Durham, NC Rosalind Smith, Hilo, HI Edgar W. Snell, Jr., Schenectady, NY Jean Snyder, Greenbelt, MD William R. Stanley, Lexington, SC Viola Stephan, Santa Barbara, CA Adlai E. Stevenson III, Chicago, IL Rev. John J. Sullivan, Maryknoll, NY McDonald Sullivan, Seattle, WA Thomas & Carol Swepston, Englewood, FL Monica Swift, Los Angeles, CA Sajid Syed, Closter, NJ Ghassan J. Tarazi, McLean, VA Doris Taweel, Laurel, MD Dr. Paul E. Teschan, Nashville, TN Charles Thomas, La Conner, WA Edmund & Norma Tomey, Dorset, VT Bob Tripp, Reston, VA Thomas Trueblood, Chapel Hill, NC
Letitia Ufford, Hanover, NH Unitarian Universalists For Justice, Cambridge, MA Tom Veblen, Washington, DC Paul H. Verduin, Silver Spring, MD V. R. Vitolins, Grosse Pointe Farms, MI James Wall, Elmhurst, IL Dr. Terry Waltz, Washington, DC Rev. Hermann Weinlick, Minneapolis, MN Thomas C. Welch, Cambridge, MA Carol Wells, Venice, CA Willard White, Phoenix, AZ Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, Falls Church, VA Robert Witty, Cold Spring, NY Women Against Military Madness, Minneapolis, MN Nabil Yakub, McLean, VA Raymond Younes, Oxnard, CA Dr. & Mrs. Fathi S. Yousef, Irvine, CA Mashood Yunus, Eagan, MN John Zacharia, Vienna, VA Mahmoud Zawawi, Amman, Jordan Fred Zuercher, Spring Grove, PA
ACCOMPANISTS ($250 or more)
Mr. & Mrs. Sultan Aslam, Plainsboro, NJ Lyle Best, Watford City, ND Bradley Bitar, Olympia, WA Syed & Rubia Bokhari, Bourbonnais, IL Dr. Ann Bragdon & Karim Al Kadi, Houston, TX Duncan Clark, Rockville, MD Larry Cooper, Plymouth, MI**** Mr. & Mrs. John Crawford, Boulder, CO Mr. & Mrs. L. F. Boker Doyle, New York, NY Ron Dudum, San Francisco, CA
Calling All Angels! Have you responded to our recent donation appeal? As an independent 100 percent reader-supported, non-profit magazine and bookstore, we depend on “angels” like you. Paper and mailing costs are skyrocketing, and now Barnes & Noble bookstores has “delisted” the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs without saying why. This means the bookstore with the largest number of retail outlets in the U.S.—which sold 80 percent of our newsstand copies—will no longer carry this magazine in their stores. The impact is devastating. As a result our longtime distributor stopped all their sales and marketing to other bookstores. Start a subscription for your library or ask your local bookstore to carry the Washington Report. Please join our choir and help us print, mail and circulate your favorite magazine. WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
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Dr. David Dunning, Lake Oswego, OR Catherine Fararjeh, Santa Clara, CA Ken Galal, San Francisco, CA Raymond Gordon, Bel Air, MD Dr. Walid & Norma Harb, Dearborn Hts., MI Prof. & Mrs. Brice Harris, Pasadena, CA Dr. Marwan Hujeij, Cincinnati, OH Fahd Jajeh, Lake Forest, IL Dr. Raymond Jallow Family Foundation, Los Angeles, CA* Dr. Jamil Jreisat, Temple Ter., FL Stephen Kaye, New York, NY Brian J. Kelly, Albuquerque, NM Sandra La Framboise, Oakland, CA William H. Lindberg, Edina, MN Amal Marks, Altadena, CA Donald McInnes, Cambridge, MA**** Ernest Miller IV, Phoenix, AZ Ben Monk, Saint Paul, MN Maury Keith Moore, Seattle, WA Sara Najjar-Wilson, Reston, VA Kamal Obeid, Fremont, CA Audrey Olson, Saint Paul, MN Hertha Poje-Ammoumi, New York, NY Clarence Prince, Austin, TX Sam Rahman, Lincoln, CA Mr. & Mrs. Edward Reilly, Rocky Point, NY Nuha Ruggiero, Bethesda, MD Amb. William Rugh, Hingham, MA Yusef & Jennifer Sifri, Wilmington, NC William & Ursula Slavick, Portland, ME David J. Snider, Bolton, MA Rev. Hermann Weinlick, Minneapolis, MN Munir Zacharia, La Mirada, CA
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Robert Akras, North Bay Village, FL Michael Ameri, Calabasas, CA Dr. & Mrs. Roger Bagshaw, Big Sur, CA Helen Bourne, Encinitas, CA Ted Chauviere, Austin, TX William G. Coughlin, Brookline, MA Jay R. Crook, Tucson, TX Lois Critchfield, Williamsburg, VA Mr. & Mrs. Andrew Curtiss, Herndon, VA Sylvia Anderson De Freitas, Duluth, MN Syed A. Farooq, Amherst, NY Malcolm Fleming, Santa Monica, CA Joseph & Angela Gauci, Whittier, CA Alfred R. Greve, Holmes, NY 74
Dr. Wasif Hafeez, W. Bloomfield, MI Masood Hassan, Calabasas, CA Ribhi Hazin, Dearborn, MI Helen Holman, Litchfield, ME Brigitte Jaensch, Carmichael, CA Zagloul & Muntaha Kadah, Los Gatos, CA Robert Keith, Brooklyn, NY Gloria Keller, Santa Rosa, CA Dr. Muhammad M. Kudaimi, Munster, IN Tony Litwinko, Los Angeles, CA Jack Love, Kailua Kona, HI Nidal Mahayni, Richmond, VA Tom & Tess McAndrew, Oro Valley, AZ Dr. Charles W. McCutchen, Bethesda, MD Gerald & Judith Merrill, Oakland, CA Suhail Nabi, The Woodlands, TX William & Nancy Nadeau, San Diego, CA Mary Norton, Austin, TX Phillip Portlock, Washington, DC Herbert & Patricia Pratt, Cambridge, MA Fred Rogers, Northfield, MN Ramzy Salem, Monterey Park, CA Lisa Schiltz, Barber, Bahrain Yasir Shallal, McLean, VA Gretel Smith, Garrett, IN Mae Stephen, Palo Alto, CA Cathy & Michel Sultan, Eau Claire, WI Dr. Robert Younes, Potomac, MD Dr. James Zogby, Washington, DC
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Edouard and Linda Emmet, Paris, France Dr. & Mrs. Clyde Farris, West Linn, OR**,*** Mr. & Mrs. Majed Faruki, Albuquerque, NM Gary Richard Feulner, Dubai, UAE Harold A. Fisher, Portland, OR Evan Fotos, Istanbul, Turkey Hind Hamdan, Hagerstown, MD Salman & Kate Hilmy, Silver Spring, MD Helen Holman, Litchfield, ME Judith Howard, Norwood, MA Barbara Husseini, Salem, OR Ghazy Kader, Shoreline, WA Dr. Jane Killgore & Tom D’Albani, Bemidji, MN** William Lightfoot, Vienna, VA George & Karen Longstreth, San Diego, CA Bill & Jean Mansour, McMinnville, OR Ralph Nader, Public Citizen, Washington, DC Clark Nobil, Miami Beach, FL Mary H. Regier, El Cerrito, CA Betty Sams, Washington, DC** Gay Schroeder & Stephen Cross, Boston, MA Dr. William Strange, Fort Garland, CO Dr. Imad Tabry, Fort Lauderdale, FL Norman Tanber, Dana Point, CA Donn Trautman, Evanston, IL Young Again Foundation, Leland, NC Benjamin Wade, Saratoga, CA
CHOIRMASTERS ($5,000 or more)
Estate of Donald S. Bustany, Studio City, CA Estate of Mark L. Chandler, Rock Hill, SC Donna B. Curtiss, Kensington, MD*,** W. Elaine Fisher, Portland, OR Ronald & Mary Forthofer, Longmont, CO John Gareeb, Atlanta, GA John & Henrietta Goelet, New York, NY John McGillion, Asbury Park, NJ *In Memory of Pat McDonnell Twair **In Memory of Andrew I. Killgore ***In Memory of Richard H. Curtiss ****In Memory of Diane Cooper # In Memory of Dr. Jack Shaheen ##In Memory Of Ghassan Sabbagh
MARCH/APRIL 2019
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American Educational Trust Washington Report on Middle East Affairs P.O. Box 53062 Washington, DC 20009
March/April 2019
Vol. XXXVIII, No. 2
Qatarâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s forward Akram Afif poses for a photograph at Doha airport, on Feb. 2, 2019, as the Qatari national soccer teamâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s players and staff return from the United Arab Emirates with the trophy after winning the 2019 AFC Asian Cup soccer tournament. Thousands of Qataris and residents welcomed their team home after their stunning Asian Cup victory against Japan. KARIM JAAFAR/AFP/Getty Images