Washington Report - August/September 2018 - Vol. XXXVII, No. 5

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TELLING THE TRUTH SINCE 1982

On Middle East Affairs

Volume XXXVII, No. 5

August/September 2018

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

11

8

I Visited Gaza For the First Time in Five Years: This Is What I Saw — Hani Almadhoun

16 18

14

Another Lost Generation in Gaza — Mohammed Omer

Where is Palestine’s Martin Luther King? Shot or Jailed by Israel— Ghada Ageel

28

20

Shooting to Kill and Maim—Three Views — Amira Hass, Daniel Larison, Stephen Shenfield

The Record Shows Ambassador Nikki Haley Is Obsessed With Israel — Ian Williams

Digging Deeper to Discover a Larger Part Played by the Pro-Israel “Industry”— Janet McMahon

29 34 37 46 48 50 51

Pro-Israel PAC and Individual Contributions to 2018 Congressional Candidates—Compiled by Hugh Galford Goodies for Israel Bills Continue to Move Forward— Shirl McArthur

The Dark Secret of Israel’s Stolen Babies — Jonathan Cook

The Colonization of Palestine: Rethinking the Term “Israeli Occupation”— Ramzy Baroud

Palestinians Refuse to Surrender Their Right to Have Rights— Dr. M. Reza Behnam

We Won’t Stop Filming, We Won’t Stop Writing — Gideon Levy

Ilan Pappé Campaigns for One Democratic State in Israel— Marvine Howe

SPECIAL REPORTS

Turkey’s Erdogan Consolidates Presidential Power— Two Views— Jonathan Gorvett, Eric S. Margolis

23

The Boycott of Qatar, Iran, and the GCC—Three Views— Marwan Kabalan, Juan Cole, Derek Davison

27

Baluchistan—Another Kurdistan?— John Gee

40 42

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This is Who We Really Are: Americans and Israelis Must Come to Terms With Reality — Dale Sprusansky

TTPS Saves People Who Face Catastrophe if They’re Forced to Go Home— Delinda C. Hanley Why Did Latin America Stop Standing up for Palestine?— Cecilia Baeza

ON THE COVER: A Palestinian woman takes a picture of a member of the Israeli security forces as he takes her picture in a street in Jerusalem, Dec. 16, 2017, after President Donald Trump declared Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

AHMAD GHARABLI/AFP/Getty Images

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

Other Voices

Compiled by Janet McMahon

Israeli Lawmakers Kill “Equality For all Citizens”

The Palestinians Who Never Left, Stuart Braun, Agence Global

Bill Before it Is Even Introduced, Mohamed Mohamed, http://mondoweiss.net

OV-1

OV-9

Land Grabs and the Rules-Based Order, Paul R. Pillar, http://nationalinterest.org

The Diplomatic Knives Are Out After Trump’s

OV-10

Embassy Move, Geoffrey Aronson, The American Conservative

OV-2

The Palestinian Tipping Point, Nicola Perugini, Counterpunch

OV-11

Who Is Fred Fleitz?, Curt Mills, The National Interest

OV-3

The War in Afghanistan Is Killing More People Than Ever, Edward Hunt, https://lobelog.com

Israel Openly Promotes Islamic State Ideology, Omar Baddar, https://lobelog.com

OV-4

What’s the Big Deal...of the Century, Marwan Bishara, www.aljazeera.com

UAE Collaboration With Israel Dates Back to 1990s, Tamara Nassar, electronicIntifada.net

OV-5

OV-13

Can GOP Use Israel as Wedge Issue Against

The Legacy of the Oldest Palestinian Pharmacy in Jaffa, Linah Alsaafin, www.aljazeera.com

OV-12

OV-7

Democrat Who Donated to BDS Groups?, Ben Fractenberg, The Forward

OV-15

DEPARTMENTS 5 Publishers’ Page

54 arab american activism: Al-Awda’s 13th Annual Conference and Gala

54 muslim american activism: MPAC’s Media Awards Reach New Level 55 music & arts: Nostalgia Reigns in Istanbul’s Summer Art Scene

58 human rights: Marking the 51-Year Cover-Up of Israel’s Attack on USS Liberty

60 Waging Peace: Protests in Jordan: Political and Economic Ramifications 65 book talks: James Zogby Discusses Palestinians: The Invisible Victims

(L-r) Maximilian Cali, Leen Badeeb, W. Joseph Locher and Conor Kelley, the Washington Report's summer Helen Thomas interns.

68 book revieW:

The Other Side of the Wall:

An Eyewitness Account of the

Occupation in Palestine

—Reviewed by Amin Gharad 69 middle east books and more

70 the World looks at the

middle east — CARTOONS

71 other PeoPle’s mail 73 obituaries

74 2018 aet choir oF angels 72 indeX to advertisers

STAFF PHOTO DELINDA HANLEY

6 letters to the editor

Publishers’ Page

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With national attention on nuclear negotiations between the U.S. and North Korea, the U.S.NATO saga and various domestic crises, it’s easy to lose track of ongoing developments in the Middle East. Despite relative silence in the media, important developments are happening, and we are here to…

Help You Keep Track.

SCOTT HEINS/GETTY IMAGES

Staying Focused.

American Educational Trust

take power. Prominent supporters of Israel such as Rep Ed. Royce (R-CA) and Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) are not seeking re-election, opening the door for a more sensible generation of leaders. It’s long past time for Congress to begin thinking more critically about Israel/ Palestine, as well as the broader Middle East.

Summer Interns.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan has yet Our summer interns are another again won an election in Turkey, source of hope. Conor Kelley, an outcome that surprised few Leen Badeeb, Maximilian Cali and alarmed many, though not and W. Joseph Locher have all. We have two very different Is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (l) the new face of the Democratic Party? spent the summer covering takes on the election on pp. 20events in Washington, DC, writ22 of this issue. In the Gulf, the Saudi Ara- ing the lives of children, refugees, and na- ing articles, editing the pages of this magabia, UAE, Bahrain-Qatar divide is only tive peoples alike. zine, assisting in our bookstore and reachgrowing (see pp. 23-26), and news reports ing out to subscribers. Like their namesake, indicate Saudi Arabia is even considering New Pro-Israel Donation Information. our “Helen Thomas” interns have provided building a canal that would physically sep- As always, the Washington Report is com- a bolt of energy and enthusiasm and their arate Qatar from the Arabian Peninsula! mitted to providing voters with information dedication and hard work is an indication Post-election Iraq is continuing the tenu- about candidates for national office that no that the next generation of leaders will not ous process of government formation, other news source provides. This issue let the world collapse on their watch. with accusations of corruption and vote contains an update on money congrestampering souring attitudes in the strug- sional candidates have received from pro- You Make This Possible! gling democracy. Recent months have Israel political action committees (PACs). Without generous donors and subscribers also seen a surge of unrest in Jordan (p. For the first time, we’re also publishing how like you, we would not be able to hire and 60), the consideration of a new law that much money candidates have received train the next generation of writers, or publish could limit freedoms in Israel (p. 50) and a from individual pro-Israel donors (pp. 28- congressional voting records and PAC congrowing change in the disposition of Latin 33). This inclusion helps shed light on just tributions. For more than 35 years, this magAmerican governments toward Israel and how much pro-Israel money is being chan- azine has existed by relying on the generosPalestine (p. 44). There are also many… neled into the halls of Congress. This ity of our devoted supporters. In June, we money is, of course, meant to shift votes. mailed our biannual donation appeal. We Are politicians really bought off by donors rely on these appeals to keep us going, esOngoing Challenges.

Some issues seem to never go away. For and lobbies? Stay tuned and see for your- pecially these days, as printing costs conthe 51st year, USS Liberty survivors gath- self. In our next issue, we will be printing tinue to rise, thanks to new “trade wars” that ered in June to demand justice for the 34 records of how every member of Congress have caused the price of paper to skyrocket. sailors killed in the 1967 Israeli attack on voted on key Middle East legislation. We As we endure the fiscal price of “trade wars,” the ship (p. 58). Once again Bedouins in Is- hope this information will assist you as you we know that we must remain in print to give Americans the information they need to prerael, this time the village of Khan al-Ahmar, head to the ballot box this fall. vent new actual wars from beginning, be are resisting Israeli attempts to raze their they in Iran, or elsewhere. We also know that village. Victims of Israeli crimes—including Change is Coming.

Arab Jews whose children were snatched Despite the constant influx of pro-Israel the human cost of ongoing wars and injusfrom them decades ago (p. 37)—continue money into campaign coffers, the victory of tices in Palestine, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen to fight for justice. Economic sanctions are 28-year-old Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in a and elsewhere have taken an unspeakable set to be reimposed on Iran, in what many Democratic primary over incumbent New toll, and have gone largely unnoticed by far fear is just phase one of a U.S. plan to im- York Rep. Joe Crowley in New York City too many Americans. With your support, we pose regime change. Meanwhile, deeply (p.36) shows that a new generation of pub- can keep the fight for justice alive, and... rooted racism continues to dictate policies lic servants who recognize the dignity of from Washington to Tel Aviv (p. 40), impact- Palestinians are in the wings and ready to Make A Difference Today!

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

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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-UWE 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.

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The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs does not take partisan domestic political positions. As a solution to the Palestinian-Israeli dispute, it endorses U.N. Security Council Resolution 242’s 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.

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LetterstotheEditor

MURDER OF A SAINT IN GAZA

An Israeli sniper killed 21-year-old Palestinian medic Razan al-Najjar on June 1, as she ran toward the border fence to provide medical aid to a wounded protester.

Unconcerned that Israel persistantly violates international law, the U.S. dutifully protected Israel by vetoing a United Nations resolution that urged protection of Palestinians. Ironically, this occured on the same day that Najjar was shot to death.

James Heenan, head of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, stated there was no justification for the killing. “Razan posed no threat to heavily-armed, well-protected Israeli forces,” he said.

Najjar was taken to a hospital, where she died from her injuries. In total, the Israeli military has killed at least 132 Palestinians and wounded more than 13,000 as part of the brutal crackdown against the Gazans demanding an end to the Israeli siege. A volunteer ambulance worker told the Associated Press that he and Najjar were planning to announce their engagement at the end of Ramadan.

The morally challenged U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Nikki Haley, said the resolution was “one-sided.” It’s a pity Haley has abandoned her Sikh religious traditions of speaking truth to power to pander to the immoral behavior of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). By its actions, the U.S. is complicit in Razan alNajjar’s murder.

Jagjit Singh, Los Altos, CA Instead of expressing remorse for killing Najjar, the IDF attempted to smear the heroic medic’s image. Shortly after her murder, the IDF released a video purportedly showing Najjar saying that she serves as a “human shield” for Hamas. Unsurprisingly, the IDF selectively edited the video, in which Najjar actually expressed her commitment to protecting the vulnerable people of Gaza from Israeli violence, not to providing cover for Hamas. Israel accusing a medic of being a terrorist is unsurprising, given that the country’s Defense Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, recently re-

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

marked that there are “no innocent people” in Gaza. Militant or peaceful, the IDF views any Palestinians standing up for their rights as an existential threat to Israel.

WOMEN AGAINST MILITARY MADNESS SEND THEIR SUPPORT

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Women Against Military Madness is a 36-year-old nonprofit organization based in the Twin Cities of Minnesota. Because peace and justice activism and education are the vital components of WAMM programs, we especially appreciate the insights provided by the Washington Report. In turn, our newsletter provides thoughtful and provocative articles to WAMM readers. Among articles about broad concerns in the Middle East, these examples of recent headlines show the focus on volatile Israeli/Palestinian tensions: • “Ahed Tamimi and a Slap That Was Heard Around The World” • “How Do U.S. Military Gifts to Israel Affect Children and Youth?”

• “Dr. Mona Qasim El-Farra: Keeping Hope Alive While Gaza’s Children Are Under Siege” • “Are State Legislators Demanding a Loyalty Oath to Israel?”

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next event. Our bookstore, Middle East Books and More, also regularly attends festivals and conferences, selling the latest books, as well as Palestinian solidarity items.

presidential candidate Bill Clinton sent to various Jewish orgaKEEP THOSE CARDS AND LETTERS nizations as his program to supCOMING! port Israel if he was elected president. It happened that that Send your letters to the editor to the Washington day I was on my way to the BevReport, P.O. Box 53062, Washington, DC 20009 erly Hilton Hotel for a private reor e-mail <letters@wrmea.org>.

THOUGHTS ON THE MAY ception for then-Governor ClinCONFERENCE ISSUE ton at the Los Angeles World AfSometimes I think that the English lan- hear some of the most knowledgeable fairs Council prior to a luncheon for him. guage is very much lacking when you and inspiring experts on the Israel lobby.

Pat enthusiastically volunteered to want to send out congratulations or re- We are glad that you and other readers bring a copy of his letter and meet me ward someone with flowery words and are able to get a taste of the conference halfway on my way to Beverly Hills. phrases. I have gathered that Spanish via the May issue, which we devote to At the private reception I told candiand Arabic are the best languages in conference transcripts every year. date Clinton that I had a copy of his letter which to espouse your beliefs in a flowery Videos of each speech are also available containing promises as to what he’d do manner. on the Washington Report’s YouTube for Israel if he got elected. I asked, Unfortunately, I do not have a com- channel, and at <www.IsraelLobbyan- “What is your program for the Palestiniplete knowledge of either Spanish or dAmericanPolicy.org>. ans if you are elected president?” Clinton Arabic, but I do wish to say that this year, was very quick and said, “Ask me this of all years, you have done such a splen- REMEMBERING PAT MCDONNELL question after the speech,” pointing to did piece of work in the May issue of the TWAIR the chairman of the event to recognize Washington Report. I am highly amazed I am very sorry to learn of the passing of me to raise the issue. (not the first time) at the profound and Ms. Pat McDonnell Twair. A wonderful Sure enough, chairman J. Curtis Mack striking words of the speakers at the Is- lady, a brilliant writer and a passionate be- called on me at the table I had reserved rael Lobby conference documented in liever in the cause of Palestine. for Arab-American reporters. I stood up I have known Pat and her husband, with a clear voice and repeated the this issue, and they are giving me real hope that we are really getting some- Samir, for a long time. I remember 25 question that I asked him earlier. To the years ago, August 1992, I had a tele- surprise of many, Clinton gave quite a where.

It is amazing that so many companies phone call from Pat. She was telling me few good answers, compared with presinow are no longer doing business in Is- that she had an eight-page letter that dent George H.W. Bush, who was runrael. It has taken many years and much ning for his second term. Thanks to Pat hard work and sacrifice upon your part McDonnell Twair for her quick mind and and upon others who have made these immediate effort! great changes. It is time now for more May God bless Pat's soul and have a and more to witness and feel these posispecial place for her in his vast heavens. tive transformations.

My special condolences to Pat's husCurrently, I have provided myself band, Samir, and to the Washington Remuch time to read. So I am using this port, the publication Pat and Samir reptime to read the May issue of Washingresented in Southern California for ton Report cover to cover, highlighting decades. nearly every page. I cannot put it down.

Raymond Jallow, PhD, Los Angeles, And I’ve signed up to receive notices CA about BDS. Pat McDonnell Twair was well-known I am so happy to know what you have to Washington Report subscribers. She done, and please know that you are very began writing her Southern California much appreciated. May this issue make column in 1988, chronicling archaeology more people aware, so aware that they lectures, art, film and music openings. care enough to join in on this effort to reHer countless articles about major duce serious world problems, and work events in the West Coast’s vibrant ArabOTHERVOICESisan optional16-page supplement against the bad things that are happenand Muslim-American communities available only to subscribers of the Washington ing on our tiny planet. helped keep readers around the country Report on Middle East Affairs. For an additional $15 Many thanks. cognizant of the fact that the work acper year (see postcard insert for Washington Report Carol Rae Bradford, Somerville, MA complished in one community is never subscription rates), subscribers will receive Other Planning the annual Israel Lobby and done in isolation. The Washington ReVoicesinsideeachissueof their WashingtonReport American Policy conference, which we port’s pages are a constant reminder on Middle East Affairs. co-host every year, along with the Instithat local communities around the counBack issues of both publications are available. To tute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy try and around the world are being nosubscribe telephone 1 (888) 881-5861, fax (714) (IRmep), is not easy work. However, we ticed. We are making a difference—al226-9733, e-mail circulation@wrmea. org>, or write realize the fruits of this hard work each beit slowly—for those in the Middle East to P.O. Box 91056, Long Beach, CA 90809-1056. and every conference day, when we see who are in desperate need of peace and hundreds of passionate people gather to justice. ■ AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

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Three Views

Shooting to Kill and Maim

SAID KHATIB/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

and women as well, and at a distance of about 100 meters (some 330 feet) from the border fence?

Did you shoot at her legs (why?) and miss because you’re useless? Are you sorry? Do you sleep well at night? Did you tell your girlfriend it was you who killed a young woman the same age as her? Was Najjar your first?

The anonymity of our soldiers picking off and killing Palestinians is an inseparable part of the culture of Israeli impunity.

We are above it all. Immune from everything.

Allowing an anonymous Razan al-Najjar (in pink headscarf), a 21-year-old Palestinian paramedic, tends to an injured colleague east of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on May 15, 2018, during the Great March of Return. Seventeen days soldier to kill a young paramedic with a bullet later an Israeli sniper killed her. that hit her in the chest, exiting from her back, and continuing on with our lives.

There are lots of pictures of Najjar on the Internet: She stood out as one of the few women among the first aid teams operating at the “March of Return” protest sites since March 30.

By Amira Hass After two years’ training, she volunteered for the Palestinian Medical Relief Society. She happily gave interviews, including to WE KNOW HER name: Razan al-Najjar. But what’s his? What’s The New York Times’ correspondent in Gaza, speaking about the name of the soldier who killed her, with direct fire to the chest the ability of women to act under difficult conditions no less so on June 1? We don’t know, and we probably won’t ever know. than men—and even better than them. She knew how dangerIn contrast to the Palestinians suspected of killing Israelis, ous her job was. A paramedic was killed by Israel Defense the Israeli who killed Najjar is protected from exposure to the Forces fire on May 14, dozens of others were injured and suffocameras and an in-depth breakdown of his family history, incated as they ran to rescue the wounded. cluding his relatives’ participation in routine attacks on PalesNajjar, 21 at the time of her death, was from the village of tinians as part of their military service or their political affiliation.

Khuza’a, east of Khan Younis. In interviews, she was not asked Demanding Israeli microphones will not be pushed into his about the wars and Israeli military attacks during her childhood face with probing questions: Didn’t you see she was wearing a and later. It is hard to find their scars in her pleasant face seen paramedic’s white robe when you aimed at her chest? on screen. In every interview, she is seen wrapped in a head Didn’t you see her hair covered with a head scarf? Do your scarf of a different color—and each time it is wrapped around rules of engagement require you to shoot at paramedics, men her head stylishly, meticulously, showing an investment of time and thought. The color reveals a love for life, despite all she had Amira Hass is the Haaretz correspondent for the occupied territories.

Copyright © Haaretz Daily Newspaper Ltd. All rights reserved. gone through.

Anonymous Snipers and a Lethal Verdict

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We do not know the name of the soldier, but we do know who is in the chain of command that ordered and enabled him to kill a 21-year-old paramedic: Southern Command chief Maj. Gen. Eyal Zamir. IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot. Military Advocate General Brig. Gen. Sharon Afek and Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit, both of whom approved the wording of the rules of engagement, as the High Court justices were told before they denied petitions against the shooting at protesters along the border fence.

Despite all the testimony about civilian fatalities and horrifying injuries, the justices chose to believe what they were told in the name of the military by Avi Milikovsky, a lawyer from the State Prosecutor’s Office: The use of potentially lethal force is taken only as a last resort, in a proportionate manner and to the minimal extent required.

Please explain how this tallies with the death of Najjar, who was treating a man injured directly by a tear-gas canister. An eyewitness told The New York Times that while the injured man was being taken to an ambulance, her colleagues were treating her because she was suffering the effects of the tear gas. Then shots were heard and Najjar fell.

High Court Justices Esther Hayut, Hanan Melcer and Neal Hendel presented the army with an exemption from investigation and an exemption from criticism on a silver platter. In doing so, they joined the chain of command that ordered our anonymous soldier to fire at the chest of the paramedic and kill her.

Red Cross: Israeli Shootings of Protesters Have Created “Unprecedented” Crisis

IDF Snipers: Choosing Who to Shoot

By Stephen Shenfield

By Daniel Larison ISRAELI FORCES’ USE of live ammunition against protesters in Gaza has created what the Red Cross describes as an “unprecedented” crisis because of the sheer number of severely wounded and injured people requiring treatment: Israel’s use of live ammunition against Palestinian protesters in Gaza has left health workers struggling to cope with an unprecedented crisis, with more than 13,000 wounded, a senior Red Cross official said [June 18].

At least 132 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces since the protests at the border with Gaza began at the end of March.

Robert Mardini, head of Middle East for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), told reporters that the “vast majority” of the 13,000 hospitalized protesters had suffered severe wounds, including multiple gunshot wounds.

Daniel Larison is a senior editor at The American Conservative, where he also keeps a solo blog. Copyright © The American Conservative 2018.

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018

“This is I think a crisis of unprecedented magnitude in the Gaza Strip,” said Mardini.

The wounded caseload from the seven weeks of protest had surpassed that of the 2014 war between Israel and Hamas.

Israeli forces have killed more than 130, but as outrageous as that number is it doesn’t convey the extent of the grievous harm that has been done to the Palestinians protesting in Gaza. If the vast majority of 13,000 people have suffered severe wounds, we are talking about at least 7,000 people very badly hurt by Israeli forces’ actions against the protesters. This is obviously excessive. Human Rights Watch has concluded that these actions may amount to war crimes: Israeli forces’ repeated use of lethal force in the Gaza Strip since March 30, 2018, against Palestinian demonstrators who posed no imminent threat to life may amount to war crimes, Human Rights Watch said today. Israeli forces have killed more than 100 protesters in Gaza and wounded thousands with live ammunition.

According to Mardini, over 1,400 protesters have been struck “by three to five bullets, many in the legs.” In addition to killing scores of protesters, Israeli forces have maimed 1,400 unarmed Palestinians, many of whom will be disabled for the rest of their lives. They have done this to punish unarmed people for having the temerity to protest against the appalling conditions in the enclave that Israel and Egypt have blockaded.

These are flagrant violations of international law in the service of an inhumane and cruel policy of collective punishment that also deserves to be condemned.

SNIPERS (SHARPSHOOTERS) CONSTITUTE about a quarter of all soldiers in the IDF’s combat units. The standard course for the training of snipers lasts five weeks. The best snipers, however, are Russian immigrants who fought in Chechnya.

Snipers are organized in teams that form part of infantry battalions. Snipers are equipped with special rifles of various makes.

Since 2010 the best rifle at their disposal has been the HTR 2000, which has a range of over 1,000 meters. Older makes have somewhat shorter ranges—several hundred meters.

THE LOCATOR

Each team of snipers contains a specialist called the locator, who plays a key role in choosing targets. On April 10 a former locator by

Stephen Shenfield is a British-born writer who was active in the nuclear disarmament movement and later came to the U.S. and taught international relations at Brown University. He is the author of Russian Fascism: Traditions, Tendencies, Movements (M.E. Sharpe, 2001). He now works as an independent researcher and translator, and is a member of the World Socialist Movement. A collection of his writings is on his new website at <stephenshenfield.net>. Copyright © 2018 Mondoweiss.

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the name of Nadav Weiman talked on Israeli television to Channel 10 about his experience in a sniper team of the Nahal Reconnaissance Platoon on the Gaza border. (He now works for the organization Breaking the Silence as head of its education department.)

Here is how Weiman describes his work as a locator: “I would sit with binoculars and an electro-optic lens during the day and a thermal lens at night. I would identify a figure, see if he was armed, then I would measure the distance with a laser meter and check the wind with an electronic weather vane. Then I would give the snipers correction data and count down 3, 2, 1, fire!”

It is of interest to compare this account of the pre-firing procedure with that given on April 1 by Maj. Gen. Haim Cohen, commander of the Shaked Battalion near the southern end of the Gaza Strip, on the Galatz military radio station. Cohen omits the technical detail provided by Weiman but emphasizes two steps that Weiman fails to mention: (1) obtaining authorization to fire from a commander; and (2) warning the targeted individual by means of a PA system. According to Cohen, there was a commander next to each sniper team and it was he who gave the order to fire. But Weiman says that when he was in the army it was he, the locator of the team, who gave the order.

THE OPEN FIRE REGULATIONS

Both Weiman and Cohen say that the choice of targets is in principle guided by

the open fire regulations. These are the regulations that Israeli human rights NGOs tried but failed to challenge before the Supreme Court on April 30. The precise regulations are classified, yet the Israeli network i24 reports they are “widely known in a country where most Israelis perform compulsory military service.”

The open fire regulations, especially in their current form, mandate the shooting not only of armed but also of unarmed individuals who have been assigned to certain categories. One such category is the “main inciter” who “inflames” those around him.

How do you identify a “main inciter”?

That, says Weiman, is “the million dollar question.” It is left to the judgment of the locator or commander on the spot. It cannot be based on what the suspect is saying because the decision maker cannot hear him (and is also unlikely to understand Arabic).

He can only observe him visually. In practice an “inciter” is probably just someone who stands out in some way.

Another category mentioned by Weiman—albeit in a different context, namely, that of Operation Protective Edge in the Gaza Strip in 2014—is the “scout.” Weiman and his fellow soldiers were ordered to shoot any Palestinian, even if unarmed, carrying an object—it could be a cell phone or binoculars—that he might be using to direct or assist combatants.

The radio interviewer asks Cohen about the relationship between permission to shoot and distance from the fence. Is there

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WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

a forbidden zone and how far does it extend? Cohen’s answer is not very clear, but he does refer to a 100-meter-wide “perimeter zone.” However, many demonstrators in his sector were at distances of 70–80 meters, i.e., well within the perimeter zone, and were not shot solely for that reason—unlike those who approached very close.

Weiman concludes that the open fire regulations impose no effective constraints. Category definitions are so vague that they can be used to justify practically any target. This makes it very difficult to prove that a specific shooting violated the regulations. At the same time, IDF spokesmen constantly cite the existence of the regulations—their content, as you will recall, is a military secret— as a reliable safeguard against abuses.

Catch 22.

GAZA—A FREE FIRE ZONE

However, perhaps Weiman exaggerates a little. Permissive as the regulations may be, it is doubtful whether, for instance, they allow the shooting of medical personnel wearing distinctive uniforms and holding their hands up like the nurse Razan al-Najjar. Another factor must be at work.

That factor is the perception of the Gaza Strip as a free fire zone where anyone can be shot and killed with impunity. This perception has developed within the IDF over the years in the course of successive punitive operations. At an earlier stage in the process some kinds of target were still off limits, such as women and people holding a white flag. But in recent years the situation has reached a point where soldiers are permitted to shoot at anyone they see.

As a result, many killings lack even the most tenuous security rationale. In Operation Protective Edge, for example, one tank gunner was told by his commander to fire a tank shell at any target as commemoration for a fellow soldier who was killed. As a sort of game, he and his buddies tried to hit cars moving along one of the Gaza Strip’s main north-south roads. It may therefore be presumed that many of the Gaza demonstrators who have been maimed or killed were shot just for fun, to alleviate boredom, or to express hatred of the “enemy population.” ■ AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018

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Special Report

COURTESY H. ALMADHOUN

I Visited Gaza For the First Time in Five Years:

By Hani Almadhoun This Is What I Saw

The author and his family at Gaza’s most photographed spot by the beach near Gaza City. Iheart Gaza is also a cell phone company.

“I THINK WE HAVE arrived in Guantanamo Bay,” my wife said upon arriving at the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing this past May. Together with our two children, my wife and I had driven through an area where massive destruction had taken place: armored vehicles and tanks hovered around, firing left and right, with checkpoints so close together it would be funny if it was not so sad.

We had arrived at Cairo International Airport around 8 a.m., and were picked up by our driver by 9. We decided to drive straight to Rafah. It took us nine hours to travel the 230 miles.

The delay was largely caused by the at least 20 checkpoints, where our passports and luggage were searched, as well as the ferry crossing to the Sinai peninsula. Apparently all travelers headed into the Sinai face that mistreatment. Travelers like our family must wait by the ferry for an army vehicle escort, I was told, because some of these roads belong to the military.

Our driver knew the way like the back of his hand; he also knew how to deal with various army and police officers. He was a true local and wanted us to be comfortable. He dropped us off

Hani Almadhoun is director of donor development at American Near East Refugee Aid (ANERA).

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018

at the Rafah crossing around 6 p.m., just as the Egyptian officers were getting ready to break their Ramadan fast.

The officers went through our luggage and credentials quickly.

After grabbing two packs of cigarettes without asking for permission, they led us into the waiting area. My wife and I were very excited to have made it so far and were sure we would get into Gaza.

We had reached much further than we had when we tried to enter Gaza a few months earlier (see June/July 2018 Washington Report, p. 22), when we were denied entry due to a full-blown war in the Sinai.

We were the first to arrive on the Egyptian side, as the caravan of buses and vans transporting Palestinians to the crossing had not yet arrived. Because we had a local driver, were just one family, and had comparatively less luggage, we were able to get through the checkpoints quickly. After haggling with the luggage handlers and asking them questions, I learned no one really knew how long it would take us to be processed. “Tasaheel,” they kept saying—which means, “Who the hell knows!”

By around 7 p.m., most of the buses and other cars had arrived. We were still at the crossing, in the waiting area. We were a total of about 50 people, including the children. We spoke to a Palestinian family from Sweden, another from Austin, Texas, and

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a young engineer who lives in Saudi Arabia. There was an elderly woman who went to Egypt to see her grandkids, and a young man on crutches—all waiting in this dark and unclear area with the dirtiest bathrooms under the baking sun. I was told that, due to the restrictions on the movement of people, even the cleaning crew cannot make it to the Egyptian crossing.

The officers had not re-appeared after leaving to break their fast. Three hours later, there was still no sign of them. At about 10 p.m., an officer finally appeared and started checking our passports. The officers were keen on seeing our Palestinian IDs in addition to our passports. Had we not had Gaza IDs, we would not have been allowed into town. They also take pictures of anybody going in or out of Gaza. Of course, they had only one working laptop, so to say they were slow is an understatement.

We could hear the Palestinians who were leaving Gaza at the other end of the building. They were waiting to be either allowed into Egypt, deported to the airport, or denied entry into Egypt and sent back to Gaza. Then, at 3 a.m., the news came that we could board the buses and head to the Palestinian side—but not before we were asked to pay 300 Egyptian pounds in fees per passenger. I did manage to be the first one in line and the officer told everyone, this guy was here first—he had seen us come in. We also boarded the bus to Gaza first, which we also paid for.

I began to tear up knowing I would finally be able to see my parents and siblings. When we arrived on the Palestinian side, we were moved by the professionalism of the officers and how they went out of their way to help travelers. We were whisked through the various official stops, then picked up our luggage and breezed through customs. Twenty minutes later, the van my family had hired to pick us up arrived. The driver turned out to be an old neighbor of ours—the first familiar face.

My eyes were wet with tears and the girls were half asleep. “Let’s go to Palestine,” Zayna said before she dozed off.

As we exited the Rafah crossing into Gaza, we saw members of the local police force outside. They snagged our pass12

ports and photographed them. But we were in Gaza now, and we weren’t going to let anything ruin it for us. The van took us to the outside gateway, where anxious relatives were waiting. I was searching in the dark for my mother’s figure, as I knew she would wait all day if she had to for this moment. And then there she was, a bit older but as beautiful as I remember her.

My mother was standing on the side of the road, waiting in the dark for us. I quickly turned into mush, all tears and reddened eyes. As we embraced, I felt calmer than I have in years. She then embraced my girls, her grandkids, whom she had not yet met. We were all exhausted, but it was sweet and our emotions kept us going.

Minutes later, we were on the road again, headed north where our families live.

We dropped off my wife in Gaza City to see her family and spend the night with them. After lots of kisses, hugs and smiles, we continued the trip north to Beit Lahia, where my family lives. Upon arriving around 5:30 a.m., I quickly realized much had changed, but that still it was the same familiar place. My dad was waiting at the door. He clearly had not slept and greeted me with an embrace. We stayed up for two hours chatting, and then I went to bed happy, surrounded by my family. The mixture of pride and joy in my parents’ eyes made all the trouble we had gone through worth it.

Before I went to sleep, I noticed my parents hooking wires into batteries like old pros. Because of Israeli restrictions and lack of funds, average homes in Gaza get four to six hours of electricity per day. As a result, people in Gaza must improvise.

The wire-threaded batteries were one source of electricity. The use of “Lidaat,” tiny LED lights that require little energy but give ample light, is also prevalent.

The next day, around 3 p.m., my older sister, who could not wait any longer to greet me, woke me up. As soon as my mother saw me, she asked, “What would you like to have for Iftar?”—the meal we eat to break the Ramadan fast. My answer, as it always is, was seasoned rice and chicken. This would be a special meal: the first one I’d had with family in more than five years.

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

HOPE IN GAZA

After waking up, I wanted to spend every single minute with my mother. We did nothing except sit and talk. Shortly before sunset, I told her I wanted to visit my father at his store. I walked there and was happy to see him in his element, in the middle of the market where he owns a small grocery store. When we walked back home together I was struck by how few people were out walking. Because unemployment is so high, drivers are willing to take you from any one point to another for only a few cents.

As we walked home, I saw many young men in wheelchairs or on crutches. Too many fine young men and women who took a stand against Israel’s suffocating siege and the U.S. decision to move its embassy to Jerusalem now have scars for life, a daily reminder of these injustices.

Many of those injured even had to pay for the ambulances that took them to the hospital, a sign of how the lack of basic social services is impacting society.

But not everything was doom and gloom. I witnessed, first hand, the amazing ways Palestinians are adapting to cruel and harsh conditions. They have adjusted their lives in ways that minimize the impact of destructive Israeli policies, like the electricity interruptions that last most of the day. For example, alternative energy is taking off in Gaza. Thanks to 319 days of sun, more and more homes are using solar power as a source of energy. Many institutions and schools in Gaza are also powered by the sun.

To outfit an average home in Gaza with solar panels costs between $2,000 and $5,000, depending on consumption and the size of the property. For those who cannot afford solar panels, there is a cheaper solution for about $600, an Uninterrupted Power Supply, known as UPS. This is essentially a large truck battery that can power most small home appliances (excluding refrigerators or heaters). It recharges whenever the electricity comes back on.

Most businesses, small and large, have their own large-scale power generators.

Another option for power is what is known as an alternative power line. This is typiAUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018

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cally used in more upscale neighborhoods; the cost is quite high, with a kilowatt of electricity going for $1—at least seven times the price for using the regular electricity line. There are also cars running on cooking gas.

There were other encouraging signs.

For example, local doctors, agronomists, and engineers have teamed up to address local problems created by the siege. Organic farming, greenhouses and vertical farming are all trending and making positive contributions to local markets. Because patients cannot be transported to hospitals in Israel and the West Bank, doctors in Gaza are undertaking more complicated procedures. As of last year, patients in Gaza have received locally performed open heart surgeries, as well as other vital operations.

On a daily basis, engineers in Gaza are working around arbitrary Israeli restrictions on building materials. I visited a water park where a local engineer has devised a way to make fake waves simulate the experience of swimming at the beach. Many Palestinians are afraid of swimming in the ocean itself because of polluted seawater.

The best and cleanest part of the beach, “Sudanya,” happens to be near the border with Israel, but the road to get there is not paved. When I asked about this, the driver told me that Israel has refused to allow that part of the road to be paved for fear more traffic would enter the area.

Visitors to Gaza will notice the big presence of the government of Qatar. They undertake large projects and deliver amazing developments. They were the force that paved the entire coastal road in Gaza, except that northern part close to Israel which remains rugged and broken. They also built thousands of housing units in the south in Khan Younis, benefiting many families.

There are countless other projects which have been launched to alleviate the suffering of the people in Gaza. Such projects include theme parks, trampoline parks, swimming pools, soccer pitchers and chalets. The small-scale investors who own these spaces not only want to make a profit but also to give hope to the people.

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018

I appreciated the improvement in Internet connectivity in Gaza, where the Israelis have limited data to 2G. Wifi services exist throughout the Strip, and techsavvy entrepreneurs have set up local networks and hotspots in designated areas, and sell prepaid Internet cards at grocery stores. They have even found a way to deal with the power cuts, running routers, servers and extenders on batteries so that people can surf the Web in the dark.

Thanks to these innovations, residents of Gaza consume many more Internet and cellular minutes than their peers in the West Bank, according to a Palestinian executive at a communication conglomerate with whom I spoke. He likened the situation to that of a prisoner who has just been given a calling card, and uses it to call any and everyone he knows.

Of course, poverty in Gaza remains oppressive. I found that people were poorer than in my previous visits. Salaries are cut more and more every year. Even those on welfare are getting smaller and smaller stipends. As a result, the local economy has crashed; many respected businessmen are sitting in jail or facing court orders because they can no longer meet their financial obligations [see p. 14]. Despite the financial situation, prices in Gaza are relatively high and comparable to other parts of the region. This situation, together with the lack of funds, has created a toxic brew.

Still, the people of Gaza are not giving up.

To make ends meet, many college graduates open stands selling coffee, hot drinks, corn and sweet potatoes on the beach to families. That might not be why these individuals went to school, but it puts food on the table. Other college graduates use the Internet to become free-lancers, while others are involved in digital currency trading.

ISRAEL’S LOOMING PRESENCE

This does not mean, however, that people in Gaza have resigned themselves to Israel’s occupation. While Gazans are divided over whether to support the Great March of Return, I saw young people flocking to the border fence every Friday to protest not only Israel’s actions, but also the stalemate.

Despite how hard they try to go about

living their lives, Israel continuously reminds the people of Gaza that they are not free. The loud buzzing noise of Israeli drones is one tactic. Then, there is the shelling. Occasionally, the sound of the shelling was so close we frantically turned on the news to know how close it was to us. At least twice during our short stay, we were woken by bombardment: once at my family’s home in Beit Lahia, and another at our home in Gaza City. A third time, we were visiting an aunt and had to cut the visit short because the building shook and our girls were scared by the noise. We lied and told them it was fireworks.

Fear is hard to escape in Gaza. Lately, much of that fear has surrounded the Trump administration’s much publicized yet secret “deal of the century.” They fear that they might be pushed to settle in the Sinai. I have yet to meet anyone in Gaza who likes this idea, despite knowing their land is limited and real estate prices in Gaza are higher than those in Egypt. As people watch the Egyptian army clearing the Northern Sinai governate and razing houses, that prospect seems all too real. Others think that this might be preparation for an industrial zone area that offers them jobs.

Hundreds of thousands of people in Gaza are banned from leaving the Strip, by either the Israelis or the Egyptians, leaving them in a shrunken world roughly twice the size of Washington, DC. It is not surprising that many are hungry for visitors. With such limited opportunity to interact with the outside world, they long to hear about events and experiences in other places.

If you can, visit Gaza not only to show your solidarity with a people resilient in the face of Israeli occupation and repression— but to give joy to those who have been cruelly prevented, through no fault of their own, from meeting and interacting with people from around the world. The road to Gaza was especially hard and felt like an obstacle course and scavenger hunt in every sense of the word. What kept our family sane is that we had each other and we kept our eye on the prize, embracing our loved ones and telling the people of Gaza that we had really missed them. ■

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Gaza on the Ground

Another Lost Generation in Gaza

By Mohammed Omer

SAID KHATIB/AFP/GeTTy IMAGeS

viser, said in a statement.

Anas said he wakes up in fear every night as Israeli drones patrol the sky above. Like his parents and siblings, he never knows when the drones will fire missiles again to disrupt the life of Gaza’s captive civilians.

His teacher worries that his fear-induced stress results in Anas suffering a lack of concentration and focus in school.

“Inside the classroom, he is in another world, but that is not uncommon—the majority of my school children show similar symptoms” said Umm Abdullah, Anas’ teacher in Gaza.

Palestinian youths flash their passports as they wait to cross at the Rafah border crossing with egypt on Nov. Save the Children sur20, 2017. egypt opened the crossing for Ramadan in 2018 and promised to keep it open during the summer. Israel veyed 150 young adoclosed the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza to all but essential humanitarian supplies in July 2018. lescents, with a median age of 14, and 150 caregivers in Gaza. It found that 95 percent of FOR 9-YEAR-OLD ANAS, standing at the wall in Rafah which the children it interviewed displayed symptoms such as feelings of separates Egypt from Gaza, there is no attainable world beyond. depression, hyperactivity, a preference for being alone, and agThat world exists only in his dreams. He can go to school and gression. come back home to play—but always in the shadow of this blockMany children in Gaza grew up experiencing three Israeli offenade, called the wall. There he can play soccer, as if it is his persives, in 2008 to 2009, 2012, and 2014. Not surprisingly, these milsonal World Cup. itary conflicts leave deep wounds in most families, with relatives, Anas is not alone in dreaming of a world beyond. An entire new neighbors and friends maimed, injured or killed, accompanied by generation of Gazans has grown up knowing only the 70-year-old massive destruction to Gaza’s infrastructure, including schools and open-air prison/refugee camp in which they are confined. The hospitals. Anas’ school was hit in 2014. more than 2 million Palestinians who live there, collectively punThe Save the Children survey found that 68 percent of Gaza’s ished for decades, exist constantly on the edge of mental, physical children suffer from varying degrees of insomnia, with 78 percent and economic crisis, as the international children’s organization saying the single biggest source of fear is the sound of Israeli warSave the Children has warned. planes. Every time Anas hears a drone overhead, his instinct is to “A whole generation of children in Gaza is balancing on a knife hide. Even then, though, he says, “When I go under the bed, I can edge where one more shock could have devastating life-long constill hear it, and I am more afraid in the darkness.” sequences,” Marcia Brophy, the organization’s senior health adAnas is less fearful during the day, when he makes his way to school.

There he is more used to the menacing presence of the Award-winning journalist Mohammed Omer reports regularly on the Gaza Strip. Follow him on Twitter: @MoGaza. drones buzzing overhead.

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But daylight does not always bring relief.

As 15-year-old Samar, interviewed in the Save the Children survey, said, “I have many horrible nightmares, and a constant fear of being targeted by a bomb, or being shelled, injured or killed. Sometimes during the day, I remember those nightmares.”

The children surveyed also showed signs of resilience, however, with 80 percent saying they could at least express their fears to families and friends, and 90 percent saying they felt supported by their parents. “Much of children’s security was related to a sense of stability that their families were able to offer, with more than 80 percent of the 150 children interviewed saying they did not feel safe being away from their parents,” said Dr. Marcia Brophy, a senior mental health adviser for Save the Children in the Middle East.

In times of war, however, teacher Umm Abdullah admits that “I have difficulty finding peace within myself, because I am surrounded by war, and I can’t hide the constant fear and anticipation of the next attack.”

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018

The 12-year blockade has severely diminished the quality of life in Gaza, where youth unemployment now stands at 60 percent and poverty levels are up from 30 percent to a current 53 percent. The Gaza economy continues to collapse. According to Abu Salaman Al Mughani, mukhtar of Gaza, “The majority of Gaza merchants are in jail in Gaza, because they cannot pay their debts under blockade conditions.”

According to a recent World Bank statement, “The current market in Gaza is not able to offer jobs and incomes, leaving a large population in despair, particularly the youth. Gaza’s exports are a fraction of their pre-blockade level, and the manufacturing sector has shrunk by as much as 60 percent over the last 20 years. The economy cannot survive without being connected to the outside world. Minor changes to the restrictive system currently in place will not be sufficient. Proposed projects to increase the supply of water and electricity are extremely welcome, but unless there is an opportunity to boost incomes through (Advertisement)

expanding trade, the sustainability of these investments will be in doubt.”

In June, the United States vetoed a Kuwait-drafted U.N. Security Council resolution calling for the protection of Palestinian civilians. Meanwhile, Israeli troops killed at least 132 Palestinians, including 14 children, and wounded more than 13,000 during the Great March of Return, the weeks-long peaceful protests near the fence separating Gaza from Israel. (See June/July 2018 Washington Report, p. 10.)

Save the Children's research took place prior to the Great March.

While no one knows what the future holds in store for these children, the report found that “the last 10 years have seen families face a host of difficulties and uncertainties in Gaza. The Israeli blockade, as well as three conflicts, has put enormous strain on the economy and key services.”

The tragic result is that, like health care, basic human rights have become a rarity, and a luxury, in blockaded Gaza. ■

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Special Report

Where is Palestine’s Martin Luther King?

Shot or Jailed by Israel

A Palestinian woman walks past fresh graffiti painted on Israel's separation wall in Bethlehem on June 22, 2018, by Palestinian street artist Taqi Sbateen depicting Razan al-Najjar (c), the paramedic from Gaza who was killed by an Israeli sniper during the Great March of Return in Gaza.

THE GREAT MARCH OF RETURN has posed new questions: where is the international community and where are its leaders?

I was born and grew into adulthood at Gaza’s Khan Younis camp, until leaving in 2006 to complete my Ph.D. in refugee studies. That year, on a three-week U.S. speaking tour, I spoke to diverse audiences about the situation in occupied Palestine, describing the daily realities of life under Israel’s military occupation.

On several occasions after my presentation, I was asked: “Where is Palestinian peaceful resistance? Why is there no Palestinian Mahatma Gandhi or Martin Luther King?”

I was puzzled by such questions, for nonviolent struggle is very deeply rooted in Palestinian history. It was widespread in the 1930s during Britain’s colonization of Palestine, with the famous general strike—the longest in modern history—and boycott movements, both of which were brutally suppressed by British authorities. Numerous strike leaders were ultimately killed, imprisoned or exiled.

Nonviolent resistance has been a mainstay of the Palestinian

Ghada Ageel is a visiting professor at the University of Alberta’s Political Science Department. She is active in the Faculty4Palestine— Alberta. Her new book Apartheid in Palestine: Hard Laws and Harder Experiences is forthcoming. Copyright © 2008 Middle East Eye. All rights reserved.

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struggle since the destruction of Palestine and the creation of Israel. After the 1967 Naksa, under Israel’s colonization of yet more Palestinian lands conquered by its army, and up to the 1987 intifada, Palestinians repeatedly invented creative outlets for resisting violent occupation.

A major channel of resistance was developing alternative institutions and leadership. In response, the occupying power deported hundreds of Palestinians, including municipal leaders, university professors and leaders of women’s organizations and trade unions.

Legal scholar Lisa Hajjar documented the detention of more than half a million Palestinian residents of the occupied territories from 1967 to 1987 (at a time when the total Palestinian population there was about 1.5 million), the deportation of more than 2,000 Palestinians and the demolition by Israel of more than 1,560 Palestinian homes. All forms of educational and cultural freedom were tightly circumscribed.

The Palestinian peaceful resistance continued in different forms leading up to the first intifada of 1987, when thousands engaged in collective civil disobedience and nonviolent resistance, supported by local committees all over Palestine.

Many aspects of the second intifada were acts of nonviolent resistance, including the weekly protests held since the early 2000s

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THOMAS COEX/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

By Ghada Ageel

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in the West Bank villages of Bi’lin, Ni’lin, Budrus and Jayyus, to name but a few. Entire villages have embraced nonviolence as the only strategy for resisting the occupation.

Over the years, Bi’lin has become well known for introducing creative tactics of nonviolent resistance. Protesters have chained themselves to olive trees slated to be uprooted to make way for the separation wall. They have locked themselves in cages placed on their land, compelling the military to haul them away with cranes. They have used performance and humor, or chained themselves to steel pillars on the ground.

Palestinian nonviolence has been practiced for more than a century now, in the face of changing oppressors, and continues today despite Israel’s invariably brutal response—but world memory seems short.

My answer in 2006 to questions about Palestinian MLKs and Gandhis was as simple and short as it is today. Based on what I’ve experienced firsthand in the camps of Gaza, I responded that thousands of them had been shot and killed by Israel, tens of thousands had been disabled, and hundreds of thousands had been jailed.

Today, 12 years after that speaking tour, Palestine is presenting the world with another model of its people’s old, yet new, peaceful resistance. Since March 30, tens of thousands of Palestinian MLKs have emerged in full view of the world and heads of Western governments, demonstrating peacefully at the fence of the Gaza ghetto.

They have demanded that the world pay attention to more than a decade of an illegal, immoral and inhumane blockade that has taken the lives of hundreds of innocents and brought Gaza’s economy to its knees.

The Great March of Return has also called for the recognition of Palestinians’ inalienable right to return to the homes and lands from which they were driven seven decades ago.

These peaceful demonstrations and sitins, held in the buffer zone imposed by Israel hundreds of yards from the outer perimeter—the cage—of Gaza’s fence, have been a legendary epic of resistance, celebrating Palestinian survival, traditions, culture and history. Protesters of all ages have sung, danced, shared stories, flown kites, cooked AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018

traditional meals and recounted memories of what was once their homeland, all the while praying for and dreaming of return.

DAYS OF UNITY AND HOPE

The tent memorializing my village, Beit Daras, depopulated and demolished in 1948 [see June/July 2018 Washington Report p. 14], was full of villagers of all generations from various camps and towns in Gaza. They cooked the traditional maftoul, a couscous that was very popular in Beit Daras, and shared it with other villagers in nearby tents. They staged Palestinian weddings and danced the traditional dabka into the night. These were days of unity and hope, of happiness and dreams so long obliterated from Gaza’s daily life.

The jailer’s response has been brutal. Israeli army snipers, stationed behind multiple stretches of barbed wire, in jeeps and in military towers, fully armed and with no imminent threat to their lives, targeted demonstrators, killing at least 130 and wounding thousands more.

Some of my own relatives and friends are among the dead, as well as multiple paramedics, journalists, photographers and students. Those hunted down include women and children. On May 14 alone, Israeli forces killed 62 protesters and wounded more than 3,000.

While Palestinians are not numbers, these numbers reveal the heinous crime perpetrated against them as their freedom to nonviolently protest was mowed down by gunfire.

During the Great March of Return, Palestinians have eloquently told the world—including the dysfunctional Palestinian Authority—that Palestinian civil society is alive, strong and capable, despite concerted efforts to sideline the issue of Palestine. The question is no longer: “Where is Gaza’s civil society and where are its leaders?” Rather, the Great March of Return has powerfully posed different questions: “Where is the world? Where is the international community? Where are its leaders?”

DENIALS FROM WORLD LEADERS

As Gaza sounded its mighty scream on May 14, its Gandhis were picked off one by

one by Israeli snipers, while just dozens of miles from the fence, Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump legalized Israel’s occupation of Jerusalem in an abhorrent violation of international law. Once again, Western leaders pointedly looked away.

Israel’s response to this powerful move has continued and expanded the pattern of 1948, when its destruction and ethnic cleansing of Palestine turned Palestinians into the largest refugee group in the world.

It is these refugees and their descendants who have been marching for their rights along the razor-wire fences penning in Gaza’s residents. It is these refugees and their descendants who are resetting the world agenda, at an inconceivable price, in the face of denials and dismissals from world leaders.

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United Nations Report

The Record Shows Ambassador Nikki Haley Is Obsessed With Israel

By Ian Williams

ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

its embassy to Jerusalem was equally unappreciated.

With Nikki Haley’s enthusiastic support, the U.S. has withdrawn from UNESCO, UNRWA, and now, the U.N. Human Rights Council—all on behalf of Israel, or rather, the diehard Likudnik Israel boosters in the U.S. Significantly, her continuing main objections to U.N. bodies are predicated on their supposed bias against Israel, but the record shows fairly clearly that Ambassador Haley is, in her own way, every bit as much obsessed with Israel as the vilified majority of the U.N. Ironically, of course, while the U.S. panders to AIPAC & Co by quitting U.N. organs, Israel tries ever more desperately to get deeper into the organization. In a belated concession to reality, Israel withdrew from this year’s contested election for a West European Secretary of State Mike Pompeo looks on as Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley and Other Group (WEOG) seat for the announces that the United States is withdrawing from the U.N. Human Rights Council, at the U.N. Security Council. We can preU.S. Department of State in Washington, DC, June 19, 2018. sume some heavy moral blackmail was attempted, but failed to persuade one of the other two successful IN THE PAST, there have been some outstandingly annoying candidates, Belgium and Germany, to stand down to allow Israel U.S. permanent representatives at the U.N., but Nikki Haley is to take an uncontested seat. egregious even in such a crowded field. Even the infamous “temWhile the regional groups determine their candidates, if there porary” permanent representative John Bolton knew where the is a contested election, they must then win the support of two rest of the world was, although most of us would disagree with thirds of the General Assembly in an open election, and there him about what the U.S. should be doing to it. was no way whatsoever that Israel would get that. Richard Perhaps Haley’s personal nadir was when she introduced a Grenell, recently sworn in as the U.S. ambassador to Germany, Security Council resolution condemning Hamas, which could not claimed earlier this year that the United States had brokered a even get a seconder, while vetoing a resolution from all the other deal in the 1990s with countries in WEOG to allow Israel to run members demanding that Israel stop shooting unarmed protestuncontested for a seat. ers on the Gaza border.

Grenell, who came to the U.N. as U.S. spokesman with John For the world’s alleged solo-superpower to fail to gain even a Bolton, tweeted on March 14. “Israel has waited 19 years! The seconder would be seen as a failure by most observers, but in U.S. must demand that Europe keep its word.” Nobody else the Brave New World of Trumpian diplomacy losing friends and seems to remember any such a deal, which would go entirely gaining enemies internationally only reinforces Know-Nothing enagainst the group’s usual practice. thusiasm. Her attempt to defend the U.S.’s illegitimate move of One hesitates to question the integrity of a conservative ideoU.N. correspondent Ian Williams is the author of UNtold: the Real logue who served George W. Bush and John Bolton so faithfully Story of the United Nations in Peace and War (available from Middle East Books and More). during the amnesiac days of the Iraq invasion, but the WEOG 18

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group has traditionally been almost the only group on the Security Council to hold contested elections. Its members had to be browbeaten into allowing Israel in as a full member after some years in which it was an anomalous associate member that could not even run for a Council Seat.

Indeed, as she withdrew the U.S. from the Human Rights Council, Nikki Haley berated just such practices which do indeed put unsuitable candidates in office on key U.N. bodies.

Ironically one of the genuine problems with the U.N., which the U.S. occasionally and expediently invokes, is the whole system of rotas and uncontested elections for committees and councils, which results in such anomalies as Saudi Arabia on the Human Rights Council—and Israel as the Chair of the General Assembly’s Legal Committee.

And, of course, there is the much-reviled Item 7, the majority’s insistence that there be an agenda item specifically for Israel and the Occupied Territories. The U.S. and Israel have lobbied and nagged so much over this that even countries that deplore Israel’s behavior have joined in with recent Secretary Generals to say that this is “unfair” to Israel.

One suspects that these clucks of disapproval have more to do with trying to keep the U.S. on the Council than any real indignation. In the scale of fairness, it is clear that 50 years of occupation is far more “unfair” than an annual agenda item mentioning what Israel does. In his first public address to a Jewish group, Secretary General Antonio Guterres told the World Jewish Congress in April 2017: “As secretary general of the United Nations I consider that the State of Israel needs to be treated as any other state.” Indeed, and one would hope that any other state that behaved like Israel would be condemned —but would not, perhaps, benefit from a perpetual guarantee of a U.S. veto.

When the Human Rights Council was established it was the product of years of negotiations between democratic countries and the non-aligned, who had justifiable anxiety that they would get more than their fair share of attention from the body. And to AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018

be fair, many of them were tyrannies and kleptocracies that do need a great deal of attention. Abuse of human rights was often camouflaged with appeals to anti-colonialism and the sacredness of sovereignty that are so often invoked by leaders who want the untrammeled right to abuse their own citizens. In the background, the human rights NGO’s and concerned democracies strove to allay suspicions and, of course, to get the U.S. on board.

They exacted as many concessions as they could: for example, every country now has an automatic periodical review of its human rights record, doing away with partisan votes. The negotiators went as far as they could to mandate real elections so that the usual suspects would not be rotated onto the Council, but, alas in vain. It has since reverted to the same pattern of backscratching and logrolling as so many other U.N. bodies.

Bolton and Bush refused to join the Council, although opinions are divided whether this was on principle, or because it was widely suspected that after the Iraq War, the U.S. was likely to lose an election. Instead, when President Barack Obama decided to return to the Council, New Zealand, until then a declared candidate was strongarmed into standing down to allow the U.S. to coast home in just the sort of uncontested election that now allows recidivist rights violators to take their places in it.

In her chidings, Haley almost singlehandedly destroyed what little credibility she had left from her uncritical defense of Israel by her blinkered choice. While her attacks on Venezuela—and even Cuba— could be justified by those regimes’ violations of civil liberties, there are times when silence is almost deafening. Saudi Arabia, Rwanda, Burundi, not to mention China, are also on the Council but seemed to escape strictures despite their easily comparable Human Rights practices.

If Haley were really concerned about human rights, as opposed to the right of the Israeli and American governments to remain unchallenged in their violations of human rights, she might have expressed concern that Zeid Ra’ad al Hussein, a highly effective High Commissioner for

Human Rights is leaving. But that would be a real stretch, since he is leaving because of the opposition of the Trump administration to his impartiality, which has included criticizing the U.S. as well, we should note, as other countries across the spectrum.

Finally, in April, John Bolton showed that he could harbor a grudge—and sometimes justifiably so. He was an assistant to James Baker when the latter was the U.N. representative for Western Sahara, and he clearly remembers that Morocco ruined Baker’s diplomatic record by cocking a snook at the U.N. and Baker when it effectively tore up the resolutions and agreements.

Morocco gets from France the same protection that Israel does from the U.S., which is why its much-condemned occupation has lasted almost as long. It raises a classic U.N. dilemma. There is no particular will or interest on the part of member states to intervene to achieve the mandated result—a plebiscite of the Western Saharan population, so it is easier to pay out $50 million a year for the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) peacekeeping force to freeze the status quo than to do anything about it.

Seemingly at Bolton’s say-so, the U.S. delegation called a halt and said that it would only agree to a six-month extension of the MINURSO mandate until October.

The resolution when it came also stripped out some of the unfair criticism of Polisario that France and Morocco had been slipping in the text.

There are many imponderables, but Bolton’s clear impatience with Morocco, the Trump administration’s determination to cut back on U.N. spending and a sixmonth deadline, might produce some results, although one would hesitate to predict quite what. But typically, the U.S. delegation annoyed Russia, China and Ethiopia, that had historically inclined to Polisario by simple lack of courtesy. They failed to consult with them about the six month reduction in the mandate. More than ever, American diplomacy becomes an oxymoron. ■

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Two Views

Turkey‘s Erdogan Consolidates Presidential Power

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torate, the unwaivering support of the All Merciful.

Perhaps more tangible on the day, however, was the surprisingly buoyant support of the Nationalist Action Party (MHP), the hard-right, nominally secular group that lent its votes to Erdogan’s presidential campaign.

This likely swung it for him in what was in the end a surprisingly close-fought race.

To Erdogan’s supporters, though, this was the beginning of a “New Turkey”—one which will likely see their leader in office on the day the country marks the centenary of its founding by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, back in 1923.

For many of Erdogan’s oppoTurkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his wife, Emine Erdogan, greet supporters at AKP headnents, however, the election quarters in Ankara, Turkey, June 25, 2018, the day after his electoral victory. marks nothing less than the potential end of that secular, Europeanizing and insular republic.

Under a constitution designed by Erdogan himself and narrowly approved in a referendum last year, he now becomes an

By Jonathan Gorvett executive president for the first time. As the center of both party and presidency, he is now equipped with powers that stretch far IT WAS THE BEST of times, it was the worst of times. Turkey’s beyond any wielded by previous elected Turkish heads of state. recent presidential and parliamentary elections were both a tri“The people have given us a mandate to govern,” Erdogan umph and a catastrophe, a lesson in democracy and an example said in his victory speech that Sunday night, before leading his of what happens when it fails—all according to which side of the supporters in a deafening chant of, “One nation, one flag, one deeply divided country you stood on, come Sunday night, June country, one state!”

24, 2018.

Turkey also now very much has one leader.

It was also, for many opposition supporters, deeply shocking.

While many of them—and many international observers—had earBALLOT BOXES AND BAYONETS lier written off the double election as a shoo-in for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP), Not everyone was happy with the way the campaign was conoptimism that a different result might be possible had grown in the ducted, however. final few weeks—only to be crushed come polling day.

“The restrictions we have seen on fundamental freedoms have For the AKP and its supporters, however, the ballot once again had an impact on these elections,” said Ignacio Sanchez Amor, proved the validity of their choices, the unshakeable rule of their head of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe leader—and, for many of his conservative and religious elec(OSCE) short-term observer mission in Turkey, after the vote.

The election, he added, “lacked equal conditions.”

Jonathan Gorvett is a free-lance writer based in Istanbul.

The restrictions he was referring to included the fact that the

Erdogan Triumphs Again

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country has been under a state of emergency since the failed coup of 2016.

In the largely Kurdish southeast of the country, this has been particularly heavily enforced, with major restrictions on movement and a ban on assemblies and rallies.

In some instances, ballot boxes were moved to settlements held by Village Guards—pro-government militia—meaning opposition voters had to travel long distances before running the gauntlet of hostile, armed fighters on arrival.

A pre-election decision by the High Elections Board also allowed for the counting of un-stamped ballot papers this time, opening the door to potential manipulation.

During the hustings, the OSCE itself had been the victim of a campaign of vilification, too, with the state-owned Anadolu News Agency (AA) accusing its observers—and the organization itself—of being supporters of terrorism.

“The OSCE is among the institutions that back the PKK the most in Europe,” AA declared, referring to the armed militants of the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK), with whom Turkey has been fighting since the 1980s.

That Turkey is itself a member of the OSCE and had invited the observers in was not mentioned, but the report gives a flavor of the coverage given to critical opinions by AA and other progovernment media during the campaign.

In addition, while Erdogan was covered almost hourly by all the major TV news channels, other candidates were only given a statutory 10 minutes per week.

Heightened by the failed coup of 2016, there has also been an atmosphere of political repression and fear in the country for many years. Thousands of people have been arrested, with many sentenced to lengthy jail terms under sweeping anti-terrorism laws.

The civil service, judiciary and media have all seen their ranks decimated by this purge, with AKP loyalists replacing those fired or arrested.

That Erdogan’s rivals did as well as they did, then, is perhaps one of the more surprising take-aways from the final results.

NEXT STEPS

Under the new constitution, Erdogan is now able to issue executive orders, as well as draft and send bills, including the budget, to parliament. His powers of appointment have also been widely extended, particularly within the judiciary. Parliament, meanwhile, will have a house speaker, but there will no longer be a prime minister.

Erdogan himself will head the cabinet.

He will not, however, necessarily have an easy ride. The elections just held were not due until November 2019, with the reason they were called so far in advance most likely being that the economy may be entering a significant downturn.

Inflation remains high, as does unemployment, while the country is also facing continuing difficulties attracting the kind of foreign investment necessary to balance out major public and private debt— ramped up by a policy of supporting massive infrastructure projects.

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Erdogan’s views on economics have been unconventional, too, further spooking the markets, as he has railed against the “interest rate lobby,” while his ministers have hinted at “dark forces” and “international plots against Turkey” to explain poor performance.

Yet, Erdogan is also hugely popular with many ordinary Turks precisely because of these policies and opinions. Big ticket projects, such as a proposed canal linking the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara and the huge new airport in Istanbul, build a new sense of pride. The same can be said of the recent military intervention in Syria and the resumption of the war against the PKK, with whom Erdogan had been negotiating before the AKP’s poorest election performance in years, back in 2015.

At the same time, too, with his stress on simplistic nationalism, the projection of a tough, uncompromising stance on security, the vilification and persecution of opposition voices and an indulgence of conspiracy theories, Erdogan also fits in very much as a man of our times.

Turkey on a Roll

By Eric S. Margolis

FEW PHOBIAS RUN DEEPER in Europe than the fear and hatred of Turks. For at least six hundred years, Europe was locked in innumerable wars with first Seljuk, then Ottoman Turks. My big St. Bernard is a descendant of dogs bred to attack Arab and Turkish raiders coming over Switzerland’s St. Bernard Pass.

Today, by contrast, there are some 10 million ethnic Turks in Europe, most of whom came in past decades as guest laborers, prized for their hard work, honesty and reliability.

Turkey joined NATO in 1952 at a time when the U.S. dominated the continent and the Mideast. The Turkish armed forces were the second largest in NATO after the U.S. Joined at the hip with the U.S. military, the Turkish generals ran the government in Ankara behind a screen of squabbling politicians. The U.S. gave Turkey its marching orders. Turkey’s small but powerful Westernized elite was delighted to follow Washington and keep Islam in Turkey handcuffed or exiled to rural areas.

This all changed in 1994, when a young, 40-year-old nationalist, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, became a reformist mayor of Istanbul and began cleaning up and modernizing the decrepit metropolis. After a brief jail term for reading an ancient Islamic poem, he was released and formed the Justice and Development Party (AKP), which is an Islamist Lite party dedicated to democracy guided by Muslim principles of national pride, welfare for the poor and elderly, sharing wealth, supporting fellow

Eric S. Margolis is an award-winning, internationally syndicated columnist and the author of American Raj: Liberation or Domination? Resolving the Conflict Between the West and the Muslim World (available from AET’s Middle East Books and More). Copyright © 2018 EricMargolis.com.

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Muslims and urging followers to lead lives of moderation.

There was no stopping the dynamic Erdogan, who was a semi-pro footballer before his full-time political career. By 2003, he was elected prime minister by Turkey’s 81 million people, and ever since has proved wildly popular with the majority of Turks. The big city Westernized elites in Turkey, who deny their Muslim culture and try to pass for Europeans, bitterly oppose Erdogan and his Islamic allies.

Under Erdogan’s predecessors, the alliance of Westernized elites and the military controlled the nation’s media, education, courts, diplomatic corps and big business, all with Washington’s blessing.

During the long pre-Erdogan era, Turkey’s parliamentary government was a bad joke and its finances catastrophic.

Turks are great soldiers, cooks and architects, but not so good with finances.

During the Ottoman days, finance was often run by Armenians, Jews and Greeks (as in Czarist Russia).

Over the past decades, Erdogan and his AKP have restored Turkey’s rickety finances, boosted the economy, imposed more efficient, honest government, made peace with the restive Kurdish minority, ended feuds with neighbors, and forced the 600,000-man army back to its barracks and out of politics. The generals and secular bigwigs, who staged multiple coups since WWII, were enraged.

To no surprise, the elite and some generals launched yet another coup in July 2016. The coup, joined by key army and air force units, came close to killing Erdogan, but was then thwarted by a massive national popular uprising that blocked the plotters’ tanks and airfields.

Some 10,000 people were involved in the coup, including senior officers, academics, journalists and two other key plotters: Turkish religious cult leader Fethullah Gulen, who lives in exile in the U.S.; and a few members of Turkey’s shadowy intelligence agency, MIT, which spearheaded Turkey’s covert intervention in Syria. The coup was based at the U.S.(Advertisement)

Published by SET TA T A Foundation

run airbase at Incirlik. Most Turks believe the U.S. was behind the coup.

Washington has long been annoyed by Erdogan’s independent-minded actions, notably in Syria and Palestine. Israel’s hard-right government, now the dominant force in U.S. foreign policy, despises Erdogan for supporting the Palestinian cause. As a result, the U.S. intelligence services, media and Congress are bitterly anti-Erdogan. His warming relations with Russia have further annoyed the U.S., leading to more anti-Erdogan plots in the military. The U.S. media keep blasting Erdogan, while totally ignoring the brutal dictatorship in Egypt, a major U.S.-Saudi vassal state.

Hostility against Erdogan has increased since he won a landslide electoral victory in June to become Turkey’s new, powerful president. He had emerged as the most important Turkish leader and modernizer since Ataturk, who died in 1938. If Turkey only had oil, as it did pre-WWI, it would be an important world power. ■

Edited by Muhittin Ataaman

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An insightful refer e ence for o 20 years e

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Three Views

An Iranian woman walks past a branch of Qatar Airways in the capital of Tehran the day after Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt cut diplomatic ties and transportation links with Qatar, June 6, 2017.

How the Boycott of Qatar Failed

By Marwan Kabalan

ON THE MORNING of June 5, 2017, Qataris woke up to the shocking news that their country was under blockade. The hostile move came from none other than its Arab neighbors and co-founders of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC): Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain, along with their ally, Egypt. The so-called quartet abruptly cut off diplomatic ties with Qatar and imposed travel and trade bans.

The “shock and awe” strategy was meant to precipitate the collapse of the Qatari government, or at least its capitulation.

Thirteen demands were presented to Qatar. They included shutting down the Al Jazeera media network, reducing diplomatic relations with Iran, and closing a Turkish military base near Doha.

Qatar was also asked to pay reparations for years of alleged damages caused by its policies to the blockading countries.

Marwan Kabalan is director of policy analysis at the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies. Copyright © 2018 Al Jazeera Media Network.

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ATTA KENARE/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

The Boycott of Qatar, Iran, and the GCC

It was disclosed later that the quartet had also considered military action against Qatar, but the U.S. Department of Defense, which has its largest military base in the Middle East in Qatar, had warned against it.

Qatar was taken by surprise by the Saudi-led diplomatic offensive and was unprepared for such a major escalation. However, the blockade largely failed to bring down the country and has made Doha that much more resilient.

WHY QATAR WAS CAUGHT OFF GUARD ON JUNE 5, 2017

Before the blockade was imposed on June 5 last year, tensions within the GCC had already flared once before. In March 2014, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain withdrew their ambassadors from Doha, claiming that Qatar had not implemented a security pact for “non-interference” in their internal affairs.

Doha’s independent foreign policy had irritated Riyadh and Abu Dhabi. However, the lack of sympathy from the Obama administration prevented Saudi Arabia and the UAE from taking further action against Qatar.

Doha also opted for reconciliation at that time, with the emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, seeking to have a fresh start with his neighbors. Hence, after the Riyadh agreement was concluded in November 2014, the three GCC countries returned their ambassadors to Doha and the leaders of Saudi Arabia, UAE and Bahrain attended the annual GCC summit in the Qatari capital in December 2014.

When the Saudi-led coalition launched an offensive against the Houthi rebels in 2015, Qatar sent troops to Yemen to support it. In January 2016, Qatar also withdrew its ambassador from Tehran in an act of solidarity with Saudi Arabia, following an attack by angry protesters on the Saudi Embassy in Tehran. The Qatari government also considered providing

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financial support for the ailing Bahraini economy. Both Prime Minister of Bahrain Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa and Bahraini Crown Prince Salman Al Khalifa paid separate visits to Doha in February and March 2017 to discuss how Qatar can help in this matter.

In short, the view from Doha was that relations with the three GCC countries were improving at a steady pace after the resolution of the 2014 crisis.

It turned out that what was perceived in 2014 to be the turning of a new page between the three GCC countries was nothing more than a short respite. Failing to secure the backing of the then-Obama administration, the blockading countries decided to bury the hatchet temporarily and wait for another opportunity to take care of unfinished business with Qatar, which they claim goes back over 20 years.

Donald Trump’s victory in the 2016 U.S. presidential elections changed the picture dramatically. With a new president in the White House willing to back them, Riyadh and Abu Dhabi were encouraged to resume the conflict and bring it to a decisive conclusion.

WHY THE BLOCKADE DID NOT ACHIEVE THE INTENDED RESULT

Despite all the pressure, however, Qatar, and to the surprise of many, decided to fight back. After surviving the initial shock, it launched a coordinated diplomatic effort.

The key objective was to freeze the conflict and prevent further hostile actions by the blockading countries. The focus of the campaign was Washington. After months of hard work, Qatar succeeded in changing the position of President Trump.

More importantly, Qatar won a solid U.S. commitment toward its security. Following the first U.S.-Qatar annual strategic dialogue in Washington on Jan. 30, 2018, the U.S. Department of State issued a statement expressing its desire “to work jointly with Qatar to deter and confront any external threat to Qatar’s territorial integrity that is inconsistent with the United Nations Charter.”

On a different front, Qatar implemented a military agreement with Turkey, signed during the 2014 crisis, allowing for the expansion of Turkey’s military presence in Qatar. And as a result of being forced to reroute flights to and from Doha through Iranian airspace, Qatar sent back its ambassador to Tehran.

In addition, cutting off supply routes through the blockading countries made Iran Qatar’s only access to secure food, water and medicine supplies. The trade balance between the two countries dramatically increased as a result, reaching $2 billion over the past year.

The whole crisis has hence ended up producing the exact opposite result of the one intended by the blockading countries. Instead of reducing Qatar’s ties with Iran, it led to strengthening them, while Turkey has, for the first time, become part of Gulf security, through its military presence in 24

Qatar. Al Jazeera is still on the air and continues to broadcast critical reports about the quartet.

Even the multi-million-dollar Saudi-UAE PR campaign to tarnish the image of Qatar and link it to activities related to financing terrorism has failed to produce the intended effects.

The two GCC countries waged a covert information war to demonize Qatar and precipitate a shift in U.S. policy toward it.

They hired PR firms and lobbying groups, and paid think tanks to hold anti-Qatar public events.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE also employed political consulting firms, such as a subsidiary of SCL Group, the parent company of the political-research firm Cambridge Analytica, to lead an anti-Qatar media campaign. These efforts produced little impact, however. Qatar circumvented them by signing an agreement with the U.S. in July 2017 aimed at combatting the financing of terrorism.

Indeed, Qatar may have incurred heavy financial costs as a result of the blockade—estimated at $43 billion by Bloomberg—but it has become more independent than ever.

In fact, most Qataris believe today that they have achieved their real independence.

With New Pro-Iran Iraq Coalition, Tehran Outmaneuvers Trump-SaudiIsraeli Axis

By Juan Cole

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP allegedly complained to Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu that after the 2015 nuclear deal, the Iranians “think they can do anything they want.” Presumably Trump was referring to Iran’s geopolitical reach in the Middle East, where it had gathered up allies in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen.

It is likely that Trump’s violation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the deal signed between Iran and the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany, was intended to set the stage for a push to contain Iran.

The push against Iran would involve again subjecting it to severe economic sanctions, in hopes of bankrupting it and depriving it of the means with which to continue to play a role in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.

Boycotts on oil states are not usually effective, since they can usually find a way to sell their oil lucratively nevertheless, and to use the proceeds to cushion the country’s elect.

One corner of the attempt at rollback involves Iraq. When a reconstruction conference took place last February in Kuwait, the Trump administration refused to make any contribution at all to rebuilding the country that the U.S. destroyed. At the same time,

Juan Cole is the founder and chief editor of Informed Comment and Richard P. Mitchell Professor of History at the University of Michigan. Follow him at @jricole. Copyright © 2018. All rights reserved.

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the U.S. encouraged Iraq to take aid from Saudi Arabia as a quid pro quo for moving away from Iran.

The continued tone deafness in Washington about Middle East politics, after all these years of being deeply immersed in it, is baffling. The Shi’i majority in Iraq isn’t necessarily opposed to better relations with Wahhabi Saudi Arabia. People are more pragmatic than the “clash of civilizations” or “Sunni-Shi’i conflict” theses might lead one to expect.

But that the Shi’i-majority government of Iraq would turn its back on Iran in favor of an alignment with Saudi Arabia (which does not like Shi’i very much) is a daft proposition.

Another sign of Iran Derangement Syndrome in Washington was the unrealistic hopes expressed by right-wing pundits that the Iraqi parliamentary election would signal a turn of Iraq away from Iran. The biggest vote-getters were followers of the hardline Shi’i cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who had quixotically allied with the small Communist movement.

Al-Sadr is known for resenting Iranian domination of Iraqi Shi’ism. His father, an Iraqi Arab, had been a contender for the position of chief Iraqi Shi’i authority or clerical Exemplar in Najaf before he was assassinated by the Saddam Hussain regime in 1998. His father’s rival, who rose to the top, is Ali Sistani, from a town near Mashhad in eastern Iran, who came to Iraq in 1952. Not only is Sistani the leading religious authority for Iraqi Shi’i, but Iran’s clerical Leader, Ali Khamenei, also has influence.

Al-Sadr, however, has just announced that he will form a postelection coalition with Hadi al-Amiri, the leader of a heavily proIranian political list, Fatah, that comprises party militias backed

by Iran who played a major role in defeating the hard-line Sunni ISIS terrorist group that took over northern and western Iraq from 2014-2017.

Al-Amiri is head of the Badr Corps, a Shi’i militia that began as an offshoot of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, Trump’s bete noire.

Moreover, the idea that al-Sadr is anti-Iran is overblown. He once dedicated his militia, then known as the Mahdi Army, to defending Iran from anyone who might attack it. When Gen. David Petraeus forced al-Sadr out of Iraq in 2007, Muqtada took refuge in Qom in Iran, where he pursued seminary studies before eventually returning to his country. And after the parliamentary elections of 2010 returned four major blocs, al-Sadr allowed his arm to be twisted by Iran such that he allied with pro-Iranian factions to form a government, locking the Sunnis out of power.

Baghdad looks to have close and warm relations with Iran under the government now being formed. It is being joined by Masoud Barzani’s Kurds, who also have traditionally good relations with Tehran, despite tensions over Iranian Kurdistan (Iran has some 4 million mostly Sunni Kurds, who are sometimes restive).

In fact, the prominence of Al-Amiri in the proposed new government raises questions about how welcome the some 6,000 U.S. troops in Iraq will remain now that ISIS is largely defeated.

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018

The May elections in Lebanon also returned a government thick with Christian and Shi’i allies of Iran, and in which the position of the pro-Iranian Shi’i party militia Hezbollah improved over that of the last election in 2009.

In Syria, President Bashar al-Assad is openly speaking of offering Iran hardened bases in his country. Trump is talking about pulling out U.S. troops from Syria by October, and if that happens (a big “if”), there would be nothing to stop plans for formal Iranian bases from moving forward.

So far, the new alliance of Trump, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Israel against Iran formed in spring of 2017 has had no successes at all. If anything, in the last year Iran’s hand has been strengthened in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. While the Houthi rebels in Yemen may ultimately be defeated by the Saudi-UAE Axis, which began attacking the Red Sea port of Hodeida on June 13, Iran is only marginally involved in Yemen— contrary to what Saudi propaganda would have us believe.

On the other side of the Arabian Peninsula, Iranian relations with Qatar have warmed up substantially, after Iran helped thwart a Saudi-UAE plot to overthrow Qatar’s government and subject it to themselves. In fact, the Saudi-UAE push on Qatar has destroyed the Gulf Cooperation Council, which used to group Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar and Kuwait, and which was formed in 1981 to combat Iranian hegemony in the Gulf. The collapse of the GCC inevitably strengthens Iran’s hand. Oman and Kuwait have stood by Qatar, and both have fair relations with Tehran.

Some 18 months into the Trump administration, Trump hasn’t laid a finger on Tehran, which is still in the catbird seat in the eastern stretches of the Middle East.

Can the GCC Survive the Qatar Crisis?

By Derek Davison

JUNE 5 MARKED the one-year anniversary of the diplomatic crisis surrounding Qatar and the rest of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). It was on June 5, 2017, that four nations— Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt— cut off diplomatic relations with Qatar and declared an air, sea and land blockade against the Gulf state. The internationally recognized government of Yemen as well as the Maldives also joined in the blockade, and since then Comoros and Mauritania have joined as well, while a small number of other nations have downgraded their diplomatic ties with Qatar without severing them entirely.

The rationale behind the blockade is murky. The Saudis and Emiratis made several demands of Qatar over its alleged support for terrorists, its Al Jazeera news network, and its friendly relations

Derek Davison is a Washington-based researcher and writer on international affairs and American politics. He previously worked in the Persian Gulf for The RAND Corporation. Copyright © 2018 LobeLog. All rights reserved.

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with Iran. However, subsequent events suggest strongly that the Saudis aimed to engineer the ouster of Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani.

The effect of the blockade has been mixed, at best. Though Donald Trump was initially an enthusiastic supporter, the U.S. has largely soured on the blockade, which involves close allies on both sides and works against Washington’s aims in the Gulf. Trump’s most recent remarks about Qatar have been effusive in their praise.

FALLOUT FROM THE BLOCKADE

Meanwhile, the Qataris have adjusted.

They’ve developed new domestic capabilities to replace lost imports from the blockading nations. They’ve forged a close alliance with Turkey that both protects the emirate from any potential Saudi military aggression and gives Turkey new diplomatic access into the Gulf. They’ve even, ironically, strengthened their ties with Iran, which has become a major source of food for Qatar and whose airspace has become vital to Qatar Airways’ continued operations. Qataris met the one-year anniversary of the blockade with defiance, officially banning imports from Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and with popular support for Sheikh Tamim seemingly stronger than ever.

Although Qatar seems, so far at least, to have weathered the blockade relatively unscathed, the same cannot be said for the GCC. The 37-year-old bloc has been effectively torn in half by the blockade, with the Saudis, Emiratis and Bahrain all participating, while Kuwait and Oman have urged reconciliation (and are possibly wondering if they’ll be targeted next). Its December 2017 summit, held in Kuwait, encapsulated the new Gulf reality, with Qatar’s Sheikh Tamim being the only head of state to attend apart from Kuwait’s own Sheikh Sabah Ahmad al-Sabah. What was to be a two-day affair was cut short after a single uncomfortable session, with Sheikh Sabah arguing that the council needed to change its structure “to better face challenges.”

The GCC’s 2017 meeting was overshadowed by a pre-summit announcement that Saudi Arabia and the UAE were 26

planning to form a new bilateral committee—one that threatens to overshadow the broken GCC if the Qatar impasse cannot be resolved. That body, the Saudi-Emirati Coordination Council, held its first meeting in Jeddah on June 6, conveniently timed to coincide with the anniversary of the Qatar crisis. It builds upon the close personal bond between Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman and Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed, a relationship that is, for better or worse, coming to dominate the Middle East.

DOES THE GCC HAVE A FUTURE?

Panelists at the Gulf International Forum’s June 7 panel discussion, “The U.S. and the Gulf Dispute,” in Washington were not optimistic about the GCC. Ambassador Anne Patterson, former assistant secretary of Near Eastern and North African Affairs in the Obama administration, argued that the GCC “is pretty much finished”: There may be some face-saving agreements to paper over the differences, but it will never be the same. This is very unfortunate, because successive American administrations have looked to the GCC as an island of stability in the Middle East. And while the GCC hasn’t ever reached its potential for mutual self-defense, its importance for regional security was certainly not zero and its largely unheralded economic successes are not insignificant. The breakup of the GCC certainly undermines U.S. security interests in the Gulf, but the United States is an $18 trillion economy with a worldwide military presence. More importantly, I think, the collapse of the GCC puts GCC countries at greater risk, certainly from Iran, but also from other outside players who are once again playing a role in the region.

Baker Institute fellow and LobeLog contributor Kristian Coates Ulrichsen concurred, arguing that the new Saudi-Emirati council sounded the GCC’s death knell: I think what we saw happen yesterday, when the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, Mohammed bin Zayed, went to Saudi Arabia, met with Mohammad bin Salman, his counterpart the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, and they declared bilaterally the new Saudi-Emirati Coordination Council—not

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

only do we have to get used to a new acronym, SECC, but I think that probably signifies the end of any lingering hopes that, as Ambassador Patterson said, the GCC could be anything other than an entity that’s more or less finished.

However, David Des Roches of the Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies sounded slightly less convinced that the GCC is really dead, at least insofar as its bureaucratic apparatus is concerned: I don’t think the GCC is dead. I’ve spent much of my career as a bureaucrat, and I can tell you that bureaucratic organizations never really entirely go away. They tend to go into hibernation, and they can reemerge. I drove past the GCC headquarters building—there was no “for sale” sign, it is not being turned into an ice rink. And it can be just as effective after a political decision is made as it was before. A low bar, I grant you, but the potential is there.

But in terms of effectiveness, the GCC seems to have been thoroughly crippled by the Qatar blockade, which, as Ulrichsen suggested, has highlighted a level of dysfunction that runs much deeper than this single issue. Despite their purpose of fostering Gulf cooperation, the GCC’s internal mechanisms allowed serious tensions between its members to fester and have been unable to do much to solve the ensuing crisis. Ulrichsen said: Unfortunately, if one looks at this crisis from a “negative toward the GCC” point of view, one would see that at every stage of this crisis the GCC has been completely absent. The initial grievances that built up, that were then communicated or at least came out into the open on June 5 of last year, were not dealt with through any GCC mechanism. The list of 13 [Saudi and Emirati] demands that are almost so maximalist as to be absurd were, again, communicated not through the GCC…[As for] mediation, we saw the emir of Kuwait, Sheikh Sabah, doing an energetic round of shuttle diplomacy in the early weeks of the crisis, and I think the most we can say is that he prevented the crisis from getting any worse.

As he noted when he met with President Trump in September, “What’s important is that we stopped military action.” ■ AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018

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Islam and the Near East in the Far East

Baluchistan—Another Kurdistan?

T H E S TAT U S O F KURDS in Syria, Iraq and Turkey has often impinged on Western consciousness in recent decades. Kurds sought self-determination and an end to discriminatory practices by regimes that drew their support from the national majorities in each of the states where they live.

That generated news in itself, but what tended to raise the profile of Kurdish nationalism further was the part it played in the wider political and military affairs of the area at times of strong external interest in the region.

Kurdish political movements in Turkey, for example, drew attention in part because they were a factor in the life of a country that has the second largest army in NATO and has tried to join the European Union; Kurds in Iraq were regarded as convenient allies of the U.S. and Britain against Saddam Hussain and, later, against ISIS; Syrian Kurds, for a while, seemed to have the only fighters capable of withstanding and rolling back ISIS in that country. It is the role of Kurds in the larger contexts that has primarily interested outside powers that, in reality, care little for their rights as a people. Support for them is not a matter of principle, in other words, but of convenience. Thus, Binyamin Netanyahu’s declared support for Kurdish statehood in Iraq may be seen for what it is: backing for a move that Israel sees as weakening a troublesome Arab state. His hypocrisy is evident in that, hoping as he does for a restoration of cooperative relations with Turkey, the Israeli prime minister does not speak in favor of Kurdish self-determination there, where there are more Kurds than in any other state.

There is a people further to the east whose situation bears comparison with that of the Kurds, and who may become prey to just

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

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018

By John Gee

the sort of selective, self-interested interventions by external powers as the Kurds have.

They are the Baluchis.

Like Kurdistan, Baluchistan has never been an independent country, but there is a people who live under the rule of states within which they are a minority and who identify as Baluchis. Baluchistan stretches for 700 miles along the northern shore of the Arabian Sea and for 400 miles inland. Around 60 percent of it forms the southwestern province of Pakistan, where it is known as Balochistan.

Baluchis make up just over half of the province’s population, but there are also Baluchis living elsewhere in Pakistan, notably in neighboring Sindh and its capital, Karachi. At present, there are some 8 million Baluchis in Pakistan.

Across the border in Iran lies the province of Baluchistan.

There and in neighboring Sistan live Iran’s 1.5 million Baluchis.

Baluchis also inhabit a southern sliver of Afghanistan, and there are close to a million Baluchis living elsewhere in the region, many of whom originally traveled abroad to find work as laborers or in the security forces in the Arab states of the Gulf: 470,000 reside in the UAE and more than 300,000 in Oman.

The vast majority of Baluchis are Sunni Muslims.

In both Pakistan and Iran, there are separatist movements that see their homeland as being exploited and its people disempowered by the central governments. They have arisen time and again in Pakistan ever since the state was created in 1947. The latest round of insurgency began in 2003, and has seen attacks on Pakistani security forces and state institutions. The picture of events has been muddied by two factors: one is the divisions between the insurgents, who fight under various leaderships in the Balochistan Liberation Army, Baloch Liberation United Front and other groups; Continued on p. 53

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Election Watch

Digging Deeper to Discover a Larger Part Played by the Pro-Israel “Industry”

A

By Janet McMahon

s noted in the article “Pro-Israel PAC ConOP EN AND AREER ECIPIENTS OF tributions May Be Too Public for the Lobby’s Taste” RO SRAEL UNDS (see May 2017 Washington Compiled by Hugh Galford Report, p. 84), pro-Israel PAC contributions have declined for the past quarter-century in HOUSE: CURRENT RACES SENATE: CURRENT RACES favor of individual and Royce, Edward R. (R-CA) $26,950 Casey, Robert P., Jr. (D-PA) $56,500 501(c)(4) donations which are Deutch, Theodore E. (D-FL) 23,200 Manchin, Joe, III (D-WV) 49,900 less traceable than PACs reRoskam, Peter (R-IL) 22,200 Fischer, Debra S. (R-NE) 42,700 porting to the Federal Election Zeldin, Lee M. (R-NY) 20,000 Menendez, Robert (D-NJ) 35,012 Curbelo, Carlos (R-FL) 18,500 Sinema, Kyrsten (D-AZ) 33,750 Commission (FEC)—or not Lamborn, Douglas (R-CO) 17,500 O’Rourke, Robert (Beto) (D-TX) 25,410 reportable at all, in the case of Schneider, Bradley S. (D-IL) 16,250 Cardin, Benjamin L. (D-MD) 23,700 501(c)(4)s. Indeed, the ForSchiff, Adam (D-CA) 16,000 Wicker, Roger F. (R-MS) 23,400 ward’s Nathan Guttman has Hoyer, Steny (D-MD) 16,000 Tester, Jon (D-MT) 22,000 Kohl, Dan (D-WI) 15,350 King, Angus S., Jr. (Ind-ME) 21,270 described PAC contributions as “a drop in the bucket of HOUSE: CAREER SENATE: CAREER Jewish giving to political candidates.”

Engel, Eliot L. (D-NY) $409,418 McConnell, Mitch (R-KY) $592,392 Ros-Lehtinen, Ileana (R-FL) 348,740 Durbin, Richard J. (D-IL) 403,421 While we have long been Hoyer, Steny (D-MD) 320,025 Wyden, Ronald L. (D-OR) 366,962 aware of the general trend, Lowey, Nita M. (D-NY) 258,623 McCain, John S. (R-AZ) 265,693 this year we decided to take Royce, Edward R. (R-CA) 157,857 Menendez, Robert (D-NJ) 250,330 a more in-depth look. We Pelosi, Nancy (D-CA) 149,150 Murray, Patty (D-WA) 225,523 Deutch, Theodore E. (D-FL) 140,250 Nelson, Bill (D-FL) 204,871 turned to the always reliable Levin, Sander M. (D-MI) 136,827 Shelby, Richard C. (R-AL) 201,825 Center for Responsive PoliHastings, Alcee L. (D-FL) 125,550 Grassley, Charles E. (R-IA) 193,523 tics (<www.opensecrets.

Sherman, Brad (D-CA) 124,630 Stabenow, Debbie (D-MI) 184,206 org>), which, in addition to tracking pro-Israel PAC contributions under the Ideology/Single Issue sector, compiles figley’s $11,400. So while it looked like the pro-Israel lobby faures for the pro-Israel “industry” as a whole. Subtracting the vored Hawley over McCaskill, in fact her contributions from PAC totals from the industry total, we arrived at a total for the pro-Israel “industry” far surpassed his. each candidate of individual contributions of $200 or more.

In Texas, it appeared that the lobby was shunning RepubliIn our innocence, we never suspected that this would add can incumbent Ted Cruz in favor of Democratic Rep. Beto 55 additional congressional candidates to our tally! These O’Rourke. But while the lobby clearly favors O’Rourke, it also candidates have received pro-Israel contributions from individgave Cruz $30,950 in individual contributions. uals (in blue), but not from pro-Israel PACs (-). Several of Virginia is yet another interesting state. While incumbent Dethese patterns are revealing. mocratic Sen. Tim Kaine received a modest $12,070 in pro-IsHouse Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), for examrael PAC contributions, he hauled in a whopping $162,202 in inple, received no pro-Israel PAC contributions—but $33,200 in dividual pro-Israel contributions. And Democratic Sen. Mark individual pro-Israel donations. Similarly, incumbent DemocWarner, who isn’t even running this year, took in nearly $30,000 ratic Sen. Claire McCaskill received no pro-Israel PAC donain individual contributions—a sum nearly worthy of former Sen. tions, vs. $5,000 to her Republican challenger, Joshua HawMark Kirk (R-IL), the ousted darling of the pro-Israel lobby. ley. But McCaskill took in $73,900—that’s more like it for a Looking at the total pro-Israel contributions through March Senate race—in individual pro-Israel contributions to Haw31 of this year, one sees that pro-Israel PAC contributions constitute less than 20 percent of total reportable pro-Israel contributions. Who knew how true is the saying, “You get what Janet McMahon is managing editor of the Washington Report on you pay for.” ■ Middle East Affairs.

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PRO-ISRAEL PAC CONTRIBUTIONS TO 2018 CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATES State Alabama

Arizona

Arkansas California

Colorado

Connecticut Delaware

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

1 5 6

1 3 8 4

2 3 5 7 9 11 13 14 15 17 18 19 23 24 26 27 28 29 30 31 33 33 36 37 38 39 41 47 51 52 53 1 2 5 6 7 5

At-L.

Candidate Jones, Doug† Moore, Roy† Strange, Luther J., III† Byrne, Bradley R. Brooks, Mo Palmer, Gary Flake, Jeff* McSally, Martha*# Sinema, Kyrsten*# Ward, Kelli* O’Halleran, Tom Grijalva, Raul M. Franks, Trent Westerman, Bruce E. Feinstein, Dianne* Huffman, Jared Garamendi, John Thompson, Mike Bera, Amerish McNerney, Jerry DeSaulnier, Mark Lee, Barbara Speier, Jackie Swalwell, Eric M. Khanna, Ro Eshoo, Anna G. Lofgren, Zoe McCarthy, Kevin Carbajal, Salud O. Brownley, Julia Chu, Judy Schiff, Adam Cardenas, Tony Sherman, Brad Aguilar, Pete Lieu, Ted Waxman, Henry A. Ruiz, Raul Bass, Karen Sanchez, Linda Royce, Edward R. Takano, Mark Lowenthal, Alan Vargas, Juan Peters, Scott Davis, Susan A. Bennet, Michael F. DeGette, Diana L. Polis, Jared Lamborn, Douglas Coffman, Mike Perlmutter, Edwin G. Murphy, Christopher S.* Esty, Elizabeth Carper, Thomas R.* Blunt Rochester, Lisa

Party

Status

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

I N P I I I N O O O I I N I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I N I I I N I I I I I I I N I I I I N I I

2017-2018 Contributions Career PACs/Individuals PAC Total

2,500/96,456 1,000/4,500 17,500/12,818 -/5,500 1,500/10,500 500/1,250 10,000/10,750 -/24,350 33,750/49,783 500/12,700 -/7,515 1,000/3,051 2,000 -/11,000 2,000/27,400 2,000/218 1,000/750 2,000/1,260 50/7,400 1,000/3,100 2,000/507 100/9,960 2,000/5,550 -/9,200 -/11,100 1,000/4,700 1,000/2,007 -/33,200 -/9,200 2,000/24,196 1,000/11,755 16,000/41,618 2,500/14,065 2,000/3,650 350/17,545 -/19,650 3,248 1,000/8,000 -/5,700 2,000/27,984 26,950/80,000 500/11,355 2,000/7,200 -/20,000 -/1,000 2,000 1,500/1,000 1,000/8,700 -/1,000 17,500/20,700 -/12,800 1,000/8,815 17,375/57,226 1,000/7,280 2,500/70 -/4,000

2,500 1,000 17,500 5,000 4,000 4,000 33,250 7,000 48,750 500 0 18,550 12,100 0 159,342 13,500 21,500 16,500 23,160 34,600 7,010 11,400 13,000 30,000 13,750 13,760 13,750 32,500 1,660 25,570 5,500 118,917 16,100 124,630 13,685 16,100 87,395 20,550 9,060 36,950 157,857 9,180 23,200 15,100 13,750 23,173 55,930 11,510 1,000 39,500 7,750 14,224 32,375 3,560 62,900 0

Committees HS AS AS, FR B FR AS, HS AS B A (D), I

AS W FR C

A (FO), B AS, I I AS, B C

House Maj. Leader AS, B

W I C FR A FR

C FR W FR

AS

C

AS AS

A (FO), FR (NE) HS

KEY: The Career Total column represents the total amount of pro-Israel PAC money received from Jan. 1, 2009 through March 31, 2018. S=Senate, H=House of Representatives. Party affiliation: D=Democrat, R=Republican, Ref=Reform, DFL=Democratic Farmer Labor, Ind=Independent, Lib=Libertarian, WFP=Working Families Party. Status: C=Challenger, I=Incumbent, N=Not Running, O=Open Seat (no incumbent), P=Defeated in primary election. *=Senate election year, #=House member running for Senate seat, †=Special Election. Committees (at time of election): A=Appropriations (D=Defense subcommittee, FO=Foreign Operations subcommittee, HS=Homeland Security, NS=National Security subcommittee), AS=Armed Services, B=Budget, C=Commerce, FR=Foreign Relations (NE=Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs subcommittee), HS=Homeland Security, I=Intelligence, IR=International Relations, NS=National Security, W=Ways and Means. ( ) indicates money returned by candidate, 0 that all money received was returned. Individual contributions of $200 or more totals based on figures compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics (<www.opensecrets.org>).

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018

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State Florida

Georgia

Hawaii Illinois

Indiana

Iowa

Kansas Kentucky

Louisiana

Maine

30

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

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

1 6 7 8 9 10 12 13 18 20 21 22 26 27 1 2 4 5 6 6 8 10 11 12

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 14 16 17 18 S 2 7 1 2 4 3 6 1 2 3 4 6

Candidate Nelson, Bill* Rubio, Marco Gaetz, Matt DeSantis, Ronald D. Murphy, Stephanie Posey, Bill Soto, Darren Demings, Valdez (Val) Bilirakis, Gus M. Crist, Charlie J. Mast, Brian Hastings, Alcee L. Frankel, Lois J. Deutch, Theodore E. Curbelo, Carlos Ros-Lehtinen, Ileana Carter, Buddy Bishop, Sanford D. Johnson, Henry C. (Hank) Lewis, John R. Handel, Karen Christine † Ossoff, T. Jonathan † Scott, James A. (Austin) Hice, Jody B. Loudermilk, Barry Allen, Richard W. Hirono, Mazie K.* Schatz, Brian Duckworth, L. Tammy Durbin, Richard J. Kelly, Robin Lipinski, Daniel W. Gutierrez, Luis V. Quigley, Mike Roskam, Peter Davis, Danny K. Krishnamoorthi, S. Raja Schakowsky, Janice Schneider, Bradley S. Foster, G. William (Bill) Bost, Michael Hultgren, Randy Kinzinger, Adam Bustos, Cheri LaHood, Darin Donnelly, Joseph S.* Messer, Luke*# Rokita, Todd*# Walorski Swihart, Jackie Carson, Andre Blum, Rodney Loebsack, David W. King, Steve Moran, Jerry McConnell, Mitch Yarmuth, John A. Barr, Garland A. (Andy) Scalise, Steve Richmond, Cedric L. Higgins, Clay Johnson, James Michael (Mike) Graves, Garret King, Angus S., Jr.* Collins, Susan M.

Party

Status

D R R R D R D D R D R D D D R R R D D D R D R R R R D D D D D D D D R D D D D D R R R D R D R R R D R D R R R D R R D R R R Ind R

I I I N I I I I I I I I I I I N I I I I I N I I I I I I I I I I N I I I I I I I I I I I I I P P I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I

2017-2018 Contributions Career PACs/Individuals PAC Total

19,500/29,379 1,000/250 -/500 5,000/2,400 1,000/2,000 -/4,500 5,000/7,700 500/3,200 -/6,700 5,500/4,306 3,000/39,135 5,500/27,500 5,000/13,200 23,200/39,800 18,500/67,650 9,000 -/3,000 2,000 2,000 1,250/4,560 5,500/21,200 1,491 10,000/3,700 -/500 -/3,400 500 2,500 -/500 (100)/5,533 2,250/27,339 1,000/7,755 11,700/61,000 1,000/267 3,000/32,150 22,200/36,300 2,000/1,000 2,000/29,400 5,400/42,430 16,250/159,563 (100)/14,500 3,200/8,200 3,450/8,400 1,000/16,250 8,250/38,349 -/11,400 12,700/39,462 -/6,500 -/28,390 10,000/1,500 2,000 500/500 -/6,760 500/1,000 1,500 10,000/31,400 2,000/1,000 3,500/11,650 2,700/18,500 2,000 750/300 3,200/900 2,300/3,200 21,270/32,878 4,000/1,000

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

204,871 55,100 500 8,500 4,000 5,000 17,000 3,500 51,816 5,500 15,000 125,550 37,800 140,250 59,500 348,740 0 9,510 52,200 82,500 5,500 1,491 10,000 0 0 500 14,000 40,270 59,104 403,421 6,950 34,300 42,561 22,400 71,732 23,510 2,500 45,545 73,950 28,950 7,200 14,400 23,000 26,110 2,450 42,700 0 0 23,700 10,110 7,000 21,000 500 32,200 592,392 27,020 9,000 50,700 10,500 750 3,200 10,300 38,270 152,900

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

FR (NE)

FR (NE) FR (NE) W FR (NE), I C A W

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

B, C FR (NE) C, FR (NE)

W AS

B W I C

A (D, FO), C A (D, FO), I B C HS HS

AS, B, I A (D), I

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State

Office District

H S H H H Massachusetts S H H H H H H H Michigan S H H H H H H H Minnesota S S H H H H Mississippi S Missouri S S H H Montana S S H Nebraska S S H Nevada S S S H New Hampshire H H New Jersey S S H H H H H H H H New Mexico S H H New York S H H H H H H Maine Maryland

1

5 7 8

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

1 2 5 8 12 13 14 3 4 5 8 1 7 At-L. 2 4 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 10 11 12 1 3

1 4 5 6 7 9

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018

Candidate

Party

Pingree, Chellie M. Cardin, Benjamin L.* Hoyer, Steny Cummings, Elijah E. Raskin, Jamie Warren, Elizabeth* Neal, Richard E. McGovern, James P. Tsongas, Niki Kennedy, Joseph P., III Clark, Katherine Moulton, Seth Capuano, Michael E. Stabenow, Debbie* Bergman, John Huizenga, William P. Kildee, Daniel T. Slotkin, Elissa Dingell, Debbie Conyers, John, Jr. Lawrence, Brenda Lulenar Klobuchar, Amy* Smith, Tina Paulsen, Erik McCollum, Betty Ellison, Keith M. Nolan, Richard M. Wicker, Roger F.* McCaskill, Claire* Hawley, Joshua D.* Clay, William L., Jr. (Lacy) Long, Billy Tester, Jon* Rosendale, Matt* Quist, Robert E. â&#x20AC; Fischer, Debra S.* Raybould, Jane* Bacon, Donald J. Heller, Dean* Rosen, Jacky*# Masto, Catherine Cortez Kihuen, Ruben Shea-Porter, Carol Kuster, Ann McLane Menendez, Robert* Booker, Cory A. MacArthur, Thomas Smith, Christopher H. Gottheimer, Josh Pallone, Frank, Jr. Lance, Leonard Payne, Donald M., Jr. Sherrill, Rebecca M. (Mikie) Coleman, Bonnie Watson Heinrich, Martin T.* Haaland, Debra Lujan, Ben R. Gillibrand, Kirsten E.* Zeldin, Lee M. Rice, Kathleen Meeks, Gregory Meng, Grace Velazquez, Nydia M. Clarke, Yvette D.

D D D D D D D D D D D D D D R R D D D D D DFL DFL R DFL DFL DFL R D R D R D R D R D R R D D D D D D D R R D D R D D D D D D D R D D D D D

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

2017-2018 Contributions Career PACs/Individuals PAC Total

1,000/2,700 23,700/175,250 16,000/65,626 2,182/6,318 2,000/10,530 2,500/44,388 2,000 2,150/436 -/11,000 -/1,300 500/17,716 1,000/3,225 2,000/1,000 12,600/83,333 -/500 -/500 1,000/2,005 1,000 3,000/1,500 2,000/257 2,000 17,500/31,366 -/2,500 -/4,000 1,000/250 1,000/2,101 100/7,300 23,400/103,120 -/73,900 5,000/11,400 2,000/7 700/700 22,000/56,798 -/3,700 0 42,700/14,820 -/1,000 500/500 10,000/28,250 9,000/45,723 500/6,663 1,000/7,901 -/6,950 2,750/26,205 35,012/247,351 1,000 500/11,600 5,000/17,500 11,000/65,425 3,500/500 2,000/4,200 2,000 1,000 500/20,931 17,782/74,970 250 2,000/10,000 2,500/41,946 20,000/95,025 -/2,000 -/7,575 2,675/12,611 6,750/6,957 2,000/10,216

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

16,676 172,395 320,025 31,192 5,550 10,000 23,750 20,225 14,000 6,600 4,615 3,850 16,010 184,206 2,500 1,000 35,675 1,000 8,010 17,010 7,000 99,835 0 20,500 18,750 12,110 17,768 89,800 71,835 5,000 29,010 18,200 65,224 0 0 62,200 0 3,000 33,000 24,500 45,605 7,473 25,019 16,210 250,330 38,327 7,500 82,750 14,500 112,550 13,000 43,250 1,000 23,535 52,537 250 14,000 84,950 57,000 5,500 2,000 12,100 8,250 5,510

Committees A FR (NE) AS W

AS C A AS, B B B C C

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

AS, HS C AS C AS

FR (NE) FR (NE)

FR

C C HS

HS HS

C AS FR (NE) HS FR A (FO) C

31

paccharts_28-33.qxp_PAC Charts 7/12/18 7:49 PM Page 32

State

Office District

H 12 H 14 H 15 H 16 H 17 H 20 H 22 H 25 North Carolina H 1 H 4 H 9 H 11 H 12 S North Dakota Ohio S S H 4 H 6 H 9 H 14 Oklahoma S Oregon S H 3 H 4 Pennsylvania S S S H 2 H 4 H 5 H 6 H 8 H 11 H 17 H 17 H 18 Rhode Island S H 2 South Carolina H 2 H 5 H 6 Tennessee S H 8 H 9 Texas S S S H 1 H 7 H 9 H 10 H 12 H 20 H 28 H 29 H 30 H 35 Utah S H 3 H 4 Vermont H At-L. Virginia S S S New York

32

Candidate Maloney, Carolyn B. Crowley, Joseph Serrano, José E. Engel, Eliot L. Lowey, Nita M. Tonko, Paul D. Tenney, Claudia Slaughter, Louise Butterfield, George K. Price, David E. Pittenger, Robert M. Meadows, Mark R. Adams, Alma Shealey Heitkamp, Heidi* Brown, Sherrod* Mandel, Joshua A.* Jordan, James D. Johnson, Bill Kaptur, Marcy C. Joyce, David P. Inhofe, James M. Merkley, Jeffrey A. Blumenauer, Earl DeFazio, Peter A. Casey, Robert P., Jr.* Barletta, Lou*# Bartos, Jeffrey A.* Boyle, Brendan F. Perry, Scott Muroff, Daniel Costello, Ryan A. Cartwright, Matt Smucker, Lloyd Lamb, Conor Rothfus, Keith Doyle, Michael Whitehouse, Sheldon, II* Langevin, Jim Wilson, Joe Connelly, Chad † Clyburn, James E. Corker, Robert P., Jr.* Kustoff, David Cohen, Stephen I. Cruz, Ted* O’Rourke, Robert (Beto)*# Cornyn, John Gohmert, Louis B., Jr. Culberson, John Green, Alexander McCaul, Michael Granger, Kay Castro, Joaquin Cuellar, Henry R. Green, Raymond E. (Gene) Johnson, Eddie Bernice Doggett, Lloyd Hatch, Orrin G.* Herrod, Christopher † Love, Mia Welch, Peter Kaine, Timothy M.* Cantor, Eric* Warner, Mark R.

Party

Status

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

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

2017-2018 Contributions Career PACs/Individuals PAC Total

-/8,500 -/250 -/11,250 5,000/65,234 11,500/41,055 2,000/250 5,000/5,200 1,010/208 2,000 1,000/3,750 2,500/2,700 1,500/500 500 7,000/27,211 9,060/160,020 18,500/188,250 1,000 750/500 2,000/3,700 2,500/5,500 1,000 1,075 11,350 2,100/2,700 56,500/88,368 -/3,000 2,500/22,676 7,500 -/8,000 1,600 -/250 -/11,000 -/400 4,500/47,493 500/1,250 1,000/5,400 15,500/41,358 -/15,400 10,000/12,700 2,500 1,000/70 2,500/2,500 1,000/2,250 1,000 -/30,950 25,410/62,462 1,000/9,100 500/300 5,000 2,000/500 5,000/24,000 2,500/3,500 1,000/2,000 2,000 5,000 1,000/2,035 1,000/500 5,000/43,300 3,500 6,000/13,000 1,000/1,500 12,070/162,202 2,000 -/29,775

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

40,970 109,457 9,250 409,418 258,623 16,000 5,500 71,240 9,000 72,327 2,500 9,500 3,510 16,000 108,565 32,500 1,500 1,750 9,300 17,000 138,800 40,725 28,860 23,710 135,400 0 2,500 25,000 2,000 1,600 9,000 9,510 0 4,500 2,000 10,510 131,000 50,500 15,250 2,500 36,610 38,000 6,000 36,510 18,500 26,410 90,580 4,500 17,500 11,000 18,000 51,000 1,000 5,500 21,800 14,000 14,310 80,200 3,500 12,000 17,500 32,771 239,605 65,500

Committees W A C, FR A (FO) C C A (FO, HS) FR (NE) HS

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

B, FR (NE) FR, HS

C A B

C B AS, HS AS, FR B, FR (NE) AS, C I

A (HS)

FR, HS A (D, FO) FR, I A (D, HS) C

W

C AS, B, FR (NE) B, I

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018

paccharts_28-33.qxp_PAC Charts 7/12/18 12:20 PM Page 33

State Virginia

Washington

West Virginia Wisconsin

Wyoming

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

2 5 8 11 1 5 6 7 10 2

1 2 3 4 6 6 7 8

Candidate Taylor, Scott W. Garrett, Thomas A., Jr. Beyer, Donald S., Jr. Connolly, Gerald E. Cantwell, Maria* Murray, Patty DelBene, Suzan McMorris Rodgers, Cathy Kilmer, Derek Jayapal, Pramila Heck, Dennis (Denny) Manchin, Joe, III* Mooney, Alexander X. Baldwin, Tammy* Ryan, Paul D. Pocan, Mark Kind, Ronald J. Moore, Gwendolynne S. Grothman, Glenn S. Kohl, Dan Duffy, Sean P. Gallagher, Michael J. Barrasso, John A.*

Party

Status

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

I N I I I I I I I I I I I I N I I I I C I I I

2017-2018 Total PAC Contributions: 2017-2018 Total Individual Contributions: Total PAC Contributions (1978-2018): Total No. of Recipients (1978-2018):

2017-2018 Contributions Career PACs/Individuals PAC Total

1,000/25,650 750/500 500/10,950 1,000/11,501 8,500/20,505 -/400 -/9,200 2,500/19,300 -/1,000 -/9,200 2,000 49,900/43,445 6,000/10,400 15,030/85,751 1,000/76,304 -/1,483 -/500 2,000/5,050 3,500/10,500 15,350 -/16,600 3,200/26,100 14,500/112,020

1,000 750 9,610 32,510 19,844 225,523 12,010 33,850 14,000 0 5,500 86,400 20,250 44,160 49,450 12,500 11,000 7,000 3,500 15,350 15,500 5,200 41,991

Committees A (HS) FR, HS

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

A W B

AS, HS FR

$ 1,216,090 $ 4,906,211 $61,310,922 2,584

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Congress Watch

Goodies for Israel Bills Continue to Move Forward

By Shirl McArthur

THE INTERNATIONAL FOCUS of President Donald Trump’s administration seems to have shifted away from the Middle East, at least for the short term, so there have been few major Middle East legislative developments. However, some of the measures promoted by AIPAC’s annual meeting in March continue to gain support.

First among them is H.R. 5141, introduced in the House March 1 by Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), and its companion, S. 2497, introduced in the Senate March 5 by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), the “U.S.-Israel Security Assistance Authorization” bill. Since Ros-Lehtinen, the leading Israel-firster in Congress, has announced that she is retiring at the end of this session, she apparently wants to go out having promoted a full wish list of goodies for Israel, including many security assistance measures, extension of loan guarantees, and enhanced U.S.-Israel cooperation programs.

Both bills have more than half the members of their respective houses of Congress as co-sponsors. H.R. 5141 has 274 cosponsors, including Ros-Lehtinen, and S. 2497 has 70, including Rubio, so they could be brought up for passage at any time. On May 9 the House Foreign Affairs Committee marked up H.R. 5141, ordered it reported to the full House, and recommended that it be considered under “suspension of the rules” (an expedited process that requires a two-thirds vote for passage). But this has not yet happened.

The so-called “Israel Anti-Boycott” bills, also promoted by AIPAC, have made some progress. Both S. 720, introduced by Sen. Benjamin Cardin (D-MD) in March 2017, and H.R. 1697, introduced by Rep. Peter Roskam (R-IL) the same month, claim that the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) movements penalize firms doing business in Israel, but in fact they are about doing business in Israel’s colonies, not Israel. As reported in previous issues, both the ACLU and Amnesty International have expressed their opposition to the bills because of their attacks on free speech, but congressional supporters of the bills continue to ignore those objections, as well as decades of bipartisan distinction between Israel and its West Bank colonies. S. 720 still has 56 co-sponsors, including Cardin, but H.R. 1697 now has

289, including Roskam. A related measure, H.R. 6095, was introduced June 13 by Reps. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) and Bob Goodlatte (R-VA). It would “prohibit the boycotting of countries friendly to the U.S.” A DeSantis press release makes it clear that the purpose of the bill is to protect Israel and its colonies from boycotts by foreign nations.

Of the bills that would encourage states to adopt anti-BDS measures, S. 170, introduced by Rubio in January 2017, still has 48 co-sponsors, including Rubio, but H.R. 2856, introduced in June by Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC), now has 132 co-sponsors, including McHenry.

Similarly the “Anti-Semitism Awareness” bills, S. 2940 in the Senate and H.R. 5924 in the House, have nothing to do with combatting anti-Semitism but, instead, are an attempt to squelch criticism of Israel on U.S. campuses. The bills would endorse an expansive definition of anti-Semitism that would define most antiIsrael speech and actions as being anti-Semitic. S. 2940, introduced May 23 by Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), now has five co-sponsors, including Scott, and H.R. 5924, introduced by Roskam, also on May 23, now has 39 co-sponsors, including Roskam.

The non-binding H.J.Res. 135, “supporting Israel’s right to defend its borders,” was introduced June 5 by Rep. Lee Zeldin (RNY) with 11 co-sponsors. It would accept the Israeli government’s position that Hamas bears total responsibility for all Palestinian deaths and injuries caused by Israel in Gaza, and that all Israeli actions in Gaza are self-defense.

Most of the measures urging greater U.S.-Israel cooperation have made little progress, but the previously described catch-all resolution H.Res. 785, introduced in March by Rep. Michael Conaway (R-TX), has gained 77 co-sponsors and now has 124, including Conaway. In addition to urging unspecified increased U.S.-Israel cooperation, it gratuitously supports Trump’s Dec. 6 declaration recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

Another resolution was introduced congratulating Israel on its 70th anniversary. S.Res. 502 was introduced May 9 by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), with eight co-sponsors.

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

The increasingly timely bill introduced in November by Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN), H.R. 4391, which would “require the secretary

The purpose of the bill is to protect Israel and its colonies from boycotts by foreign nations.

34

BILL SUPPORTING PALESTINIAN CHILDREN GAINS MORE SUPPORT, BUT U.S. WITHDRAWS FROM UNHRC

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018

mcarthurr34-36.qxp_Congress Watch 7/12/18 1:00 PM Page 35

STATUS UPDATES

H.R. 4238, Iran Proxies. The “Iranian Proxies Terrorist Sanctions” bill, introduced in November by Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX), which would impose sanctions on two Iraqi paramilitary groups reportedly affiliated with Iran, now has 19 co-sponsors, including Poe. S.J.Res. 54, S.J.Res. 55 and S.J.Res. 58, Saudi Arabia in Yemen. S.J.Res. 54, introduced in February by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) with 14 co-sponsors, would “direct the removal of state to certify that U.S. funds do not support military detention, interrogation, abuse, or ill-treatment of Palestinian children,” continues to gain support. It now has 30 Democratic co-sponsors, including McCollum.

However, that good news was offset by U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley’s June 19 announcement that the U.S. is withdrawing from the U.N.’s Human Rights Council. Haley claimed that the Council has become a “protector of human rights abusers and a cesspool of political bias.”

But in fact, the main focus of U.S. criticism of the UNHRC has been its calling out of Israel for its human rights violations.

The withdrawal made pointless H.Res. 728, introduced in February by Reps. Joe Wilson (R-SC) and Neal Dunn (R-FL), criticizing the UNHRC’s treatment of Israel.

UNRWA was the target of two new bills.

H.R. 5898, introduced May 21 by Reps.

David Cicilline (D-RI) and Zeldin, would “require the secretary of state to develop a strategy on administration policy regarding UNRWA.” The bill’s text makes it clear that the purpose of the “strategy” is to eliminate or reduce U.S. contributions to UNRWA. And H.R. 6034, introduced June 7 by Rep. David Young (R-IA) with three co-sponsors, would require the secretary of state to “submit annual reports reviewing the educational material used by the Palestinian Authority or the UNRWA.”

TRUMP IGNORES LETTER URGING HIM NOT TO ABANDON JCPOA

On May 7, the day before Trump announced the U.S. withdrawal from the Iran nuclear agreement, the ranking members or vice-chairs of 12 important Senate committees signed a letter to the president, iniAUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018

of U.S. Armed Forces from hostilities in the Republic of Yemen that have not been authorized by Congress.” And both S.J.Res. 55 and S.J.Res. 58, introduced in March and April by Sens.

Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) and Todd Young (R-IN), would require a State Department certification regarding Saudi Arabia’s actions in Yemen. S.J.Res. 58 has two co-sponsors in addition to Young and Shaheen. All three of these measures have no additional cosponsors.

—S.M.

tiated by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), strongly urging him “not to unilaterally withdraw from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) absent an unambiguous Iranian violation of its terms.” Signers, all Democrats, were Sens. Sherrod Brown (OH), Maria Cantwell (WA), Thomas Carper (DE), Richard Durbin (IL), Feinstein, Amy Klobuchar (MN), Patrick Leahy (VT), Patty Murray (WA), Jack Reed (RI), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Tom Udall (NM), and Mark Warner (VA).

Then on June 6, Durbin and seven cosponsors introduced S.Res. 535 “reaffirming the U.S. commitment to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.” The measure includes a clause—after several statements from U.S. and international officials confirming that Iran is in compliance with the nuclear agreement—saying that “despite these statements, overwhelming evidence, and the appeals from several NATO allies, President Trump reinstated sanctions on the Government of Iran and unilaterally withdrew the U.S. from the JCPOA on May 8, 2018.”

(For more on the withdrawal from the JCPOA see the June/July 2018 Washington Report, pp. 16-21.)

MOST IRAN SANCTIONS BILLS MAKE NO PROGRESS

Trump’s withdrawal from the JCPOA apparently stalled action on most Iran sanctions measures. Two exceptions were S. 2353, the “Iran Leadership Asset Transparency” bill, introduced in the Senate in January by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), which now has 12 co-sponsors, including Cotton, and S. 2365, the “Iran Human Rights and Hostage-Taking Accountability” bill, introduced in Janu-

ary by Rubio. It now has five co-sponsors, including Rubio.

H.R. 4821, introduced in January by Roskam, to “impose sanctions against entities owned or controlled by the armed forces of Iran,” still has 31 co-sponsors, including Roskam. However, the AIPACpushed H.R. 5132, introduced in March by Royce, which would expand sanctions against Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, has gained 22 co-sponsors and now has 215, including Royce.

NEW MEASURE REGARDING U.S.GULF NUCLEAR COOPERATION

The previously mentioned measures regarding U.S.-Gulf nuclear cooperation have made scant progress. The positive H.Res. 795, “Recognizing the U.S. role in the evolving energy landscape of the Gulf Cooperation Council countries,” introduced in March

by Reps. Joe Wilson and Donald Norcross (D-NJ), still has no more co-sponsors.

The opposing measure, H.R. 5357, was introduced in March by Ros-Lehtinen.

Consistent with her history of opposing anything that might benefit Saudi Arabia, it would “require congressional approval of agreements for peaceful nuclear cooperation with foreign countries.” It now has seven co-sponsors, including Ros-Lehtinen. A new measure, S.Res. 541, was introduced June 12 by Sen. Jeff Merkley (DOR), with two co-sponsors. It would “express the sense of the Senate that any U.S.-Saudi Arabia civilian nuclear cooperation agreement must prohibit the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia from enriching uranium or separating plutonium on its own territory, in keeping with the strongest possible non-proliferation ‘gold standard.’”

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THE DEMOCRATS’ BOLD NEW LEADERS

Polls in recent years have shown that the base of the Democratic Party, particularly its young members, are increasingly comfortable with questioning Israeli policies and supporting Palestinian human rights. Despite this reality, party elders such as Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (DNY) and House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD) continue to offer unconditional support for Israel.

A new generation of leaders, however, is poised to challenge the status quo on Capitol Hill. Alexandria OcasioCortez, 28, shocked the Democratic establishment by defeating long-time incumbent New York Rep. Joe Crowley (an ardent supporter of Israel) in the party’s June 26 primary. Given the heavily Democratic nature of the district, Cortez is expected to win the general election in November.

Cortez, a card-carrying member of

NEW AUMF MEASURE INTRODUCED

S.J.Res. 59, “authorization for the use of military force against the Taliban, alQaeda, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria,

the Democratic Socialists of America, bucked conventional wisdom and refused to refrain from criticizing Israel during her campaign. On May 14, she tweeted a rebuke of both Israel and the Democratic Party’s stance on the country. “This is a massacre,” she said, referring to Israel’s killing of Palestinian demonstrators in Gaza. “I hope my peers have the moral courage to call it such. No state or entity is absolved of mass shootings of protesters. There is no justification.

Palestinian people deserve basic human dignity, as anyone else. Democrats can’t be silent about this anymore.”

Minnesota State Rep. Ilhan Omar, 36, is one of nine candidates running in the August Democratic primary to replace Rep. Keith Ellison (himself unafraid to criticize Israel), who is abdicating his seat to run for Minnesota at-

and designated associated forces,” introduced in April by Sens. Bob Corker (R-TN) and Tim Kaine (D-VA), still has two Democrat and two Republican co-sponsors. The measure does not include a sunset clause,

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torney general. After critics recently cited a 2012 tweet in which Omar accused Israel of “evil doings,” she doubled down on her criticism of the country. “Drawing attention to the apartheid Israeli regime is far from hating Jews,” she said in a May 31 tweet.

The shift represented by Cortez and Omar has gained national attention.

ABC News on July 8 published an article titled “Progressive Democrats Increasingly Criticize Israel, and Could Reap Political Rewards.” Those final four words are the key. Democrats are increasingly realizing that, in many districts, taking a stand in support of Palestinian rights is a way to woo rather than repel primary voters.

It appears the era of unconditional support for Israel as a bipartisan litmus test of electability is slowly coming to an end.

—Dale Sprusansky

but instead would require presidential and congressional review, to “include a proposal to repeal, modify, or leave in place this joint resolution.” S.J.Res. 61, an AUMF measure introduced May 23 by Merkley, does include a sunset clause, and also specifically limits the use of force to Iraq and Afghanistan, so it may draw broader support, although this hasn’t happened yet.

NEW BILL WOULD REQUIRE REPORT ON U.S. STRATEGY IN SYRIA

A Project of Middle East Children’s Alliance

36

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

While H.R. 4681, introduced in December

by Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY) “to limit assistance for areas of Syria controlled by the government of Syria or associated forces,” still has 26 co-sponsors, including Engel, a new Syria bill, S.2882, was introduced May 17 by Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV).

It would require the president to submit to Congress a report “that sets forth a detailed description of the strategy of the U.S. in Syria.” ■ AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018

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The Nakba Continues

The Dark Secret of Israel’s Stolen Babies

By Jonathan Cook

MENAHEM KAHANA/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

IT IS ISRAEL’S DARKEST secret—or so argues one Israeli journalist—in a country whose short history is replete with dark episodes. Last month Tzachi Hanegbi, the minister for regional cooperation, became the first government official to admit that hundreds of babies had been stolen from their mothers in the years immediately following Israel’s creation in 1948. In truth, the number is more likely to be in the thousands.

For nearly seven decades, successive governments—and three public inquiries—denied there had been any wrongdoing. They concluded that almost all the missing babies had died, victims of a chaotic time when Israel was absorbing tens of thousands of new Jewish immigrants.

But as more and more families came Frecha Amar, 84, of Moroccan descent, poses with a picture of her baby, who she says was forward—lately aided by social media— abducted in 1958, on June 29, 2016 at her home in Kfar Chabad, near Tel Aviv. Amar is one of to reveal their suffering, the official story the thousands of Israelis, mainly from Jewish Yemenite families, who claim their babies were sounded increasingly implausible. abducted more than 60 years ago.

Although many mothers were told their to place all documents relating to the children under lock until 2071 babies had died during or shortly after delivery, they were never hints at a cover-up. shown a body or grave, and no death certificate was ever issued. OthHanegbi, who was given the task of re-examining the classified maers had their babies snatched from their arms by nurses who berated terial by Prime Minister Binyamn Netanyahu, has been evasive on the them for having more children than they could properly care for. question of official involvement. “We may never know,” he has said.

According to campaigners, as many as 8,000 babies were By now, Israel’s critics are mostly inured to the well-known litany seized from their families in the state’s first years and either sold or of atrocities associated with the state’s founding. Not least, hunhanded over to childless Jewish couples in Israel and abroad. To dreds of thousands of Palestinians were expelled from their homemany, it sounds suspiciously like child trafficking. land in 1948 to make way for Israel and its new Jewish immigrants.

A few of the children have been reunited with their biological famThe story of the stolen babies, however, offers the shock of the unilies, but the vast majority are simply unaware they were ever taken. expected. These crimes were committed not against Palestinians Strict Israeli privacy laws mean it is near-impossible for them to see but other Jews. The parents whose babies were abducted had arofficial files that might reveal their clandestine adoption. rived in the new state lured by promises that they would find in IsDid Israeli hospitals and welfare organizations act on their own rael a permanent sanctuary from persecution. or connive with state bodies? It is unclear. But it is hard to imagine such mass abductions could have occurred without officials at the TARGETING ARAB JEWS very least turning a blind eye.

Testimonies indicate that lawmakers, health ministry staff and seBut the kidnapping of the children and the mass expulsion of nior judges knew of these practices at the time. And the decision Palestinians at much the same time are not unrelated events. In fact, the babies scandal sheds light not only on Israel’s past but Jonathan Cook is a journalist based in Nazareth and a winner of the on its present.

Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. He is the author of The stolen babies were not randomly seized. A very specific Blood and Religion and Israel and the Clash of Civilisations (available from AET’s Middle East Books and More). group was targeted: Jews who had just immigrated from the Middle AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

37

cook_37-38.qxp_The Nakba Continues 7/12/18 2:12 PM Page 38

East. Most were from Yemen, with others from Iraq, Morocco and Tunisia.

The Arabness of these Jews was viewed as a direct threat to the Jewish state’s survival, and one almost as serious as the presence of Palestinians. Israel set about “de-Arabizing” these Middle Eastern Jews with the same steely determination with which it had just driven out most of the area’s Palestinians.

Like most of Israel’s founding generation, David Ben-Gurion, the first prime minister, was from Eastern Europe. He accepted the racist, colonial notions dominant in Europe. He regarded European Jews as a civilized people coming to a primitive, barbarous region.

But the early European Zionists were not simply colonists. They were unlike the British in India, for example, who were interested chiefly in subduing the natives and exploiting their resources. If Britain found “taming” the Indians too onerous, as it eventually did, it could pack up and leave.

SETTLER COLONIALISM

That was never a possibility for Ben-Gurion and his followers. They were coming not only to defeat the indigenous people, but to replace them. They were going to build their Jewish state on the ruins of Arab society in Palestine.

Scholars label such enterprises—those intending to create a permanent homeland on another people’s land—as “settler colo-

38

nialism.” Famously, European settlers took over the lands of North America, Australia and South Africa.

The Israeli historian Ilan Pappe has observed that settler colonial movements are distinguished from ordinary colonialism by what he terms the “logic of elimination” that propels them. Such groups have to adopt strategies of extreme violence toward the indigenous population. They may commit genocide, as happened to the Native American peoples and to the Australian Aborigines. If genocide is not possible, they may instead forcefully impose segregation based on racial criteria, as happened in apartheid South Africa. Or they may commit largescale ethnic cleansing, as Israel did in 1948.

They may adopt more than one strategy.

Ben-Gurion needed not only to destroy Palestinian society, but to ensure that “Arabness” did not creep into his new Jewish state through the back door. The large numbers of Arab Jews who arrived in the first decade were needed in his demographic war against the Palestinians and as a labor force, but they posed a danger too. Ben-Gurion feared that, whatever their religion, they might “corrupt” his Jewish state culturally by importing what he called the “spirit of the Levant.”

Adult Jews from the region, he believed, could not be schooled out of their “primitiveness.” But the Zionist leadership hoped the next generation—their offspring—could.

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WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

and the cultivation of a loathing for everything Arab. The task would be made easier still if they were first detached from their biological families.

Israeli campaigners seeking justice for the families of the stolen babies point out that the forcible transfer of children from one ethnic group to another satisfies the United Nation’s definition of genocide.

Certainly, the theft of the Arab Jewish children and their reallocation to European Jews chimed neatly with settler colonialism’s logic of elimination. Such abductions were not unique to Israel. Australia and Canada, for example, seized babies from their surviving native populations in a bid to “civilize” them.

The “re-education” of Israel’s Arab Jews has been largely a success. Netanyahu’s virulently anti-Palestinian Likud party draws heavily on this group’s backing. In fact, it was only because he dares not alienate such supporters that Netanyahu agreed to a fresh examination of the evidence concerning the stolen babies.

But if there is a lesson to be drawn from the government’s partial admission about the abductions, it is not that Netanyahu and Israel’s European elite are now ready to change their ways. Rather, it should alert Israel’s Arab Jews to the fact that they face the same enemy as the Palestinians: a European Jewish establishment that remains resolutely resistant to the idea of living in peace and respect with either Arabs or the region. ■

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018

November/December 2017 Israel Conference issue 4/20/17 10:55 AM Page 39

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Special Report

This is Who We Really Are: Americans and Israelis Must Come to Terms With Reality

By Dale Sprusansky

DAVID MCNEW/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

the evildoings of their time. The likes of Bartolomé de las Casas (a 16th century priest who denounced the genocidal acts of his peers toward the indigenous peoples of the West Indies), Harriet Beecher Stowe (a 19th century American author and abolitionist whose book Uncle Tom’s Cabin directly challenged the cruelty of slavery) and Dietrich Bonhoeffer (a German pastor who was executed for his persistent public denouncements of Nazism), did not simply view the injustices that surrounded them as something external. Although not personally killers of the indigenous, slaveholders, or persecutors of Jews, they nevertheless internalized these realities and understood that their societies were indeed perpetrators of these things.

Such is the duty of today’s Americans Native American women participate in a march in San Diego, CA to protest the separation of and Israelis. Both countries are steeped in lofty national myths that are in direct conchildren from their immigrant parents by U.S. officials, June 23, 2018. frontation with their actual policies and actions. Americans define themselves by the idyllic words of the De“THIS IS NOT WHO WE ARE.” It’s a refrain that has been claration of Independence and the Statue of Liberty. Israelis extol repeated ad nauseam by professional commentators and everytheir country as a bastion of democracy and liberty in a region day Americans alike in response to the Trump administration’s plagued by authoritarianism and repression. Yet, America is the decision to separate undocumented immigrant children from land of the Muslim ban and the Abu Ghraib scandal. Israel arrests their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border. Such a retort to the inyoung Palestinian children in overnight raids and desperate decency of separating families is natural, as no respectable perAfrican asylum seekers. son wants to be identified with a collective group—be it national The good news is that confronting contradictions does not reor otherwise—that commits such an act. quire loathing one’s country or group. History does not look at de This distancing of one’s self from cruelty, however, is more las Casas as a self-hating Catholic, but as a champion of the about personal assuagement than it is about collective reckonfaith’s deepest truths. Stowe and countless other abolitionists and ing. Perhaps the correct response to injustices carried out within civil rights champions are seen as bold challengers of a racist staour society is “this is who we are, but this is not who I am.” Such tus quo that made a mockery of the country’s high moral ideals. a reframing forces one to come to terms with the reality around While the challenges of the past remind us of our dark collecthem, and opens a window into both the agency and responsitive tendencies toward exclusion, they also remind us that whenbilities of individuals who are appalled by the behavior of their ever these racist or xenophobic societal cancers reemerge, they country or group. can be conquered.

The boldest and most transcendent individuals throughout human history inserted rather than extracted themselves from

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

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THE AMERICAN CHALLENGE

This dual message of reconciling with the dark, deep truths of what America is and maintaining hope in the collective power of people

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

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sprusansky_40-41.qxp_Special Report 7/12/18 1:46 PM Page 41

JACK GUEZ/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

of goodwill was the crux of a powerful speech delivered

by Rev. Traci Blackmon, Executive Minister of Justice and Local Church Ministries for the United Church of Christ, at the June 30 “Families Belong Together” rally in Washington, DC. “We have been here before. I know it feels brand new, but it’s not. We have been here before,” Blackmon said, as she began her fiery speech. She recalled America’s history of slavery and segregation, the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, the genocide of the country’s indigenous peoples African migrants, with white paint on their faces, outside the Embassy of Rwanda in the Israeli city of and the ongoing mass in- Herzliya, Feb. 7, 2018, demonstrate against the Israeli government's plan to forcibly deport African refugees carceration of black youth. and asylum seekers to Rwanda and Uganda. Israel cancelled the arrangement in April after receiving All these policies, she international rebuke for the plan. noted, separated children from their families. Trump’s policy at the fact that a critical mass of Americans are rael’s separation walls. Secretary of Homecommitted to defeating the latest incursion land Security Kirstjen Nielsen, who helped border is thus nothing new.

“What we are witnessing at our borders of racism into this country’s history. implement the policy of separating families, History shows those who promulgate visited Israel in June and praised the counwith black and brown families today is not who America has become, this is who hate and fear cannot ultimately triumph, as try’s skills at erecting barriers. “Border secuAmerica has always been,” she continued. the emptiness of their lies are eventually rity is national security. Our Israeli partners “This has been this nation’s response exposed. Just as there are dark strains know that better than anyone,” she said folwhenever its false God of whiteness is through our nation’s history, as well as all lowing her trip to Israel’s wall in the Sinai. threatened,” she said, identifying the cen- of human history, there are persistently upThere can be little doubt that Israel’s tral force—racism—behind this country’s right strains that combat hate whenever it walls along the Sinai, West Bank and arises. And as Blackmon noted, for people Gaza Strip, serve as a physical manifestamost morally decrepit moments.

Naming the rooted evil of racism, Black- of faith, there is also the reality of divine tion of the country’s desire to keep nonmon turned to a hopeful message. “Just as justice that ought to give hope to the op- Jews out. Leaders of the self-professed all those other wrong racist decisions have posed and rattle the powerful. “God, and Jewish state regularly speak of the “demobeen overturned, this one will be as well,” not the empire, has the last word in human graphic threat” posed by Palestinians. This she assured her audience. Supreme Court history,” she said. “There is a higher law is why Palestinians displaced by fighting in rulings that denied citizenship to slaves than that made by man...and that law is 1948 and 1967 are denied the right of re(Dred Scott v. Sandford in 1857) and en- love, my friends.” turn to their homes within the borders of dorsed the notion of separate but equal modern Israel. It’s why Israel has revoked ISRAEL’S DEEP-ROOTED IDEOLOGY the residency of 14,595 Palestinian resi(Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896) are now seen as moral abominations, she noted.

“We must always remember that this is not dents of Jerusalem since 1967, while perThe urgent, but ultimately hopeful, tone as much about safe immigration policy as it mitting Jews to create illegal settlements of Blackmon’s speech was given credence is about separatist ideology.” As Rev. Black- in the city. It’s the country’s separatist ideby the tens of thousands of people who mon uttered these words, my initial associ- ology that inclined 52 percent of Israelis turned out in the scorching summer heat ation was with Israeli, not U.S. policy. It is Is- polled in 2012 to agree with the statement to protest the separation of families. The rael, after all, that many American fans of that African migrants are “a cancer in the marches that took place around the coun- ethnic separation look to for inspiration. body” of the country. try on that Saturday are a testament to the President Donald Trump has praised IsContinued on p. 53 AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 1018

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Special Report

TPS Saves People Who Face Catastrophe if They’re Forced to Go Home

By Delinda C. Hanley

ESSA AHMED/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Patrice Lawrence, from the UndocuBlack Network, said that approximately 437,000 people from 10 countries—Haiti, El Salvador, Syria, Nepal, Honduras, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan, Nicaragua and South Sudan—have TPS. The Trump administration terminated TPS for Salvadorans, Liberians, and people from Guinea and Sierra Leone. She chided congressional staffers not in attendance, “This isn’t a Democratic or Republican issue. It can’t be siloed. It needs to be a bipartisan issue.”

The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, African Communities Together, UndocuBlack Network, Black Alliance for Just Immigration, the Council on Displaced Yemenis who fled their homes in the war-torn port city of Hodeida arrive at a make- American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the shift camp for displaced people in the northern district of Abs, in Yemen's Hajjah province, June Yemen Peace Project and other organiza22, 2018. The Hodeida offensive is the most intense battlefront in the already-brutal Yemen tions worked tirelessly together, writing war, which has left millions displaced. petitions and providing information to members of Congress.

IT WAS STANDING ROOM ONLY at a congressional briefing on On July 5, 2018—a week after the packed congressional briefthe renewal of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Yemen and ing, Nielsen renewed TPS for Yemenis through March 3, 2020.

Somalia on June 28 at the Longworth House Office Building.

As we went to press, Somali nationals were waiting to hear their Congressional staff, summer interns and press wanted to hear fate. TPS for Syrians will continue until Sept. 30, 2019, also experts and TPS holders explain the dire situations in both counthanks to grassroots efforts. tries. TPS is a life-saving humanitarian immigration program that Established by Congress, the TPS provision in the Immigration gives temporary status to eligible nationals of designated counAct of 1990 states that after each 6-, 12- or 18-month review, if tries. Jill Marie Bussey, from Catholic Legal Immigration Network, conditions have changed, governments can adequately handle Inc. (CLINIC) explained that TPS status allows persons already the return of their citizens, and the returnees can return in safety, living and working in the United States to remain for limited times then TPS can be terminated. when something catastrophic happens in their home countries.

Michael Page, from Human Rights Watch, said if anything, It is given to nationals from some countries affected by armed conditions in Yemen have gotten worse since Yemeni nationals conflict, epidemics or natural disaster. were given TPS in September 2015. Yemen’s war has caused TPS status for approximately 1,250 Yemenis was set to expire the world’s worst humanitarian crisis with more than 22 million on Sept. 3, 2018 and for 499 Somalians on Sept. 17, 2018. The Yemenis—three-quarters of the population—needing humanitarattorney general no longer makes the decision to renew or canian assistance. At least 8.4 million are on the brink of starvation, cel TPS. Now it is up to Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen 50 percent of hospitals are not functioning and there have been M. Nielsen, and she had already decided that TPS expires for more than a million suspected cases of cholera.

Liberians living in the U.S. on Sept. 30 and for Sudanese on Nov. Nationals face arbitrary detention, torture and indiscriminate 2, 2018. shelling, Page said. A recent Associated Press report found sexual abuse of Yemeni detainees in secret Emirati-run prisons in Delinda C. Hanley is news editor of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. southern Yemen. “The U.S. is intimately involved in Yemen,” 42

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018

Page concluded. We supply weapons, provide aerial refueling and intelligence.

The least we can do is protect Yemenis working in the U.S. Abdullahi Halakhe, from the International Rescue Committee, described the devastating humanitarian and environmental conditions in Somalia. He said Somali nationals returning from overseas are especially targeted in displaced persons camps by al-Shabaab.

Amaha Kassa, founder and executive director of African Communities Together, told staffers that TPS holders are breadwinners for their families in the U.S., and provide life-sustaining remittances to support families they left behind. They contribute to the American workforce, he pointed out, contributing but not drawing from Social Security and Medicare. TPS terminations can leave parents of American-born children with the impossible decision: bring them to unfamiliar countries where they could be in harm’s way or leave them behind.

Rep. Yvette D. Clarke (D-NY 9th District), who co-wrote dear colleague letters on behalf of Somali and Yemeni TPS holders, many of whom live in central Brooklyn, said, “I cannot sit back without doing everything I can to keep our communities whole.” She berated the Trump administration for waging a war on immigrants, particularly those of color, and ending family preferences in immigration. She reproached the Supreme Court for rubber stamping the Muslim ban.

“These TPS holders have been integrated into American life, the American dream,” she said. “Sending them back to an uncertain fate, persecution or even death is to demolish our ideals,” Clarke said.

Mohamed, 29, a Somali TPS holder from Ohio, recalled being kidnapped in 2009, held in a dark room and brain washed before fleeing to the safety of America, “the beautiful land of opportunity.” His voice shook as he said, “To the American people—I love you all. Living here I don’t have to look over my shoulder to see who is trying to kill me.” Before coming here, Mohamed endured numerous background checks, and spent thouAUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018

STAFF PHOTO D. HANLEY

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Abed, a Yemeni TPS holder shows a photo of his murdered brother.

sands of dollars in legal fees. “I was reborn the moment I stepped into the United States. If I am sent back I face violence, persecution, sexual violence, forced recruitment or conscription.”

He had to leave the room.

Jaylani Hussein, from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) Minnesota, warned that sending TPA holders back to countries President Trump’s Muslim ban has labeled unsafe will send a mixed message. He, too, grew up in Somalia. Today when he and other traumatized Somalians hear fireworks here in America, they think it’s gunfire. He visited a hospital in Somalia in 2011 and saw “children who don’t smile and famished babies with no energy to smile back.”

Somalia faces conflict plus a humanitarian crisis—lack of food due to climate change, with livestock killed by storms and floods. Hussein urged listeners to help, “We have the opportunity to keep people away from storms and violence.”

Abed, a Yemeni TPS holder, talked about his brother, 26, the father of three kids. He had a choice, leave his house to shop and feed his kids or let them starve, Abed said, showing a picture of his brother on his cell phone. He was killed in the market after Friday prayers.

“I work 10 hours a day. I’m living a small American dream,” Abed said. “I miss my

parents and sister in Sana’a but I know it’s not safe to go home and I can send them money.”

Dr. Debbie Almontaser, from the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and the Yemeni American Merchants Association noted, “It’s been a very emotional day. Abed and Mohamed are just two symbols of a thousand people. Our pain is real.

This is the story of every individual who is seeking a better life for their family. The civil war in Yemen must end,” Almontaser said.

“But until it does, Yemeni families in New York, Michigan and California are sitting on the edge of their seats wondering what will happen to them. Help them stay in the U.S.” Clarke urged action, “There has been tremendous advocacy around Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) but TPS is below the surface,” she said. “We can build this movement. We’ve got a lot of work to do—to amplify these voices.”

That work succeeded a week later for Yemeni TPS holders, and we hope Somalis can also stay. ■ (Advertisement)

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WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

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Special Report

Why Did Latin America Stop Standing up for Palestine?

(L-r) Sara Netanyahu and her husband, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, applaud as Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales and his wife, Hilda Patricia Marroquin, open the Guatemalan Embassy in Jerusalem, May 16, 2018. Guatemala became the first country to follow in the footsteps of the United States’ deeply controversial move, breaking with decades of international consensus.

WHILE MOST OF THE WORLD rejected U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to move the United States Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, some Latin American leaders have supported it enthusiastically. This may come as a surprise to many; after all, the region has been vocal about its support for the Palestinian cause. All Latin American states, except for Colombia, Panama and Mexico, recognized the state of Palestine between 2008 and 2013.

But political realities in the region have changed. Paraguay recently became the third country to move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, following in the footsteps of the U.S. and Guatemala. Honduras may be next; last month, its congress passed a resolution urging its Foreign Ministry to carry out the move. And in December 2017, Jair Bolsonaro, the far-right presidential candidate leading in Brazil’s most recent polls, stated that if elected he would follow Trump’s controversial decision.

Such developments signal a worrisome shift in support for the Palestinian cause and demonstrate a broader regional trend toward regressive politics.

Cecilia Baeza is an Al-Shabaka policy analyst and a lecturer at the Getulio Vargas Foundation in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Copyright © 2018 Al Jazeera Media Network.

44

Many observers are pointing to the fact that Latin America and Israel have ties that date back to 1948. Guatemala pioneered these relations with its immediate recognition of the Israeli state, and more than half of Latin American countries opened embassies in Jerusalem in the years that followed. Yet though Latin America was rather friendly toward Israel until 1967, afterward, relations changed.

For instance, in 1980, Israel’s adoption of a law proclaiming Jerusalem its “indivisible and eternal capital” led to a U.N. Security Council resolution calling on countries to move their embassies to Tel Aviv.

Nine Latin American states—Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Panama, Uruguay and Venezuela— immediately respected the demand. The Dominican Republic and Guatemala delayed until 1982, but ultimately implemented the resolution.

More recently, in 2014, as the Israeli offensive against Gaza’s population escalated and the international community stayed silent, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador and Peru issued strong statements of condemnation and recalled their ambassadors for consultation.

Regional support for relocating embassies to Jerusalem is linked to an alarming takeover of power by right-wing forces in the region and their need for U.S. approval. The right-wing govern-

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

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RONEN ZVULUN/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

By Cecilia Baeza

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Argentina Soccer Declines to Play in Jerusalem Apparently emboldened by the recent U.S. recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, Israeli Sports Minister Miri Regev decided at the last minute to move a friendly June 9 soccer match between Israel and Argentina from the coastal city of Haifa to the divided city of Jerusalem. That decision backfired.

The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, following the lead of the Palestinian Football Federation (PFF), quickly launched a campaign to discourage Argentina from playing the game in the city Israel and the U.S. have deemed to be Israel’s capital in contravention of international law. “This match has become a political tool,” PFF head Jibril Rajoub told journalists in Ramallah on June 3. “The Israeli government is trying to give it political significance by insisting it be held in Jerusalem,” he added.

The Palestinian campaign, which applied direct pressure on Argentine superstar forward Lionel Messi, succeeded in getting the match cancelled. Israeli and Argentine officials, however, blamed the cancellation on security concerns, saying that Argentina’s players received multiple threats and felt that calls for fans to burn Messi’s jerseys jeopardized their safety.

This explanation did not satisfy many Israeli officials, who lambasted Argentina for pulling out of the game. “It’s too bad the football players of Argentina did not withstand the pressure of the Israeli-hating inciters, whose only goal is to impinge our basic right to self-defense and bring about the destruction of Israel,” tweeted ments of Guatemala and Honduras are facing serious political crises, for example, and desperately need Washington’s support.

Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales has been mired in a series of corruption and money laundering scandals since 2016, and is still under pressure to submit his resignation. Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez’s recent re-election in November 2017 was plagued by widespread allegations of electoral fraud and corruption, as well as violence against protesters.

For Morales and Hernandez, moving their embassies to Jerusalem is not only a show of “goodwill” toward Trump, but an attempt to shift attention away from domestic troubles. It also shows a resurgence of servile subordination to U.S. interests—something most Latin American governments had managed to overcome in the 2000s.

The two leaders also have personal connections to Israel. Morales is an evangelical Christian, as are around 40 percent of Guatemalans, and as such he is a staunch Zionist. Hernandez, on the other hand, is a graduate of an outreach program administered by the Agency for International Development Cooperation under the Israeli Foreign Ministry.

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018

right-wing Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman. “We will not yield before a pack of anti-Semitic terrorist supporters.”

Argentina was one of 35 countries that abstained from voting on a December 2017 United Nations resolution condemning the U.S. decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Argentine President Mauricio Macri warmly welcomed Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to Buenos Aires in September 2017, signaling a shift from his predecessor, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, whose government was critical of Israeli policies. Netanyahu also visited Colombia and Mexico on that trip, making him the first sitting Israeli prime minister to visit Latin America.

Chilean City Endorses BDS The city of Valdivia, located in southern Chile, has become the first city in Latin America to endorse the international BDS movement. In June, the city council unanimously passed a pro-BDS measure, declaring the city an “apartheid free zone.” The resolution was introduced by the city’s mayor, Omar Sabat, who is of Palestinian heritage.

An estimated 350,000 Chileans (2 percent of the population) are of Palestinian heritage, giving the country the largest Palestinian diaspora population outside of the Middle East. Nearly 2,000 Chileans participated in a December 2017 protest in Santiago, opposing Washington’s decision to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem. Chile’s government has spoken out against the Trump administration’s embassy move.

—Dale Sprusansky

Paraguay’s president, Horacio Cartes— a billionaire who has also been accused of money laundering and drug smuggling— also has close ties with Israel. He is known to have close relations with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. One of Cartes’ campaign advisers in 2013, Ari Harow, also served as Netanyahu’s chief of staff.

Further, these three leaders came to power with the support of right-wing parties that have long-standing ties with the Israeli military industry. Israel sold weapons to and maintained excellent relations with the Paraguayan tyrant Alfredo Stroessner, a military general who ruled from 1954 to 1989. Cartes, the leader of the right-wing Colorado Party, which served as the political power base of the Stroessner dictatorship, has revived these military connections.

Similar ties were established in the late 1970s between the Guatemalan regime and Israel. A few years later, when Gen. Efrain Rios Montt staged a coup, it was reported that 300 Israeli military advisers aided him. Officers who participated in the Guatemalan civil war side by side with Montt, who was later convicted of geno-

cide against indigenous communities, are now part of Morales’ party. Therefore, it is hardly surprising that the Guatemalan president chose to go to Israel for his first official trip abroad.

Honduras, too, received significant military support from Israel during the 1980s, when the CIA-backed Contra uprising swept through the country. In 2016 it signed a new arms export deal with Israel, one of the largest in Latin America in recent years.

Hernandez called it an historic deal that would strengthen the country’s security forces, unlike anything that came before it.

Admittedly, democracy is receding in Latin America, even in countries governed by left-wing parties, such as in Nicaragua and Venezuela. But there is something especially worrisome about this new generation of right-wing leaders in Guatemala, Honduras, Paraguay and elsewhere. They are reversing gains achieved by the civil society on indigenous and minority rights and re-introducing toxic racist rhetoric and policies—not that different from the Israeli ones.

Israel’s financial and military support for these right-wing powers spells nothing good for the people of Latin America. ■

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From the Diaspora

The Colonization of Palestine: Rethinking the Term “Israeli Occupation”

By Ramzy Baroud

THOMAS COEX/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

tion as per international standards and definitions. It is merely a phase of Zionist colonization of historic Palestine, a process that began over 100 years ago, and carries on to this date.

“The law of occupation is primarily motivated by humanitarian considerations; it is solely the facts on the ground that determine its application,” states the International Committee of the Red Cross website.

It is for practical purposes that we often utilize the term “occupation” with reference to Israel’s colonization of Palestinian land occupied after Ultra-orthodox Jews watch Palestinian demonstrators during protests in the West Bank village of Bi’lin in June 5, 1967. The term allows front of the Israeli settlement of Modi’in Illit, Feb. 27, 2015. for the constant emphasis on humanitarian rules that are meant to govern Israel’s behavior as JUNE 5, 2018 marked the 51st anniversary of the Israeli occupation the occupying power. of East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza.

However, Israel has already, and repeatedly, violated most conBut, unlike the massive popular mobilization that preceded the ditions of what constitute an “occupation” from an international law anniversary of the Nakba (the catastrophic destruction of Palestine perspective, as articulated in the 1907 Hague Regulations (articles in 1948) on May 15, the anniversary of the occupation hardly gen42-56) and the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention. erated equal mobilization.

According to these definitions, an “occupation” is a provisional The unsurprising death of the “peace process” and the inphase, a temporary situation that is meant to end with the impleevitable demise of the “two-state solution” has shifted the focus mentation of international law regarding that particular situation. from ending the occupation per se, to the larger and more encom“Military occupation” is not the sovereignty of the occupier over passing problem of Israel’s colonialism throughout Palestine. the occupied; it cannot include transfer of citizens from the terriThe grassroots mobilization in Gaza and the West Bank, and tories of the occupying power to occupied land; it cannot include among Palestinian Bedouin communities in the Naqab Desert, ethnic cleansing; destruction of properties; collective punishment are, once more, widening the Palestinian people’s sense of naand annexation. tional aspirations. Thanks to the limited vision of the Palestinian It is often argued that Israel is an occupier that has violated the leadership, those aspirations have, for decades, been confined to rules of occupation as stated in international law.

Gaza and West Bank.

This would have been the case a year, 2 or 5 years after the In some sense, the “Israeli occupation” is no longer an occupaoriginal occupation had taken place—but not 51 years later. Since Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and editor of palestine Chronithen, the occupation has turned into long-term colonization. cle. His latest book is the last earth: a palestinian story (available An obvious proof is Israel’s annexation of occupied land, includfrom AET’s Middle East Books and More). Baroud has a Ph.D. in Palesing the Syrian Golan Heights and Palestinian East Jerusalem, in tine Studies from the University of Exeter and is a non-resident scholar the early 1980s. Those decisions had no regard for international at Orfalea Center for Global and International Studies, University of California. His website is <www.ramzybaroud.net>. law, humanitarian or any other.

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Israeli politicians have, for years, openly debated the annexation of the West Bank, especially areas that are populated with illegal Jewish settlements, which are built contrary to international law.

Those hundreds of settlements that Israel has been building in the West Bank and East Jerusalem are not meant as temporary structures.

Dividing the West Bank into three zones, areas A, B and C, each governed according to different political diktats and military rules, has little precedent in international law.

Israel argues that, contrary to international law, it is no longer an occupying power in Gaza; however, an Israeli land, maritime and aerial siege has been imposed on the Strip for over 11 years. With successive Israeli wars that have killed thousands, to a hermetic blockade that has pushed the Palestinian population to the brink of starvation, Gaza subsists in isolation.

Gaza is an “occupied territory” by name only, without any of the humanitarian rules applied. In a recent 10-week period alone, over 130 unarmed protesters, journalists and medics were killed and 13,000 wounded, yet the international community and law remain inept, unable to face or challenge Israeli leaders or to overpower

equally cold-hearted American U.N. vetoes.

The Palestinian occupied territories have, long ago, crossed the line from being occupied to being colonized. But there are reasons that we are trapped in old definitions, leading among them is American political hegemony over the legal and political discourses pertaining to Palestine.

One of the main political and legal achievements of the Israeli war—which was carried out with full U.S. support—on several Arab countries in June 1967 is the redefining of the legal and political language on Palestine.

Prior to that war, the discussion was mostly dominated by such urgent issues as the “right of return” for Palestinian refugees to go back to their homes and properties in historic Palestine.

The June war shifted the balance of power completely, and cemented America’s role as Israel’s main backer on the international stage.

Several U.N. Security Council resolutions were passed to delegitimize the Israeli occupation: UNSCR 242, UNSCR 338, and the less talked about but equally significant UNSCR 497.

242 of 1967 demanded “withdrawal of Israeli armed forces” from the territories it occupied in the June war. 338, which followed (Advertisement)

the war of 1973, accentuated and clarified that demand. Resolution 497 of 1981 was a response to Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights. It rendered such a move “null and void and without international legal effect.”

The same applied to the annexation of Jerusalem as to any colonial constructions or any Israeli attempts aimed at changing the legal status of the West Bank.

But Israel is operating with an entirely different mindset.

Considering that anywhere between 600,000 to 750,000 Israeli Jews now live in the “occupied territories,” and that the largest settlement of Modi’in Illit houses more than 64,000 Israeli Jews, one has to wonder what form of military occupation blue-print Israel is implementing, anyway?

Israel is a settler colonial project, which began when the Zionist movement aspired to build an exclusive homeland for Jews in Palestine, at the expense of the native inhabitants of that land in the 19th century.

Nothing has changed since. Only facades, legal definitions and political discourses. The truth is that Palestinians continue to suffer the consequences of Zionist colonialism and they will continue to carry that burden until that original sin is boldly confronted and justly remedied. ■

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The Nakba Continues

Palestinians Refuse to Surrender Their Right To Have Rights

A Palestinian woman holds her identity card as she waits at the Qalandia checkpoint in the occupied West Bank on June 9, 2017, in order to attend Friday prayers during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan at al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem.

FOR 70 YEARS, the United States and much of the world community have ignored the ongoing al-Nakba—Arabic for “catastrophe”— of the Palestinian people at the hands of one of the last remaining colonial powers, Israel. The establishment of Israel in 1948 meant the loss of home, civil society and citizenship for the Palestinians.

Dispossession of citizenship should be designated as a crime against humanity, argued political theorist and iconoclast Hannah Arendt. Stripped of her German citizenship by the Nazis in 1937, Arendt grappled with the consequences of statelessness, of losing one’s national identity. Citizenship, she reasoned, provided the legal protections conferred by a functioning state, making the individual less vulnerable to human rights abuses. Arendt characterized statelessness as the very absence of the “right to have rights.”

Statelessness was at the heart of the Zionist argument for the creation of a Jewish state. Tragically, the Zionist plan for an exclusive Jewish state in Palestine involved removing the native people from their homes, wiping their cities and villages from the map, and attempting to erase them from time and space—to make them non-existent. Any hope for a viable Palestinian state diminishes as the remaining 22 percent of ancestral Palestine

M. Reza Behnam, Ph.D., is a political scientist specializing in the history, politics and governments of the Middle East.

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By Dr. M. Reza Behnam

disappears to hillsides covered with illegal Jewish settlements.

In 1948, some 750,000 Palestinians were forced from their homes to realize Jewish statehood. Of the 12 million Palestinians living today, more than half currently remain stateless. Of today’s approximately seven million Palestinian refugees, a third live in the Israeli-occupied territories.

The loss of place and exposure to political and physical violence that has shaped Palestinian lives constitutes, according to Arendt’s rationale, a crime against humanity.

Like her contemporaries, such as Martin Buber, Arendt believed in finding ways to share the land, favoring a Jewish-Arab federated model. However, what has emerged in Israel is a strictly exclusionary Jewish state that privileges Jews over non-Jews. It has created a national political identity based on religious beliefs. Israel’s entrenched system of institutionalized discrimination reflects its ethos that Palestinians are a demographic obstacle to the realization of a “Greater Israel.”

THE OCCUPIED TERRITORIES

Israel has conferred the inferior status of “foreign resident” upon the Palestinian inhabitants of the occupied territories, making them foreigners in their own land.

Without citizenship rights, they are vulnerable to Israel’s arbitrary laws. The power to imprison is used extensively against the Palestinian population. Over the years, thousands of Palestinians have been imprisoned without charges and evidence disclosed to their lawyers. At the end of May 2018, there were 5,732 Palestinians being held in Israeli prisons, according to the Israeli non-governmental organization B’Tselem.

Many detainees have been under 18. Currently, more than 290 minors are in Israeli prisons. A 2015 UNICEF report confirmed that ill-treatment of Palestinian children remains systematic and widespread within its military detention system.

Although in 1991 Israel ratified the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, whose Article 12 guarantees that everyone living within a state shall have the right and liberty of movement, freedom to choose residence, and be free to leave his own or any country, it severely restricts the movement of Palestinians.

Draconian travel restrictions, hundreds of military checkpoints, barriers, roadblocks and walls compound the burden of move-

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ment, and are often life-threatening. These humiliating barriers restrict access to agricultural land, work and health care. They cut connections among Palestinian families and communities, and make visiting and socializing onerous.

Movement is strictly controlled through an elaborate permit regime. ID cards must be carried at all times. Visas—with limited time and place conditions—must be obtained to travel outside the territories or beyond the separation wall.

Efforts to dispossess the Palestinian population and gain demographic control continue unabated through home demolitions. Israel is dedicated to the proposition that every Jewish family has the basic right to safe and secure housing, yet denies this right to Palestinian families, whose homes may be bulldozed at any time.

Since 1967, more than 48,000 Palestinian homes and structures in the occupied territories have been destroyed. From 2006 until April 30, 2018, at least 1,333 homes in the West Bank (excluding East Jerusalem) were razed, making 5,997 people homeless. In 2017 alone, 351 structures were destroyed, including schools.

Israeli laws and policies make it impossible for Palestinians to build legally. Building permits are costly and rarely granted— home permits cost an estimated $30,000— so they are forced to build “illegally.” It is worth noting that upon receipt of a demolition notice, Palestinian families face an untenable choice: Either destroy the home yourself or the Israelis will—then charge you for the costly demolition fees.

One of the most grievous demolitions took place in the Mughrabi Quarter of East Jerusalem’s Old City on June 10, 1967, shortly after Israel’s victory in the Six-Day War it launched. Some of the buildings destroyed in this old Moroccan neighborhood were more than seven centuries old. Israeli bulldozers leveled Arab neighborhoods on both sides of the Western Wall to make way for an expanded plaza for Jewish worshippers. The mass demolition left 132 families homeless.

The Bedouin Palestinians on both sides of the Green Line (1949 Armistice border) are regularly targeted for home demoliAUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018

tions. Israel’s High Court of Justice in May 2018 ordered the demolition of Khan AlAhmar, a Bedouin village—which lies between two Israeli settlements in the occupied territories—to build 2,000 units for Jewish settlers. The government has offered the residents an alternative location near a garbage dump in the nearby Palestinian town of Abu Dis. Home demolitions, residency revocations, evictions, land ownership restrictions, movement barriers and incarceration are just some of the bureaucratic legalities used to contain, control, demoralize and to gradually remove the Palestinian population. These strategies are meant to keep Palestinians preoccupied with the struggle for their basic needs, leaving them no time to struggle for national rights.

JERUSALEM: CENTER OF LIFE

East Jerusalem, with expanded borders, has been occupied and ruled by Israel since 1967. Palestinian inhabitants do not have Israeli citizenship, but are subject to Israeli laws. They are classified as permanent residents and, as such, cannot participate in national elections as voters or candidates.

Despite the term “permanent,” Palestinians can be systematically stripped of their Jerusalem residency if they are unable to prove that the city is their primary abode.

Since 1995, the permanent residency status of more than 11,000 Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem has been rescinded under Israel’s “center of life” policy. To avoid residency revocation, they must continually prove that Jerusalem is their “center of life.” Those who do leave— whether to a foreign country or the West Bank—risk losing the right to live in Jerusalem. Conversely, Israeli citizens can live anywhere in the world, for unlimited periods of time, without losing their citizenship or any of the rights it entails.

Israel’s interior minister is the sole arbiter of individual residency, leaving Palestinians with no due process. Revocation means deportation to the West Bank, loss of home, family and any benefits for taxes paid. The interior minister can strip the residency of any Palestinian deemed a threat, found engaging in anti-Israeli activities, or

on grounds of disloyalty to Israel. According to international humanitarian law, it is illegal to impose an obligation of loyalty on people under military occupation or who are not citizens.

The intent of the “center of life” policy has been to institutionalize a system that ensures a Jewish majority in Jerusalem—to make it a Jewish city. Jewish settlers are encouraged to move into Palestinian neighborhoods.

They can claim ownership of East Jerusalem properties on grounds that they were owned

by Jews before 1948. No such law exists for the 750,000 Palestinian refugees who have never been allowed to return to their homes owned before 1948. For them it is an erosive process of colonization.

The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions reported that since 1967, not one new Palestinian community has been built in East Jerusalem, even as the population has quadrupled. Only 7 percent of East Jerusalem land is zoned for residential housing, although Palestinians account for 40 percent of the city’s population.

The Israel Knesset, or parliament, passed a law in 2003 effectively barring Palestinians living in the occupied territories who marry an East Jerusalem resident from joining their spouses in Jerusalem. In addition, the separation wall fully sealed Palestinian East Jerusalemites off from the rest of the West Bank.

ISRAEL PROPER

Today, 21 percent of the nearly 8.5 million inhabitants of the state of Israel are Palestinian. Israel’s Palestinian citizens are the descendants of the approximately 150,000 who remained in the country following the 1948 expulsion. To ensure a Jewish majority state, Israel passed a number of laws— within four years of its founding—to restrict Palestinian access to citizenship, to nullify the right of return of the displaced population, and to accelerate Jewish immigration and naturalization.

Israel prefers to cast Palestinian citizens as Israeli Arabs. They can best be described as stateless citizens of Israel: they are included yet excluded. All Israeli citizens’ incomes are taxed, but Jewish communities Continued on p. 52

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Special Report

We Won’t Stop Filming, We Won’t Stop Writing

By Gideon Levy

STRINGER/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

to remove the cameras from the occupied territories, the real arena of its disgrace— so the truth will not be exposed and the injustice will be minimized.

Without cameras, the Elor Azaria affair would not have existed; without cameras there will be many more Azarias. This is exactly the goal of the law: to have many Azarias. Not that the documentation manages to prevent anything. The IDF and the public no longer get very excited about human rights violations and war crimes in the territories, and most journalists also don’t take an interest in them any longer.

To think that breaking bones with a stone in front of the cameras of an American network caused a scandal during the first inIsraeli medic Elor Azaria (c) is lifted by friends in Ramla, near Tel Aviv, as they celebrate his tifada. Today, no one becomes upset about release from prison, May 8, 2018. Azaria served nine months, half his sentence, for shooting similar pictures; indeed, it’s doubtful whether dead a Palestinian who’d injured an Israeli soldier. A Palestinian human rights activist, Imad an effort would even be made to publish Abu Shamsiya, filmed the execution of the wounded and untended man lying on the street. them. But Israel’s soldiers learned to treat the camera and the pen as the enemy. If once we presented our press credentials at the checkpoints, today WE WILL VIOLATE this law proudly. We have an obligation to we hide them so the soldiers don’t catch us in all our iniquities. violate this law, like any law with a black flag waving over it. We Once we were even arrested. will not stop documenting. We will not stop photographing. We Covering the occupation today already entails violating the will not stop writing—with all our might. law. Israelis are forbidden to enter [Palestinian-controlled] Area Human rights organizations will do the same too and like them, A and journalists must “coordinate” their entry with the IDF we hope, Palestinian eyewitnesses, who will of course be punished spokesman’s office. But because there is no such thing as jourmore than anyone. According to the proposed law passed June 17 nalism with coordination, except for the journalism of military corby the Ministerial Committee for Legislation [but also calling for respondents in Israel—we ignore this ridiculous order, lie at the some of the wording to be changed], individuals documenting the checkpoints, deceive, sneak in, use bypass tactics and go everyactions of Israel Defense Forces soldiers in the West Bank may be where in the West Bank. sent to jail for as much as five years, under certain circumstances.

Where were you, asks the soldier after every visit to Hebron?

A nice initiative, MK Robert Ilatov, democrat from the wellIn Kiryat Arba. What did you do there? We have friends there. known freedom party Yisrael Beiteinu. Your bill proves just how Because it is a negligible handful of journalists who still bother much the IDF has something to hide, what it has to be embarto go, the authorities shut their eyes. rassed about, what there is to cover up, to the point where even But technology and the B’Tselem NGO have given birth to a the camera and pen have become its enemies. Ilatov against the new enemy: video cameras that are handed out to Palestinian volterrorism of the cameras and Israel against the truth. unteers, and in their wake cellphones too, in the hands of every At a time when the Israel Police are outfitting its officers with Palestinian or Machsom Watch volunteer. Suddenly it is harder to body cameras, which have proved themselves when it comes to cover up and lie. Suddenly it is impossible to easily invent knives reducing police violence, according to the force, Israel is trying and other imaginary dangers after every futile killing. Who will save Continued on p. 52 Copyright © Haaretz Daily Newspaper Ltd. All rights reserved.

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Special Report

Ilan Pappé Campaigns for One Democratic State in Israel DESPITE RECENT SETBACKS, the movement for one democratic state in Israel and Palestine is gaining momentum, and is particularly strong on college campuses, according to Ilan Pappé, the self-exiled Israeli director of the European Center for Palestinian Studies at the University of Exeter, UK. “Young people in the Middle East and abroad have been galvanized by the vision of an end to the apartheid state in Israel and the establishment of a single democratic state, based on human rights for all,” Pappé told the Washington Report as he engaged in various lectures and debates in May, marking the 70th anniversary of the state of Israel and the Nakba (catastrophe in Arabic), the mass expulsion of Palestinians by Zionist para-military forces.

“In fact, we’re already living in one state, but it’s a racist settlercolonialist state,” Pappé asserted, after participating in a debate on Israeli apartheid at Lisbon University. He emphasized that a major obstacle to the dream of Israeli and Palestinian activists for one democratic state is that Israelis have convinced -world opinion that their country is the only democracy in the Middle East.

Nevertheless, the controversial Israeli historian chose this conference to announce the organization of the One Democratic State Initiative. “This is to bring together under one roof all the movements and individuals who believe in this solution in and outside Palestine, and to try and create together a movement of change,” he wrote on Facebook—adding that he hoped the launch would take place in September.

Questioned about Israel’s harsh reaction to the Palestinians’ Great March of Return, Pappé said in an interview: “Most Israelis consider that a peaceful march against the occupation and armed resistance are the same. Both are viewed as terrorist actions, and so the military are believed to have the right to kill 60 Palestinian demonstrators. The media generally shares this view and so, there have been practically no protests in Israel against the recent violence.”

Widely known for his book The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (available from AET’s Middle East Books and More), Pappé was the main speaker at a three-day international conference entitled “Beyond Planetary Apartheid,” organized by the University of Lisbon. While various types of apartheid were addressed, the main focus was on the many forms of apartheid in Palestine/Israel.

Smadar Lavie, visiting scholar at the University of California, Berke-

Marvine Howe, former new York Times bureau chief in Ankara, is the author of Al-Andalus Rediscovered: iberia’s new Muslims and other Minorities.

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018

M. HOWE

By Marvine Howe

Ilan Pappé speaking at Lisbon University.

ley, read passages from her recent book, Wrapped in the Flag of Israel, about Israeli discrimination against Mizrahis, or non-European Jews. Dr. Safa Husni Dhaher, university lecturer from Jerusalem, discussed “Israeli and Gender Apartheid in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.” Prof. Haim Yacobi of London University College described the “neo-apartheid city” of Jerusalem. On the other hand, Marco Allegra, a Lisbon University scholar, expressed skepticism regarding the use of apartheid in reference to Israel.

“Academia is not ready to accept the apartheid analogy to Israel, although it was first mentioned by a student in Toronto some 10 years ago,” Pappé pointed out in the opening debate, adding that linking apartheid to Israel “still raises eyebrows.” Following “the South African model,” however, Israeli and Palestinian activists have made progress in the struggle against the oppressive apartheid system in Israel, he continued. “We have the BDS [boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign],” he noted, “but it’s taking longer and we have gone only two-thirds of the way. No states have agreed so far to place sanctions on Israel,” he explained ruefully.

In his keynote speech on “Settler Colonialism in Palestine,” Pappé compared Israel proper to an “amoeba” spreading across the land through a process of expropriation. He went on to say that after 70 years’ failure to liberate their national territory, the young generation of Palestinians have accepted that political resistance

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is impossible and “the new reality demands cultural resistance in the broad sense.”

In a lecture at Lisbon’s Culturgest Foundation sponsored by the Committee of Solidarity with Palestinians and the Movement for the Rights of the Palestinian People and Peace in the Middle East, Pappé also addressed “The Dangers and Opportunities for Palestinians in the Era of Trump.” American policy toward Israel was “very much the same” under Trump and his predecessors, he pointed out, only now certain aspects have been accelerated, such as the move of the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem. “If the United States pulls out of the peace process, there will be no twostate solution,” he stressed.

“The international community can play a more constructive role in the struggle for peace in the Middle East if Israel is not treated as an exception, but held accountable for human and civil rights abuses,” Pappé concluded.

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From Lisbon, the Israeli activist flew to the European capital of Brussels where he was the principal speaker in a conference on “Palestine: from 1948 to Today, the Nakba Continues.” Pappé was also a keynote speaker at the 2017 Israel Lobby and American Policy conference, co-sponsored by the Washington Report and the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy (see May 2017 Washington Report, p. 66, or visit <2017. israellobbyandamericanpolicy.org>). ■

Right to Have Rights Continued from page 49

receive better benefits and services. Palestinian infrastructure and basic city services, such as trash collection, are often ignored.

The median income of Jewish households is nearly 75 percent higher than that of Palestinian households.

Full citizenship rights are extended to Jews who are citizens of other countries and to Jewish settlers who live outside Israel in the occupied Palestinian territories; while inside its borders, Arab citizens of Israel proper are denied those rights.

Israeli policy has always been to reduce the number of Palestinians, while increasing the number of Jewish immigrants. From its founding, it has used a plethora of policies and schemes to eliminate Palestine as a political entity and eviscerate Palestinian nationality—ignoring completely Article 15 of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that “everyone has the right to a nationality,” and that “no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality....”

The current government has worked doggedly to pass a 12th Basic Law—11 Basic Laws approximate the country’s Constitution. Entitled the “Jewish NationState Law,” the bill would define Israel exclusively as “the nation-state of the Jewish people,” making clear that national rights in Israel belong only to the Jewish people.

It would dispense with the democratic component, embedding the Jewish element of the state. The bill’s critics say it will further consolidate Israel’s racial apartheid policies into law, and weaken democratic challenges to the political structure.

Israel has cast itself as a “Jewish and de-

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

mocratic state.” Clearly, a state that favors one people over another cannot call itself democratic. The state functions with one set of laws for Jewish citizens and another for Palestinians. Ahmed Tibi, a Palestinian member of the Knesset, aptly stated, “Israel is a democratic state for Jewish citizens, and a Jewish state for Arab citizens.” Exposing Israel’s excesses is not synonomous with attacks on Jews or Judaism, but an attempt to bring justice to the Palestinian people.

Without a state, Palestinians have no voice and no power. But they have steadfastly refused to surrender their “right to have rights.” ■

We Won’t Stop Filming Continued from page 50

us? Ilatov and his proposed law, which has of course earned the encouragement of another well-known democrat, Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman.

In 2003, when IDF soldiers sprayed live fire on the armored car with Israeli plates “press” signs, the then-IDF spokeswoman, Brig. Gen. Miri Regev, asked the editor-inchief of Haaretz, who urgently tried to bring about an end to the incident: “What are they even doing there?”

Since then, Israel has not stopped asking this question. Now the Knesset could very well take action: not just against the press, with whom it still uses caution, but mostly against human rights organizations and Palestinian residents, the last witnesses for the prosecution against the occupation. Israel is telling them: just no incontrovertible evidence.

In the explanatory notes for the bill, it says, justifiably, that prosecution witnesses and eyewitnesses intend to “break the spirit of Israeli soldiers and residents.” This is exactly the goal: to break the spirit that views Azaria as a victim and hero, which thinks that the killing of 120 unarmed people is legal, and does not want to know, hear or see what is done every day in all our names, in our country’s backyard.

Coming soon: a law that will ban criticism of the IDF. Ilatov is already drafting it; most Israelis are certainly in favor. We will of course refuse to go along with it, too. ■ AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018

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Baluchistan

Continued from page 27

the other is the covert role of elements within the Pakistani state in supporting extreme sectarian groups operating within Baluchistan, notably Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (army of Janghvi, named after an advocate of anti-Shi’i violence). The latter group’s main base is in Punjab province, but it has carried out a series of attacks on Shi’i and the small Christian minority in Baluchistan.

Some government critics in Pakistan or in exile accuse Islamabad of using Lashkar-eJanghvi as an instrument for combatting Baluch nationalist groups, despite the group having been officially proscribed by the government and it being branded a terrorist organization internationally.

A further complication is the involvement of China in Pakistani Baluchistan (see June/July 2017 Washington Report, p. 40).

Chinese nationals working there have been abducted and killed, and it is not always clear who was behind these actions. The first attack on Chinese workers took place in 2004, when three engineers were killed.

With Beijing’s involvement in the area growing, hostile activity against Chinese personnel seems likely to increase, leading to the risk of China being drawn deeper and deeper into a counter-insurgency role.

In Iranian Baluchistan, a group called Jundallah has conducted a violent campaign that has killed more than 300 people since 2003. It has a foothold across the border in Pakistan. Iran’s government has claimed that it enjoyed the covert backing not only of Pakistan, but also of Saudi Arabia and the United States. How true that was in the past may be disputed, but the sustained Saudi anti-Iranian campaign of the past four years and the Trump presidency’s belligerent attitude toward Iran increase the likelihood of external meddling in Iranian Baluchistan in the present. Pakistan would be the most obvious conduit for such involvement.

In neither Pakistan nor Iran does there appear to be strong popular support for separatist or sectarian groups. In Pakistan, they benefit from the weakness of the cenAUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018

tral government’s presence in Baluchistan and the tactics of strong elements within the security establishment in playing off extreme sectarian groups against primarily nationalist Baluchi groups, and in Iran, from external backing. In the past, what happened in Baluchistan had negligible impact outside its borders, and consequently attracted little attention internationally. That may well change in the near future with deepening involvement by China and the U.S. That is unlikely to bring any long-term benefits to Baluchis, however: they will be treated in a similar cynical way to the Kurds by external powers looking solely to their own interests. ■

Who We Really Are Continued from page 41

Despite these, and many other moral shortcomings, which date back to the state’s founding 70 years ago, Israel and its supporters regularly boast of the country’s moral uprightness.

As journalist Gregg Carlstrom notes in his new book How Long Will Israel Survive?: The Threat From Within, available from Middle East Books and More, even those who are unafraid to critique Israel often fail to recognize how deeply rooted division and exclusion are to the fabric of the country. He points out that many “liberal Zionists” in the diaspora criticize particular policies, such as the occupation of Palestinian land, claiming that they are in conflict with Israeli values. Such people believe that “the alarming trends in Israeli society are blips, aberrations that can be easily undone,” Carlstrom notes.

“Their initial premise, however, is an idealized Israel,” he writes. “The diaspora, in other words, is engaged in self-projection.

It views Israel as a reflection of itself: liberal, moral, committed to social justice.

And thus the occupation of 1967 is viewed as a singularly corrupting force, a misstep that pulled Israel away from its true path.”

The reality, Carlstrom contends, is that Israel’s moral issues run to its very core.

“The problems that alarm the ‘liberal Zionist’ intelligentsia…are features, not bugs.

They are either the results of conscious government decisions…or they are inevitable outgrowths of Zionism itself.”

He notes that the first illegal settlements were built during the governance of the liberal Labor party, that the Palestinian minority in Israel lived under martial law for nearly two decades and that even Mizrahi, Sephardic and ultra-Orthodox Jews have faced discrimination since the country’s founding. “The idealized past was hardly ideal, at least for Israelis outside of the secular Ashkenazi elite,” he writes.

As in the U.S., some Israeli leaders have spoken out against what they see as a growing tide of racism and hatred. “This is not the Likud party I joined,” former defense minister Moshe Ya’alon warned during the press conference announcing his resignation in 2016. “Unfortunately, Israel and the Likud party were taken over by extremist and dangerous elements,” he said.

Such warnings help raise attention to worrisome trends, but they also fail to address foundational realities. Israel didn’t just become an ethno-sectarian state under Binyamin Netanyahu’s Likud government, and the U.S. didn’t suddenly become racist under Donald Trump. Deepseeded issues in each country have developed and metastasized over time to deliver the current reality.

Like cancer, societal evils are difficult to irradicate. The U.S., Israel and every nation on earth would be wise to conduct an honest examination of who they actually are vs. who they aspire or imagine themselves to be. Every country has its contradictions; no country is either completely pure or hopelessly corrupt. It’s the persistent striving of the just, those who confront hate as it reemerges from age to age, that keeps the moral arc of the universe bending toward justice.

Be it standing up for the dignity of immigrants and asylum seekers entering the U.S. or the rights of Palestinians to live with dignity, we must not tire of resisting hate and promoting unity. Yes, we must look at the current reality and say “this is who we are.” What we become, however, is entirely in our hands. ■

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Geldof, recipient of the evening’s Lifetime Achievement Al-Awda’s 13th Annual Conference Award. and Gala Hollywood Bureau director Sue “Mapping Our Return” and “Marking 70 Obeidi opened the Years of Dispossession and Apartheid” event, saying, “To were the themes of Al-Awda’s (The Palesinfluence diversity, tine Right to Return Coalition) 13th Annual you must create auConference and Gala May 11 and 12 at the thenticity so people Long Beach Petroleum Club. not in that commuThe conference included a screening of the documentary “1948: Creation and Cat- (L-r) Prof. Rabab Abdulhadi, Prof. Ahlam Muhtaseb of California State nity can better understand them, acastrophe,” and panel discussions on the on- University, San Bernardino and Amani Barakat. cept them and regoing Nakba, Palestinian resistance, efforts to combat Zionism in the U.S., the Palestin- MUSLIM AMERICAN ACTIVISM spect them.” She also discussed the impact of President Donald Trump’s attitude and ian right to return and colonialism and racism.

MPAC’s Media Awards Reach New policies toward Muslims since taking office in 2017. “The Travel Ban, the government, the Dr. Rima Khalaf, the former executive Level secretary of the United Nations Economic More than 500 people attended the Muslim moving backwards of values and ideas...this and Social Commission for Western Asia Public Affairs Council’s (MPAC) 27th annual isn’t the America we know and love,” argued (ESCWA), who resigned in 2017 after the Media Awards on April 28 at the Sheraton Obeidi. “This administration is kind of making U.N. suppressed a report from her commis- Grand Los Angeles Hotel. The event’s their own rules, and we have to resist besion that categorized Israel as an apartheid theme was “Honoring Voices of Courage cause we are part of America, we are the regime, and San Francisco State University and Conscience.” Muslims in Los Angeles fabric of America just like everybody else.”

Despite living in the Trump administration professor Rabab Abdulhadi, a frequent tar- and their allies gathered to highlight individget of pro-Israel groups, delivered the con- uals working for authentic and inclusive rep- era, Obeidi noted that there are “silver linference’s keynote remarks. resentation of the Muslim-American com- ings”: “Every marginalized community has At the banquet, Amani Barakat, the Na- munity. Among those honored at the event gone through this but it’s our turn now, and tional Chairwoman of Al-Awda, welcomed were “The Secret Life of Muslims” TV show we are standing on the shoulders of so many the audience to the conference and ex- creator Joshua Seftel, “The Tiger Hunter” others who have experienced it...We are pressed optimism about the efforts of the film director Lena Khan, and Sir Bob learning from them, we are being supported and we don’t feel alone.”

Palestinian movement.

Howard Gordon, a TV “Our forms of resistance writer with CBS, introduced have evolved more in Seftel. “I wanted to make a the past 10 years than series called ‘Secret Life of ever before,” she said.

Muslims’ after noting that “This weekend is about more than half of Americans immersing ourselves in have an unfavorable view of an environment where Muslims,” Seftel said. “The learning, strategizing, secret being, of course, that networking and celebrawe are all just people. It’s retion all come together.” ally hard to argue with storyThe conference also telling, especially when someincluded an art exhibit one is telling their own story.” featuring the work of Seftel, who’s currently renowned Palestinian prepping for the second seaartist Manal Deeb, a fashion show by designer On June 16 and 17, AET’s Middle East Books and More set up shop at the son, continued, “If someone Diyanet Center of America in Lanham, MD for the 2018 Halal Expo-Summit & is showing you who he or Hama Hinnawi and live Eid Festival. The weekend featured a rich selection of vendors, thousands of music by the iconic singer visitors, workshops and lectures on the halal-lifestyle industry—from cosmetics she is as a person, it’s disMary Hazboun. and clothing to investment and financing—and children’s games in celebration arming. When it's coming from the heart and you can —Samir Twair of the Eid al-Fitr holiday.

STAFF PHOTO AMIN GHARAD

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KinderUSA Ramadan Iftar

“Gaza: Our Duty, Our Children” was the theme of this year’s KinderUSA fund-raising event on May 27 at the Phoenicia Restaurant in Glendale, CA. Dr. Laila al-Marayati, KinderUSA chairwoman, welcomed everyone to the event and described this year’s Ramadan program, which purchased jams, cheeses, zaatar, maftool and more items from 40 women-led Palestinian cooperatives and distributed this food to needy families in Gaza. “This program helps boost the local economy while providing nutritious food to families in need for the entire month of Ramadan,” Al-Marayati explained.

“When I went to Gaza in 2002, I found out that their olive oil comes from Greece,” she AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018

MPAC president Salam al-Marayati (l) honoring Sir Bob Geldof April 28 in Los Angeles.

recalled. “The Palestinians in Gaza today are trying to get their products out and connect with the world. The crippling blockade for the last 12 years is killing the people.”

Salam al-Marayati, president of the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), noted how KinderUSA’s efforts reflect the spirit of Ramadan. “Ramadan is the month of fasting and the month when the Qur’an was revealed to the Prophet Muhammad,” he noted. “Also, the month of giving to the poor.”

Dr. Saree Makdisi, professor of English and comparative literature at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and the author of a number of books, including Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation (available from AET’s Middle East Books and More), was the keynote speaker. He began his talk with a summary of the latest events in Gaza, in which Israeli snipers killed 132 Palestinian protesters and injured more than 13,000.

What has happened in Palestine since

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tell it’s truthful, it’s the most powerful thing there is, especially when it comes to opening people’s minds and opening their hearts.” Seftel believes that Trump's running for office helped his series to take off, especially in the early fund-raising efforts.

Comedian Ahamed Weinberg, who produced “Ahamed’s Ramadan Diary,” discussed his life experience growing up with a Muslim father who’s last name is Weinberg. “Ultimately,” he commented, “I like to show that Muslims are just like the rest of humanity.”

Honoree Khan, who wrote as well as directed “The Tiger Hunter,” said, “Let's be proactive, let’s be the crazy filmmakers and magic makers. If Hollywood is something we really want to harness, maybe being crazy is the most sane thing we can do.”

Sir Bob Geldof, the Irish philanthropist, political activist and songwriter-musician, took the Media Awards to a whole new level, with both his exuberant presence and deeply moving words about shared humanity. Sir Geldof reminded everyone to speak out on behalf of the poor, the marginalized and oppressed, not because they share a common nationality or religion, but “because, most significantly of all, they are people.”

MPAC president Salam al-Marayati accurately described the evening’s honorees as “voices of courage and conscience.”

—Samir Twair

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1948? Makdisi asked. Many Palestinian villages were wiped out, their orchards and houses emptied of people, he noted. After Jewish militias displaced more than 750,000 of the country’s population, Israel began to bring Jews from all over the world to replace the Palestinians.

“Israel has been doing whatever it pleases because of outside support,” Makdisi continued. “But when the Israelis committed the latest massacre of Gazans, the world watched and spoke out.” Most of the people living in Gaza are refugees from 1948 Palestine who were forced at gunpoint—or prodded with the head of a bayonet—to flee to Gaza. Today, Israelis fear they can walk back if the gates are open, and take back their lands.

Palestinian researcher Salman Abu Sitta, who developed a ground-breaking practical plan for implementing the right to return of Palestinian refugees, documented that 98 percent of Israelis live on 2 percent of the land. The rest of the lands are empty.

This means the Palestinians can go back and live on those lands, Dr. Makdisi pointed out. Whatever the solution is to the Israel-Palestine issue—whether two states, one state or no state—leaders must take into consideration human needs. All humans want to live free on their lands, including Palestinians—especially in the Ramadan spirit of shared humanity, Makdisi concluded.

Jihad Turk, dean of Bayan Claremont Islamic Graduate School, offered closing remarks and encouraged the audience to give more donations, as the needs of Palestinians are greater than ever before.

KinderUSA is the leading American Muslim organization focused on the health and well-being of Palestinian children. For more information, please visit <www. kinderusa.org>.

—Samir Twair

MUSIC & ARTS (L-r) KinderUSA chairwoman Dr. Laila alMarayati, Prof. Saree Makdisi of UCLA and MPAC president Salam al-Marayati at Kinder USA’s Ramadan iftar May 27 in Glendale, CA.

Nostalgia Reigns in Istanbul’s Summer Art Scene

While election fever overwhelmed some residents of this city–and bored others–Istanbul’s museums and galleries celebrated

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Literature relating to Istanbul’s sea bathing and beach culture on display in the Istanbul Research Institute.

The three albums were presented to German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck as a token of mutual friendship. Last year these albums became part of the Ömer M. Koç collection.

—Elaine Pasquini

Corinne Whitlatch’s “Middle East Peace Process Carousel”

circles and never getting anywhere.

“I’m just so tired of words. I wanted to visualize the peace process and how long it’s been going on,” Whitlatch explained.

She pointed out the ring of fire, the Hebron glass fish border, the white and black horses, goat and zebra, along with wine glass stems and the Palestinian ceramic plate she used to create her design.

Portrait artist Annette Polan, professor emeritus at the Corcoran College of Art and Design at George Washington University, juried the exhibit and presented the awards. Polan also organized “Faces of the Fallen,” an exhibit of 1,323 portraits by 230 American artists to honor the servicemen and women who were killed in

Corinne Whitlatch, executive director of Churches for Middle East Peace from 1986-2007, has always mixed her two passions: Middle East peace and glass art. She actually painted an old merry-goround in Iowa, igniting yet a third life-long fascination.

The June 27 opening reception for the regional juried exhibition at the Hill Center Galleries on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC featured the works of more than 100 artists, including Whitlatch’s “Middle East Peace Process Carousel,” which received “honorable mention.” Standing near her latest work at the non-profit cultural center, which used to be known as the Old Naval Hospital, Whitlatch spoke to hundreds of art lovers as they studied her work. She explained the motivation behind her creation, and described the endless struggle for Israeli-Palestinian peace which seems to start and Corinne Whitlatch in front of the “Middle East Peace stop, going around and around in Process Carousel.”

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bygone days in summer exhibitions.

The Istanbul Research Institute and neighboring Pera Museum are co-presenting, through Aug. 26, “Istanbul’s Seaside Leisure: Nostalgia from Sea Baths to Beaches.” Curator Zafer Toprak assembled photographs, magazines, comics, objects and books from various private and institutional collections which are displayed at both venues. The exhibition expertly chronicles the history of and the cultural and sociological transformation that occurred in Istanbul’s sea baths and beaches from the 1870s to the mid-20th century.

In the second half of the 19th century, Istanbulites utilized enclosed wooden “sea baths” for private bathing. Escaping the 1917 revolution, White Russians settled in Istanbul and introduced their practice of men and women sharing the same beach and swimming together, which Istanbulites enthusiastically embraced. Beach culture continued to flourish with the founding of the Turkish Republic in 1923. Even Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the beloved founder and first president of the republic, appears in photos and film clips enjoying the sea and beaches.

Koç University Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations (ANAMED) hosts “Ottoman Arcadia: The Hamidian Expedition to the Land of Tribal Roots (1886)” at its Istiklal Avenue gallery through Sept. 30. Curated by Bahattin Öztuncay, Ahmet Ersoy and Deniz Türker, the exhibition showcases three photographic albums which document the 1886 expedition commissioned by Abdülhamid II, 34th sultan of the Ottoman Empire, to outlying enclaves such as Bursa, the first Ottoman capital, along with the cities of Yenişehir, Iznik, Sögüt and Bozüyük, among others.

The expedition team consisted of the most celebrated photographers and artists of the era, who were tasked with surveying and documenting the towns’ physical and demographic conditions. The team generated multipurpose and documentary records in a variety of media, including relief maps, pencil sketches and photos with accompanying handwritten notes in Ottoman Turkish and French. This unique expedition reflected the rising interest in the ethnic origins of the empire and the nomadic roots of the dynasty.

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Classically trained Iraqi artist Hashim alSamarraie described painting, as well asraising his large family amid chaos and danger, to a rapt audience at the Jerusalem Fund Gallery on Sunday, June 10. His June exhibition of contemporary oil paintings in the orientalist mode captures the rich Iraqi and Kurdish cultures, both standing proud despite decades of political upheavals and invasions. Jerusalem Fund executive director Mohamed Mohamed translated as curator Dagmar Painter and gallery guests posed questions.

Born in 1969, Al-Samarraie graduated from the Institute of Fine Art in Baghdad in 1991. He has taught free-hand painting to architectural students at the University of Technology in Baghdad. Over the past 25 years, Al-Samarraie’s work has been featured in numerous festivals and exhibitions throughout the Middle East. Despite—or perhaps due to—the ceaseless conflict all around them, Al-Samarraie and the other members of Iraq’s artistic community continue to create images to inspire their people and help them remember their vibrant past.

—Delinda C. Hanley

L’Institut du Monde Arabe Explores “Epic” of Suez Canal

Linking Europe, Africa and Asia, the creation of the Suez Canal changed the world. L’Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris presents the story of this monumental feat in “The Epic of the Suez Canal: From the Pharaohs to the 21st Century,” on view through Aug. 5, 2018.

Featuring archaeological objects, scale models, photos and films, the exhibition AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018

(L-r) Dagmar Painter, Hashim al-Samarraie and Mohamed Mohamed discuss the challenges of painting in Iraq.

traces the 4,000-year saga from Pharaoh the Suez Canal quickly became essential Senusret III—who ruled Egypt from 1878 to to world trade, and control of it became an 1839 BCE and built a canal connecting the issue of conflict in the 20th century. The Nile to the Red Sea—through the opening British secured their control of the canal of the parallel section of the canal in 2015. upon acquiring Egypt’s shares in the UniThe exhibition begins with strains from versal Maritime Suez Canal Company in “Aida,” the opera commissioned from 1875.

Spacious galleries are devoted to the Giuseppe Verdi by Isma’il Pasha, khedive of Egypt from 1863 to 1879. Sculptures, political events surrounding the waterphotos, maps, engravings and paintings re- way’s history, especially Egyptian Presilating to Ferdinand de Lesseps are dis- dent Gamal Abdel Nasser’s nationalization played in the next galleries. A major cham- of the canal in 1956, Washington’s rebuffpion of the canal project, the legendary ing of British, French and Israeli efforts French diplomat was the founder of the Uni- against nationalization of the canal, and versal Maritime Suez Canal Company that the 1967 and 1973 Middle East wars.

Claude Mollard curated the exhibit, and developed and initially operated the canal.

Construction began in 1859, with digging Gilles Gauthier served as scientific adalmost exclusively by hand in the early viser. In October the exhibition moves to stages. Complications included extreme heat, lack of manpower and the difficulty of supplying the site, with fresh water especially.

Some years later mechanization of the work accelerated through the development of innovative machines to dig, clear and level the earth.

After its opening A model of the elaborate construction at Port Said for the Suez on Nov. 17, 1869, Canal inauguration ceremony on Nov. 17, 1869.

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Jerusalem Fund Hosts One of Iraq’s Premier Artists

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Afghanistan and Iraq between 2001 and 2004. Each work selected for the Hill Center show produced an emotional response, Polan said, hitting her “right in the gut.”

The art included political statements about women, peace, international and local people and places, and other important political issues. “Art is its own vocabulary, its own language,” Polan concluded.

“It talks to us in ways writing cannot.”

The must-see three-floor exhibit closes on Sept. 22.

—Delinda C. Hanley

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the Musée d’Histoire de Marseille, through March 2019 and then to Cairo’s National Museum of Egyptian Civilization for the canal’s 150th anniversary. Elements of the exhibition will then be offered to the Suez Canal Authority for the future Suez Canal Museum in Ismailia.

—Elaine Pasquini

Marking the 51-Year Cover-Up of Israel’s Attack on USS Liberty

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USS Liberty survivors, friends and family members honor the 34 shipmates killed in Israel’s 1967 attack.

limped to Malta, where the U.S. Navy threatened to court martial and imprison any survivor who discussed the attack. According to USS Liberty survivor John Hrankowski, who died in 2011, it was their own government’s decades-long coverup—which continues to this day—that has caused PTSD and disappointment for the most decorated crew since World War II. —Delinda C. Hanley

Mothers of Turkey’s Disappeared Continue Vigil

The Saturday Mothers (Cumartesi Anneleri), together with their families, supporters and friends, completed their 690th vigil on June 16 in Istanbul’s Galatasaray Square, with still no resolution regarding the fate of many of their loved ones.

The group first became active in 1995,

protesting the disappearances of as many as 2,000 people at the hands of security forces since the 1980 military coup and the war between the state and Kurdish separatists from 1991 to 1996.

The Saturday Mothers were inspired in their efforts by the Argentinean Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, who began organizing demonstrations and marches in 1977 in front of the Presidential Palace in Buenos Aires to demand information on the whereabouts of their loved ones who were forcibly disappeared during the country’s years of military dictatorship.

Under the motto “We want our disappeared loved ones,” demonstrators in Istanbul, many also holding red flowers, displayed the photographs of the missing, along with their names and the dates they disappeared. The group demands the re-

Mothers of the disappeared and their supporters gather in Istanbul.

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The USS Liberty Veterans Association and the U.S. Navy Memorial in Washington, DC co-hosted the 2018 annual memorial service to honor 34 shipmates killed in action in Israel’s June 8, 1967 attack on their ship.

Few Americans know about the Israeli assault on a lightly armed U.S. naval intelligence ship in full daylight in international waters. Ray McGovern, who served as a CIA analyst for 27 years and who was “on duty” during the attack on the Liberty, addressed the crowd on Memorial Plaza, including office workers and tourists eating lunch. McGovern described how Israeli warplanes dropped napalm and fired 30mm cannon and rockets into the ship before sending torpedo boats to try to sink the vessel and machine-gun three of the Liberty’s life rafts. “Intercepted Israeli communications show beyond doubt it was no mistake,” McGovern said.

While tending to 171 wounded men, including Captain William McGonagle, the crew waited for assistance from U.S. warplanes that never came. When Sixth Fleet Carrier Division Commander Rear Admiral Lawrence Geis protested the order to recall U.S. warplanes sent to help the Liberty, then-Defense Secretary Robert McNamara told him, “President Johnson is not going to war or embarrass an American ally over a few sailors.”

The late Admiral Thomas Moorer, who interviewed the commanders of both U.S. aircraft carriers America and Saratoga, confirmed that McNamara ordered their aircraft back to their carriers. Moorer called it “the most disgraceful act I witnessed in my entire military career.”

Somehow the torpedoed American ship

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HUMAN RIGHTS

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Does Trump’s Budget Abandon Human Rights in the Middle East?

In his budget request for fiscal year (FY) 2019, President Donald Trump has proposed significant cuts to international affairs spending, causing some Middle East observers to contend that the administration is de-prioritizing initiatives that promote democracy and human rights in the region.

The Project on Middle East Democracy (POMED) recently released a report titled “President Trump’s Second Foreign Affairs Budget,” which highlights the implications of the FY19 budget request for the region.

This report was the subject of a June 15 event hosted by the organization in Washington, DC. While “Congress will likely resoundingly reject” President Trump’s request for cuts in international affairs spending, POMED deputy director for policy Andrew Miller believes the request could still have negative implications around the world. “When the administration isn’t requesting major foreign assistance funding for democracy and governance programs, it sends a signal to governments abroad that they don’t have to AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018

worry about those things,” he said. “It sends the same message to the people who are struggling for democracy in these countries that unfortunately the United States is turning its back on them.”

The message also has a resounding domestic impact, Miller argued. “The president’s budget request sends a message to people working at USAID, the State Department, the NSC, that there shouldn’t be a priority placed on these types of grants… we are trying to achieve other things, other than promoting democracy abroad, other than promoting human rights abroad…this is obviously disturbing.”

Past administrations have, of course, faced criticism for talking about human rights while ultimately supporting repressive regimes in the region. In his new book, President Barack Obama’s former foreign policy adviser Ben Rhodes recalls Obama’s negative reaction to the idea of backing Egypt’s revolutionary protesters. “Our priority has to be stability and supporting the SCAF [Egyptian Military Council],” Obama reportedly told Rhodes, “even if we get criticized. I’m not interested in the crowd in Tahrir Square and Nick Kristof.”

Dafna Rand, vice president for policy and research at Mercy Corps, argued that adequate funding is necessary to bring stability that benefits the region and reduces threats to the U.S. “To prevent groups like the Islamic State from governing...you need to ensure that people in Iraq and Syria and elsewhere really feel that their local and national government is legitimate,” she said.

Thomas Hill, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution and an international affairs fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, also expressed concern that the Trump administration undervalues programs that promote democracy and human rights. “I’d say that I interpret the president’s request to be

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turn of the victims’ bodies to their families, the prosecution of those involved, and a lifting of the statute of limitations so that all of the guilty parties can be brought to justice.

To date, only around 450 cases have been resolved.

Support for the group has increased over the years. It was not until 2011 that the government invited them to speak to the Turkish parliament’s Human Rights Research Commission. That same year, then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan agreed to talk with the representatives of the Saturday Mothers and listened to their stories of suffering and demands for justice. The end result was that the mothers of two of the victims were informed that their children had been killed. Perhaps the greatest accomplishment was the public awareness generated for their cause.

Lacking a permanent memorial to those who have been disappeared, the mothers continue in their weekly quest to keep the story and the memory of the victims alive as a memorial to their plight. —Phil Pasquini

a demonstration of the White House’s complete disregard for the value and importance of these programs,” he said. Hill expressed hope, however, saying that “it’s clear that the House does not support the president’s overall budget and posture toward democracy…[and] the Senate does not either.”

Members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa expressed their concerns with President Trump’s budget request during a June 13 hearing on Capitol Hill. Countering the so-called Iranian threat, supporting democracy in Tunisia, the U.S. role in Syria and humanitarian assistance to Gaza were among the major topics of discussion. The committee and witnesses focused most intently on Gaza.

While there was a clear assumption among committee members that Hamas is solely responsible for the suffering in Gaza, there was bipartisan agreement that the humanitarian crisis cannot be ignored.

Ranking Member Rep. Theodore Deutch (D-FL) captured the sense of the committee: “I remain very concerned about both the administration’s lack of a real...cohesive plan for the Middle East, as well as the proposed cuts to the international affairs budget,” he said. “These cuts undermine our ability to promote democracy, diplomacy, peace and security, and development in this key region.” He continued: “I worry about the decision to cut humanitarian funding and freeze other West Bank and Gaza funding. We can acknowledge the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and work with our allies to address it even as we decry Hamas as they focus not on that crisis or the people of Gaza, but instead on advancing their own terror agenda aimed at the civilian population of our ally Israel. We can do both.”

(See pp. 28-33 for a list of how much money Deutch and other members of the

L-r) Thomas Hill, Dafna Rand, Andrew Miller and moderator Stephen McInerney accuse the Trump administration of abandoning human rights initiatives in the Middle East.

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WAGING PEACE Protests in Jordan: Political and Economic Ramifications

The Arab Center Washington DC (ACW) hosted a June 14 panel in Washington, DC in response to recent widespread protests in Jordan. The demonstrations, which began on May 30, were sparked by new International Monetary Fund-endorsed tax hikes on individuals and businesses, and led to the resignation of Prime Minister Hani al-Mulki on June 4. The next day King Abdullah II appointed Omar al-Razzaz, outgoing education minister and former World Bank economist, the country’s new prime minister.

While similar economic protests erupted in Jordan in 1989, 1996 and 2012, ACW executive director Khalil Jahshan argued that Jordan’s most recent demonstrations are “not only an economic crisis,” but part of a “serious political crisis happening in the region.” Jordan, he noted, has felt the ramifications of many of the region’s challenges and has absorbed refugees from numerous conflicts. “All these conflicts we have witnessed over the past few years are coming home to roost, and Jordan has played a key role in these conflicts, if you talk about Syria, if you talk about Iraq before that, if you talk about Palestine historically,” Jahshan said.

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resulting in what Macaron described as a “balancing act that is very difficult to manage.”

As Jordan attempts to handle refugee influxes, instability around its borders and a lack of resources, Macaron predicted that the new prime minister will try to “freeze fiscal reform in the coming period” to contain public anger inside Jordan. Indeed, upon assuming office, Razzaz quickly announced the scrapping of the tax bill that had led to protests.

To prop up its economy, Macaron estimated that Jordan would rely on foreign aid, such as the $2.5 billion promised from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait, as well as $500 million and 10,000 jobs offered to Jordanians by Qatar.

Imad Harb, director of research and analysis at ACW, noted that this international assistance—from countries with divergent views on key regional issues— comes with strings and complications attached. Jordan is “being pulled and pushed in all different directions,” he said. “Jordan will remain—as long as it’s poor from a resource basis—dependent on rents [foreign money],” Harb said, “and this is definitely going to be affecting how it really conducts its foreign policy.”

All panelists agreed that Jordan plays a crucial role in maintaining stability in the region and is burdened with structural economic issues with which the government must come to terms. Yet, as noted by Jahshan at the forefront of the panel, Jordan has been “better at crisis management than at resolving the inherent issues.” The panel’s consensus was that Amman most likely would once again delay conversations about structural reforms until the next round of protests erupt.

—Conor Kelley

As these regional issues progress and develop, he noted, they naturally change Jordan’s social and economic trajectory.

These regional developments and their implications on domestic policy pose an existential question, Jahshan said: “Can Jordan be Jordan again?”

According to Aaron Magid, a former Amman-based journalist, Jordan must come to terms with its “massive economic structural flaws.” Jordan is struggling with the competing concerns of rapidly rising debt and citizens struggling to make ends meet, he pointed out. Al-Mulki’s attempt to remedy the debt crisis by raising taxes and reducing subsidies backfired on a population that feels overwhelmed by personal financial burdens, Magid said. “Fuel prices have risen five times over the course of 2018,” he pointed out. “Bread prices have doubled.”

Failure to delicately address these financial concerns could have dire consequences for Jordan’s monarch, Magid added, cautioning that future protesters may not be appeased with the replacement of the prime minster. “Eventually they are going to say, ‘who really is responsible for this entire mess?’” Magid said.

ACW resident fellow Joe Macaron said that Jordan has historically adopted shortterm solutions to its economic challenges, rather than addressing structural problems.

“Jordan always manages to reinvent their geopolitical role,” he noted, while “still following the same economic prescription and the same policies over the last decades,”

Iran’s Post-Nuclear Deal Energy Sector Expected to Falter

Aaron Magid (l) and Imad Harb discuss the causes of recent protests in Jordan.

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Foreign Affairs Committee have received from pro-Israel individual donors and political action committees.)

The Trump administration already has cut vital funding to Palestine, notably $65 million to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), and almost all of the $215.5 million in other U.S. bilateral assistance to the West Bank and Gaza.

“We all care about Israel’s security and prosperity and I stand with Israel,” said Rep. Lois Frankel (D-FL). “But I think this is like cutting off your nose to spite your face…because if you want to stop the violence from spilling out even further from Gaza, it seems to me that we have to participate in humanitarian assistance.”

—W. Joseph Locher

On June 19, the Middle East Institute (MEI) in Washington, DC hosted a panel of experts to discuss how the Trump administration’s decision to leave the Iranian nuclear deal and reinstitute sanctions will impact the country’s oil industry.

Alex Vatanka, a senior fellow at MEI, noted that Iran has some of the largest conAUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018

Jean-François Seznec (l) and Alex Vatanka assess Iran’s energy options following the U.S. decision to reimpose sanctions on the country. market, and may thus be content to stay away from investment in Iran.

When it comes to China, the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) has indicated it is ready to begin investing in Iran, yet Mammadov is uncertain that it is up to the task. “Four years ago Iran asked CNPC to leave…because they were complacent,” he pointed out.

According to Jean-François Seznec, a professor of international studies at Georgetown University and Johns Hopkins University, Saudi Arabia is “perfectly happy to find a good excuse to increase production” now that its main rival, Iran, is facing restrictions on oil sales. Seznec said he believes that “Iran will suffer a great deal from these sanctions,” given the number of countries ready to pick up the loss of production, primarily Saudi Arabia and Russia.

—Leen Badeeb and Maximilian J. Cali

U.S. Drone Policy Under Trump

The controversial nature of American drone usage around the world, especially in the

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ventional oil and natural gas reserves in the world. It is thus no surprise, he stated, that President Hassan Rouhani and Oil Minister Bijan Zangeneh focused on attracting foreign investment to the energy sector following the lifting of international nuclear sanctions in 2015.

Aware that the U.S. reimposition of sanctions threatens this plan, Zangeneh has adopted a defiant stand, assuring his domestic critics that the world cannot ignore Iran’s energy reserves. “You can sanction a country that exports one million barrels a day…you cannot sanction a country that produces five million barrels of oil a day and get away with it,” the minister recently said.

Iranian hard-liners, meanwhile, accuse the current government of being fixated on the West while ignoring local firms, Vatanka noted. They have pointed to French energy giant Total’s recent decision to pull out of Iran as evidence that Western companies cannot be trusted.

Vatanka pointed out that Zangeneh is also focused on implementing energy export diversification. A couple of years ago, China, South Korea, India, Turkey and Japan were the only countries importing Iranian oil. In 2017, however, 62 percent of Iranian oil went to Asia, while the remaining went to Europe.

Vatanka said this shows that Iran had been able to diversify its sales at an impressive rate following the lifting of sanctions.

Finally, Vatanka said that due to Iran’s lack of leverage within OPEC, he fears the country could respond to new sanctions and economic isolation by using its regional proxies to create problems for the U.S. and its allies in the Middle East in order to obtain leverage. Iran, he cautioned, could start “flexing its muscles and saying ‘you have to deal with us one way or another…you can’t just dismiss us.’”

Rauf Mammadov, MEI’s resident scholar on energy policy, was skeptical that Iran will be able to secure major international oil investments now that U.S. sanctions have resumed. “Russia and China seem like the only options for the Iranian energy industry in terms of investment,” he observed. However, he added, Russia, which competes with Iran in the oil market, stands to benefit from the country’s isolation from the energy

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Middle East and North Africa, led the Stimson Center to offer an analysis of the Trump administration’s U.S. drone policy in its new report, “An Action Plan on U.S. Drone Policy: Recommendations for the Trump Administration.” This action plan, launched at a June 7 discussion at Stimson’s Washington, DC offices, built upon previous initiatives the center has conducted to encourage a more transparent and accountable U.S. drone policy.

Stimson Center president and CEO Brian Finlay introduced the discussion by recalling the results of the center’s 2016 report, which highlighted the shortcomings of the Obama administration’s drone policy. He noted that the first year of the Trump administration has demonstrated “further backsliding” in the areas of transparency and accountability.

“U.S. drone policy under the Trump administration has, thus far, been defined by uncertainty coupled with less oversight and less transparency,” said Rachel Stohl, author of the new report. According to Stohl,

(L-r) Dan Mahanty, Jeff Smith, Rachel Stohl, Peter Lichtenbaum and Hina Shamsi discuss President Trump’s use of armed drones.

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the current administration has increased the tempo of strikes, expanded the geographic scope of where strikes are permissible, and “lowered the decision-making threshold that’s required to take lethal action against terrorism suspects.” The administration also has not made public its amended protocols for carrying out a drone strike.

Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU’s National Security Project, highlighted the legal controversy surrounding American drone usage. “The U.S. has cherry-picked the most permissive aspects of legal frameworks” that apply to drone usage, Shamsi stated. International human rights law does not permit lethal force in situations outside of recognized armed conflict, she noted, but the U.S. follows more permissive rules that allow force in places where there is no recognized armed conflict.

In a similar light, Dan Mahanty, senior adviser at the Center for Civilians in Conflict’s (CIVIC) U.S. program, stressed concerns regarding the protection of civilian life in U.S. drone policy. He argued that the overconfidence of U.S. policymakers in the precision of drone strikes has led to a flippant and dangerous approach to U.S. drone policy. Mahanty pushed lawmakers and the Department of Defense to enhance its post-strike analysis protocols and transparency regarding the results of strikes. He urged U.S. leaders toward “being first with the truth,” especially in scenarios where there are civilian casualties.

A 2016 executive order signed by President Barack Obama requires the director of national intelligence to issue an annual report on the number of civilians killed by U.S. airstrikes in areas outside of “active hostility.” The Trump administration has not yet released any such report.

Among the most pressing concerns regarding U.S. drone policy is the issue of precedent, cautioned Jeff Smith, senior counsel at Arnold & Porter. While “there are valid reasons for secrecy” in the implementation of U.S. drone policy, Smith acknowledged, he said he is “deeply worried about the consequences of what we are doing in setting a precedent” for the rest of 62

Former VFP president Elliott Adams speaks at an anti-drone warfare direct action rally in Des Moines. the world in terms of drone usage. “The manner in which we use drones,” he said, sets “a precedent that other nations are going to follow, and we’re not going to like what they do.”

Stohl concluded the discussion with a series of recommendations offered in the report, most of which call for enhanced publicity for U.S. drone policy, greater transparency, and more oversight regarding the use of drones.

—W. Joseph Locher

Two Arrested for Anti-Drone Civil Disobediance in Des Moines

Des Moines Police Department officers arrested former Veterans for Peace (VFP) national president Elliott Adams and Des Moines Catholic Worker (DMCW) founder Frank Cordaro on May 19, Armed Forces Day, after the two approached the gate of the Des Moines Air National Guard base and refused to leave.

The nonviolent civil disobedience protest came at the end of a “Stop the Killing” rally organized by VFP Chapter 163 Des Moines and the DMCW community near an entrance to the base, home of the 132nd Wing of the Iowa Air National Guard at the Des Moines International Airport.

“Since 9/11 this nation has been swept up in a cult of war glorification. We need to look that in the face,” Adams told a group of

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some 30 activists participating in the rally.

“We are here to cry out, to tell Iowa and the world, that drones are responsible for endless immoral acts and war crimes,” he continued. “It is time we outlaw them internationally and ground them in the United States.”

Cordaro, a former priest and longtime anti-nuclear weapons activist, criticized the local faith community for its silence about drone warfare operations at the city’s airport. “This year’s campaign is going to try to find pastors and priests who will speak out about these war crimes, about assassinations from the sky, and the bombing of wedding ceremonies,” he said.

He noted a 2013 letter authored by Bishop Richard E. Pates of Des Moines on behalf of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops critical of the Obama administration’s drone assassination policy. “Are these policies morally defensible?” the bishop asked. “They seem to violate the law of war, international human rights law, and moral norms.”

“Now, in 2018, in Des Moines, Iowa, there is a drone command center!” declared Cordaro, pointing toward the gate of the Air National Guard base.

“What do they do? Go to their web page.

They have a mission statement.…they can find any target on the planet, they can kill any target on the planet, they can assess AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018

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Israeli Settlements Encroach on Palestinian Town of Beit Ummar

The Palestine Center in Washington, DC hosted a June 18 presentation on “Life Under Occupation in the Agricultural Town of Beit Ummar.” Ahmed Oudeh, an agricultural engineer from Beit Ummar, described the rampant Israeli discrimination toward Palestinians, who are prevented from expressing opposition to such treatment. His presentation illustrated the reality of the increased encroachment of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and the dominant nature of Israeli occupation.

Mohamed Mohamed, executive director of the Palestine Center, introduced the challenges that Beit Ummar, a town located between Hebron and Bethlehem in the southern West Bank, deals with today. “Beit Ummar has faced historic, frequent, daily— if not nightly—incursions from Israeli forces,” he noted. These challenges include damage to vital infrastructure, limited water supply, searches, raids, confiscation of money and jewelry, and the jailing of young children.

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Oudeh, an outspoken challenger of Israeli occupation, discussed the effects of six Israeli settlements which surround Beit Ummar. He recalled military night raids, around 2,000 acres of Beit Ummar’s land being taken by settlers in 2016, water shortages in which residents receive water once every two weeks, the Gush Etzion settlement bloc throwing sewage water and waste on farmers’ land, and the purposeful closing of the town’s main gate to make travel to Ramallah difficult.

In light of these challenges, Oudeh outlined the nonviolent measures the people of Beit Ummar have taken to resist further displacement. In 2007 Oudeh helped create Ishraqah, an organization dedicated to promoting strategies of nonviolent action against the occupation. The organization focuses on reclaiming land, harvesting olives, educating youth who have been jailed by Israelis, building greenhouses and establishing women’s conferences.

Despite their peaceful grassroots efforts, Oudeh cited several accounts of violent Israeli repression of nonviolent Palestinian protests. He recounted Israeli troops using tear gas, bullets and dog assaults on peaceful protesters. Additionally, he told the audience about the time an Israeli soldier beat a rifle into his head in 2016, causing life-altering injuries. “I can’t do any kind of sports, I can’t run…my concentration is not 100 percent,” Oudeh said. “If you want to participate in these demonstrations you should know how to run.”

For many people these actions may sound shocking, but for Oudeh and the people of Beit Ummar, they are an everyday reality. Mohamed succinctly summa-

PHOTO C. KELLEY

the killing of any target on the planet,” said Cordaro.

“Since Donald Trump has become president, these drone command centers are growing all over the country,” Cordaro added.

Though the Trump administration has restricted public access to information about U.S. drone operations, in mid-April Bloomberg News reported that the administration’s plans to boost weapons sales include “allowing direct commercial sales that don’t have to go through the government by companies that obtain an export permit and eliminating special scrutiny of laser devices on drones that can be used for military targeting.”

Also speaking at the rally were VFP Chapter 163 president Gilbert Landolt; Presbyterian Rev. Bob Cook; Methodist Rev. Chet Guinn; Julie Brown of DMCW; and Srs. Elaine and Jeanie Hagedorn of Catholic Sisters of Humility.

Adams and Cordaro spent the night in jail, pleaded guilty to misdemeanor trespass charges the following morning, were fined and released.

—Michael Gillespie

Ahmed Oudeh describes the harassment resi dents of Beit Ummar face from Israeli settlers.

rized the actions against Beit Ummar and other Palestinian communities that face similar difficulties: “A lot of people who are not familiar with the Palestinian struggle don’t realize that there can be life-changing consequences just for speaking out and defending your own rights…people need to know that this is the kind of violence Palestinians are exposed to.”

For this reason, Oudeh said that Ishraqah needs support from the international community to bring to light the atrocities faced by his town. For more information on Ishraqah, visit <www.ishraqah.org>. —Conor Kelley

Hundreds Protest Offensive Birthday Celebration

Palestinian Americans and their friends and supporters were deeply offended to learn that Tysons Corner Mall in Northern Virginia planned to host a Jewish Federation of Greater Washington event, “Israel@70,” on Sunday, June 3, celebrating Israel’s 70-year anniversary. They’d organized Israeli food, a musical lineup and dancing at Tysons Corner Plaza, and other events at Earl’s Kitchen & Bar and the Hyatt Regency at the mall.

This birthday party was scheduled just as Israeli snipers began their weekly killing of peaceful protesters, including children, in Gaza. American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) and other organizations wrote to the mall’s management to say the event was an affront to the Arab, Muslim and Palestinian shoppers who are regular patrons of the Tysons Mall and whose spending power is in the millions of dollars. They quickly gathered more than 2,000 signatures on a petition calling for the immediate cancellation of the offensive event.

The mall’s management refused to cancel “Israel@70.” By May 29, Sabeel, Jewish Voice for Peace, AMP, Arab America, Code Pink, Neturei Karta rabbis and other DC area organizations and individuals called for a protest at the Tysons Corner Mall. Despite torrential rains, as well as police warnings prohibiting signs and chants, nearly many 600 protesters—far more than Jewish Federation revelers— gathered wearing T-shirts, keffiyehs and Palestinian embroidered dresses.

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Iowa Activists Rally for Gaza

“From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!” chanted some 30 Iowa peace and social justice activists who rallied in Des Moines under a cloudless sky on the hot Friday afternoon of June 1 in support of Gazans protesting Israel’s punishing siege.

Cars traveling on the overpass and on the busy thoroughfare below honked in support.

“Palestine needs justice. There are Palestinians in refugee camps without citizenship. It’s been like that for 70 years,” said participant Maximus Maarouf. “Without justice there is no humanity.”

“We are here not only to show solidarity with the Palestinian people, but to amplify their voices so their truth will be heard,” said Berina Smajlovic, an event organizer.

“We are at a critical point,” she added, “with Israel threatening to shut down journalism, threatening reporters with fines and jail sentences for recording IDF soldiers breaking international laws and committing war crimes. We want Palestinians to be heard and real news to be reported.”

“It is my obligation as a human to be a voice for the voiceless when it comes to war crimes and human rights violations,” said Renee Cawthorn. “I went to Palestine with a delegation from First United Methodist Church here in Des Moines two or three years ago, and I have become 64

Police forced drenched protesters out of the Tysons Corner Mall. more involved since then.”

“We are here for Palestinians who want to live in peace,” said Randa Nasereddin.

“I am Palestinian myself, so this hits home.

It matters. It’s a humanitarian crisis over there. You don’t have to be a Palestinian or a Muslim to support Palestine; you just have to be human.”

“I think everyone can see now that civilians in Gaza are subject to military force, being killed—anyone, women, kids, any

age. The people don’t have weapons, and they just kill them. We are here to let fellow Americans know that we have to stop supporting that,” said Tarek Hussein. In his opinion, foreign aid should go to support the legitimate interests of people, rather than military operations.

The event was organized independently by a group of young activists in association with the Middle East Peace Education Coalition.

—Michael Gillespie

STAFF PHOTO M. GILLESPIE

Volunteers handed out flyers to shoppers entering the mall from the Metro station. A senior citizen in a wheelchair held a Palestinian flag, and small children chanted “Palestine will be free!” Code Pink activists unfurled a huge Palestinian flag from the roof of the mall’s parking lot.

Eventually police arrested three protesters (who were released without charge), forced everyone off the plaza, far from the partiers at Earl’s Kitchen, and finally entirely off mall property.

Many drenched demonstrators remained to protest with banners on the busy street, delighted by the drivers who honked and shouted encouragement. As usual, there was no mention of the protest in local or national media —Delinda C. Hanley

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Activists in Des Moines rally in support of captive Gazans.

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BOOK TALKS James Zogby Discusses Palestinians: The Invisible Victims

On May 22 Arab American Institute cofounder Dr. James J. Zogby spoke at the Palestine Center in Washington, DC to discuss the reprinting of his book, Palestinians: The Invisible Victims (available from AET’s Middle East Books and More). As this year marks the 70th anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba (the expulsion of Palestinians from their land), Zogby highlighted the dehumanization and objectification of Palestinians, who are often seen solely through the lens of security. “It is [described as] the Israeli people and the Palestinian problem,” he pointed out.

Zogby first presented his book, which was then a paper, at a 1976 New York University talk on Zionism in which he aimed to give a face to Palestinian victims.

In 1980 Zogby was invited to a U.N. “Seminar on the Question of Palestine” in Vienna, Austria and used this opportunity to expand upon the original paper. Although the Association of Arab-American University Graduates published portions of the paper in 1975, it wasn’t until 1981 that Zogby wrote and published Palestinians: The Invisible Victims. The book was reissued this year due to its continued relevance.

When Zogby first published the book he landed on the hit lists of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and American Jewish Committee (AJC). “I was an anti-Semite, because I said these things about Zionism and I said these things about Israel,” he explained, “and how dare I accuse the Jewish state of deliberately expelling Palestinians.” Noting the evolution of the mainstream discourse surrounding Israel, he observed that criticizing the country is no longer taboo, as multiple outlets such as Haaretz and Mondoweiss regularly question Israeli and Zionist narratives.

Zogby emphasized the distinction between political, intellectual and religious Zionism. Political Zionism, which he described as the most extreme, calls for the removal of Arabs from their homeland AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018

through an exclusionist vision. This vision, in which European Jews would bring civilization to the “savage” world of Arab Palestine, won out in discourse and application, he said. He quoted Lord Balfour, who said, “We do not propose to even go through the form of consulting [Palestine’s] inhabitants as to their wishes.” He also cited David Ben-Gurion, the key founder of the State of Israel, who called this vision a “double miracle: more land and less Arabs.”

Regarding media coverage, Zogby noted the clear dichotomy between how Palestinians and Israelis are talked about.

He illustrated this through CBS News’ cov-

erage of the 1981 killing of 283 people when Israel bombed the PLO offices in Lebanon to retaliate for the killing of a single soldier in Israel. The coverage from Lebanon focused on the destroyed buildings and the rubble, but the coverage of the Israeli soldier centered on humanizing him and his family. Zogby recounted the newsman’s reasoning for the network’s coverage of the event. “It was too dusty, too crowded, and too congested,” the newsman said. “We decided to wait to the next day to show the devastation.”

Zogby also recalled the story of Dr. Baruch Goldstein, an American-born Jewish settler whom the media described as the “good doctor gone bad,” who opened fire on Palestinians praying in a mosque in Hebron in 1994, killing 29 worshippers.

Again, the focus was on humanizing the perpetrator, while neglecting victims from the narrative. Palestinians, Zogby said, are treated as “chess pieces on a board to be moved around so Israel will be secure.”

—Leen Badeeb

Christian Reflections on Jerusalem

Seeking to reclaim Jerusalem from divisive worldly narratives, the Holy Land Christian Ecumenical Foundation (HCEF) has published a new book on the city titled What Jerusalem Means to Us: Christian Perspectives and Reflections (available from AET’s Middle East Books and More). The volume contains 23 succinct personal and theological perspectives on Jerusalem, written by Christians who have a close attachment to the city.

HCEF president Rateb Rabie, speaking at the Palestine Center in Washington, DC on May 21, said the book offers an apolitical reflection on the idea of Jerusalem as a place where unity prevails. “This is the idea of the book,” he explained. “How can Christians claim the city as a city for all?”

To this effect, he added, HCEF also intends to publish Muslim and Jewish reflections on the city.

Fr. Drew Christiansen, SJ, a Georgetown University professor and former Vatican adviser, uses his chapter of the book to reflect on the biblical tradition of using

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aid worker for the Red Creslament as a means to both cent Society, and Mustafa Ait express suffering and invite Idir, who worked for Qatar God to bring renewal and On May 2, the Trump administration announced the transCharities. The two men were hope. Just as Old Testament fer of prisoner Ahmed Muhammed Haza al-Darbi from the living quiet, peaceful and proprophets and Jesus lamented ductive lives in Sarajevo with over the fate of Jerusalem, so U.S. detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba to Saudi their wives and young chiltoo do modern Palestinian Arabia. This was the first such transfer under the current dren when they were arrested Christians lament over the administration. and accused of plotting to atstatus of Jerusalem, he said.

“My words will not do justice to what I lived through in tack the U.S. Embassy in “What we have in the these years and to the men I leave behind in prison,” alSarajevo shortly after Sept. prophetic tradition—at least in Darbi said in a statement released by his lawyer. “No one 11, 2001. The men were resome of the Psalms, particularly should remain at Guantanamo without a trial,” he added. leased after a three-month InPsalm 87, but elsewhere as “There is no justice in that.” terpol investigation found no well—is a hope for a city that will Al-Darbi is expected to serve most of the remaining nine evidence of terrorism, but really open its doors to everyU.S. Special Forces threw one,” Christiansen explained. years of his 13-year sentence in Saudi Arabia. There are bags over their heads, beat “Under Israeli control, we’ve had now 40 detainees at the Guantanamo facility. them, strip-searched and difficulties opening the shrines to —Dale Sprusansky shackled them and flew them all people, especially Palestinians from the West Bank, but people from and her son Dan Norland, a former attorney to Guantanamo. There they were kept in Arab countries as well,” he noted. at WilmerHale, the law firm that won the outdoor cages while authorities built the “The Zionist claims for Jerusalem are de- landmark Supreme Court case that freed notorious military prison around them.

The Bosnians endured seven years of liberately exclusivist,” he pointed out. “They six Guantanamo detainees, discussed emphasize a certain hardness that needs “Justice and Injustice” and their newly re- torture, force-feeding and beatings without to be overcome by welcoming, generous leased books at DACOR Bacon House in an opportunity to prove their innocence, hearts. And there’s a sense that other peo- Washington, DC on May 11. Professor Har- until the Supreme Court ruled in June ple have to be excluded for [Jerusalem] to nett shared anecdotes about the Justice’s 2008, in Boumediene v. Bush, that Guanbelong to Israelis, and that’s not the case. It life from My Own Words, the book Hartnett tanamo detainees had the constitutional can be shared. It can be a shared city.” co-authored with Wendy Williams, and the right to challenge their detention in federal In her chapter, Carole Monica Burnett, an ways Ginsburg has helped shape modern- court. After the Bush-appointed Federal Judge Richard J. Leon finally was required editor of numerous publications on the Holy day America.

Land, discusses what Christians around the She then quizzed her son, Dan Norland, to review the government’s evidence, he world can do to change the current reality asking how he came to tell the stories of ordered the men’s release. Months later, in Jerusalem. two Bosnians, Lakhdar Boumediene, an Boumediene was released to France and Ait Idir to Sarajevo, to try to rebuild their “If you consign today’s Jerusalem to crulives with their families. Norland said the elty, injustice, oppression and suffering, if two hope that by telling their stories to you say, ‘well this is just the way it has to Americans in the book Witnesses of the be, I give up,’ what are you?” she asked.

Unseen: Seven Years in Guantanamo, “You are engaging in a Christian heresy they will prevent other innocent people called dualism, which says that this earth is from enduring mistreatment in Guancorrupt and sinful and that only the heavtanamo. enly powers can bring us out of it, that there Norland pored through court transcripts are good forces and evil forces at war with and enlisted the help of his Arabic-speakeach other and we’re kind of helpless.” ing sister Kate to translate his interviews This, she opined, is an untenable position with both men. Norland said he was for a Christian to take. “We have to stand “blown away” by how kind and decent they up,” she stated. “If we don’t, we’re on the were. As he watched Ait Idir play with his side of evil.”

—Dale Sprusansky son—the same age as Norland’s daughMother and Son Discuss Justice ter—he realized those men could easily And Injustice still be in Guantanamo and that that little boy wouldn’t have been born without the Prof. Mary Harnett, one of Justice Ruth Supreme Court’s decision.

Bader Ginsburg’s authorized biographers,

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Scott Horton on Why the U.S. War in Afghanistan is Unwinnable

The U.S. war in Afghanistan remains as unwinnable now as it was when the U.S.–led coalition dropped its first bomb in October 2001, author Scott Horton said at a March 4 talk at Washington, DC’s Middle East Books and More. In his insightful new book, Fool’s Errand: Time to End the War in Afghanistan, Horton details the futility of the longest U.S. war and makes the case for an immediate long-overdue withdrawal.

The author began with an explanation of America’s long history of meddling in the region—from the 1953 overthrow of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh to the ongoing war in Afghanistan known as Operation Freedom’s Sentinel.

Interpreting the Carter Doctrine of 1980, which provided that the United States would use military force if necessary to defend its national interests in the Persian Gulf, Horton argued, “They were deliberately trying to provoke the Soviet Union to invade Afghanistan.”

During Operation Cyclone—the code name for the CIA program to arm and finance the mujahideen in Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989, prior to and during the Soviet military intervention—Arab fighters were recruited across the Muslim world, particularly from Syria, Libya, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. “It was a right of passage to go to Afghanistan and fight for at least a little while,” he observed. “Some of them stayed, including Osama bin Laden, who brought his construction company and built bases in Pakistan. He was actually wounded in battle against the Communists AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018

STAFF PHOTO PHIL PASQUINI

The men were wrongfully detained without an apology, explanation, compensation or any communication at all, Norland stated. Our government wants to pretend this never happened. It’s hard to read about some of the things they went through when we’d rather look away. It’s also inspiring what these men were able to accomplish as they put their lives back together. “It’s been my honor to try to help,” Norland concluded. Witnesses of the Unseen is available from AET’s Middle East Books and More.

—Delinda C. Hanley

Scott Horton, author of Fool’s Errand: Time to End the War in Afghanistan, gives a riveting book talk.

and really earned his street credibility among the fighters there as part of the Arab Afghan army.”

Since 1941, “the American empire has never taken a break,” Horton told his audience. “We’ve been at war ever since then.

We inherited the world’s empires—the European and Japanese empires at the end of WW II—and have dominated most of the planet ever since then. The Communists got one-third and we got two-thirds, basically, and now that the Communist block is gone America’s influence has spread even further.”

According to Horton, after the 9/11 attacks bin Laden’s agenda was “to bring us to Afghanistan and do the same thing to us that they did to the Russians.” And bin Laden and al-Qaeda found an ally in President George W. Bush, who “enlisted the American military to do their dirty work for them,” he said. “America’s military empire, in taking advantage of and exploiting the 9/11 attacks just as al-Qaeda had wanted us to do, is what has accomplished so many of their goals across the region.”

Horton astutely pointed out that we didn’t need a war against the Taliban, only al-Qaeda. “Taking on the Taliban was actually a huge distraction from taking on the enemy, al-Qaeda,” he exclaimed. “The at-

tackers on 9/11 were not Taliban, they were Egyptians and Saudis.”

Turning to the current insurgency in Afghanistan, he stated: “We cannot win it.

Because, to oversimplify it, the first reason is the brutality of the occupation and the way the war is waged against innocents.”

But also, Horton noted, “in Afghanistan the war amounts to an American attempt to foist a coalition government of very small minority groups—the Uzbeks, Tajiks, Hazaras—onto the Pashtun tribesmen who dominate in the east and south of the country.”

To instill a government without including the Pashtuns—the single largest ethnic group in Afghanistan—will simply not work, Horton argued. “The Pashtun tribesmen are a warrior culture and they always have been. They define themselves as defenders of invasion.” And, as this area comprises the ancient Silk Road, the Pashtuns have been invaded since time immemorial. “These are people who would rather die than give up,” he averred. “They will not give up and cannot be defeated.”

The Taliban, calling itself the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, “is not a shadow government,” the author stated. “They are the only functioning government in the vast majority of the country now. They rule the entire countryside of the south and the east and much of the west. The Taliban does not have to lose. They just have to hang on, and they have.”

At a cost of more than $1 trillion, the loss of almost 2,400 U.S. soldiers and more than 111,000 Afghans, “the war in Afghanistan has accomplished nothing,” Horton lamented.

“Even though the polls show the majority of American people are against the Afghan war, it is the lowest priority and remains another one of America’s seven wars on the back burner, mostly out of sight and out of mind, and yet is still destroying Afghanistan and the United States," he concluded.

Fool’s Errand: Time to End the War in Afghanistan is available from the Washington Report’s Middle East Books and More.

—Elaine Pasquini

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B •O •O •K •S

Reviewed by Amin Gharad

tinian conflict. In his words, the accumulation of a slow, cold violence allows for a particular kind of misery to be intensified and entrenched. The Israeli apparaBy Richard Hardigan, Cune Publishing, tus of control does not merely rely upon 2018, paperback, state violence to impose its will, but a 185 pp. MEB: “dizzying assemblage of laws and by$21.00. laws, contracts, ancient documents, From the outset, force, amendments, customs, religion, Hardigan declares conventions and sudden irrational his work “neither moves, all mixed together and imposed balanced nor neu- with the greatest care.” All of which yield tral,” and that in a reality of “suffocating viciousness” as this there is no far as Palestinian life is concerned. flaw. Invoking Des But of course there is much blood. Tormond Tutu’s famed metaphor, “if an ele- ture, tear gas, lynchings, and arrests. phant has its foot on the tail of a mouse, The occupation of Palestine is obviously and you say that you are neutral, the not short on physical pain and the sort of mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.” “hot violence” that we more easily assoHardigan, in captivating narrative fash- ciate with what is newsworthy. After all, ion, not only gives a window into some of the summer of Hardigan’s time in the the most visible forms of Palestinian suf- West Bank coincided with Israel’s 2014 fering, but powerfully demonstrates that war on Gaza that claimed more than both the “hot” and “cold violence” of liv- 2,000 lives and injured over 10,000 in ing under Israeli control have the capac- the span of just seven weeks. ity to traumatize and devastate the lives Our chronicler recounts the story of a of those in its wake. chance meeting with Marwan. Despite Teju Cole wrote in The Guardian of the graduating from An-Najah, one of the top interplay between this hot and cold vio- Palestinian universities, he has been unlence in the context of the Israeli-Pales- able to find work. A casualty of thenIsraeli defense m i n i s t e r Yi t z h a k R a b i n ’s infamous instructions to deliberately and punitively break the bones of Palestinian protesters, Marwan’s hands were permanently crippled by Israeli forces during the first intifada.

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Then there’s Tariq Adeli, lying in his bed catatonic at the time of Hardigan’s visit to the Rafidia Hospital. Adeli had been kidnapped from his village by Israeli settlers who then sprayed him with gasoline and took him to a field where they hacked at his legs with a hatchet leaving him for dead.

As Hardigan guides us through his time in Palestine, it’s as though the reader is given the chance to gaze through the personally chiseled hole in the wall and system of control through which each Palestinian must experience and navigate life under Israeli occupation. Each hole provides a unique angle and vantage point that, collectively, strings together a vivid picture of the pervasive, all-encompassing spectre of Israeli repression and disruption of life. An exertion of control from which no Palestinian can escape unscathed.

Hardigan’s account is indispensable for anyone passionate or interested in the plight of the Palestinian people. For those green to the conflict yet unsure of where to begin their search, his accounting delivers an accessible and informative dive into the realities of Palestinians and their allies on the ground colliding daily with Israeli power.

And for those well-steeped in the factoids and historical ledgers, but perhaps for whom the conflict has become a more distant abstraction and depersonalized newsreel, this book will bring the human dimension of this conflict into sharp focus. And in his brave witness, Hardigan’s account gives powerful testament not only to the struggles of the Palestinian people, but to the idea that we must not ignore cold violence and focus only on the hot. ■

Amin Gharad is director of Middle East Books and More, a project of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.

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• EAST • BOOKS • AND • MORE MIDDLE Literature Films Pottery Solidarity Items More s

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SUMMER 2018 Hamas Contained: The Rise and Pacification of Palestinian Resistance, by Tareq Baconi, Stanford University Press, 2018, hardcover, 368 pp. MEB: $22. Hamas Contained offers the first history of the group on its own terms. Drawing on interviews with organization leaders, as well as publications from the group, Tareq Baconi maps Hamas’s 30-year transition from fringe military resistance toward governance. He breaks new ground in questioning the conventional understanding of Hamas and shows how the movement's ideology ultimately threatens the Palestinian struggle and, inadvertently, its own legitimacy.

The Meursault Investigation,

by Kamel Daoud, Other Press, 2015, paperback, 160 pp. MEB: $14. Harun is the brother of “the Arab” killed by the infamous Meursault, the antihero of Camus’s classic novel, The Stranger. Harun refuses to let his sibling remain anonymous so, 70 years later, he gives his brother a story and a name—Musa—and describes the events that led to his murder. A worthy complement to its great predecessor, The Meursault Investigation is a meditation on Arab identity and the disastrous effects of colonialism in Algeria.

Palestinians The Invisible Victims: Political Zionism and the Roots of Palestinian Dispossession, by James Zogby, Mondoweiss, 2018, paperback, 93 pp.

MEB: $13. This story of how political Zionism dealt with the Palestinian people is not ancient history. Rather, it sets the stage for what’s happening in Palestine today and it helps us better understand both Israel’s systematic efforts to dispossess the Palestinian people of their land and rights, and the West’s continued failure to address the continued violations of Palestinian human rights.

What Jerusalem Means to Us: Christian Perspectives and Reflections, by Saliba Sarsar, Noble Book Publishing Incorporated, 2018, paperback, 312 pp. MEB: $18. In 23 essays, Palestinian Christians and other Christians of various backgrounds share their personal perspectives and reflections on Jerusalem as they draw on their intimate knowledge of and/or their experiences in the Holy City. Contributors embody the conviction that the well-being of the city and all its inhabitants depend on the well-being of the “other,” and that all must work together, and in parallel, to build a future in which the city and all its inhabitants can thrive.

Lords of the Horizons: A History of the Ottoman Empire,

by Jason Goodwin, Picador, 2003, paperback, 368 pp. MEB: $20. For 600 years, the Ottoman Empire swelled and declined. Islamic, civilized, and tolerant, it advanced in three centuries from the dusty foothills of Anatolia to rule on the Danube and the Nile. In its last 300 years the empire seemed ready to collapse, a prodigy of survival and decay. In this striking evocation of the empire’s power, Goodwin explores how the Ottomans rose and how, against all odds, they lingered on. He also offers a look back to the origins of problems that plague present-day Kosovars and Serbs.

Arabian Drugs in Early Medieval Mediterranean Medicine, by Zohar Amar and Efraim Lev, Edinburgh University Press, 2018, paperback, 296 pp. MEB: $40. For more than 1,000 years Arab medicine held sway in the ancient world, from the shores of Spain in the West to China, India and Sri Lanka in the East.

This book explores the impact of Greek (as well as Indian and Persian) medical heritage on the evolution of Arab medicine and pharmacology, investigating it from the perspective of materia medica—a reliable indication of the contribution of this medical legacy.

The Merchant of Syria: A History of Survival, by Diana Darke, Oxford University Press, 2018, hardcover, 224 pp. MEB: $24. Barely literate, and supporting his mother and sisters from the age of 10, Abu Chaker built up a business empire—despite twice losing everything he had. Diana Darke follows his tumultuous journey, from instability in Syria and civil war in Lebanon, to his arrival in England in the 1970s, where he rescued a failing Yorkshire textile mill, Hield Bros, and transformed it into a global brand. The Merchant of Syria tells two parallel stories: the life of a cloth merchant and his resilience, and the rich history of a nation built on trade.

How Long Will Israel Survive? The Threat From Within, by Gregg Carlstrom, Oxford University Press, 2017, hardcover, 256 pp.

MEB: $21. Israel is surrounded by an array of threats but its most serious challenge comes from within. The country has fractured into tribes—disparate groups with little shared understanding of what it means to be a Zionist, let alone an Israeli. Israelis fight internecine battles—over religion and state, war and peace, race and identity— contesting the very notion of a “Jewish and democratic“ state. Carlstrom asks a question: Will Israel survive?

The Road to Mecca, by Muhammad Asad, Fons Vitae, 2000, paperback, 375 pp. MEB: $15. In this extraordinary and beautifully written autobiography, Asad tells of his initial rejection of all institutional religions, his entree into Taoism, his fascinating travels as a diplomat and journalist, and finally his embrace of Islam.

Asad, a Jewish-born AustroHungarian Muslim, engaged in arguments with Zionist leaders like Chaim Weizmann, voicing his concerns about the Zionist movement. Asad, who was also a linguist, thinker, political theorist and Islamic scholar, was one of the most influential European Muslims of the 20th century.

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The Khaleej Times, Dubai

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THE WORLD LOOKS AT THE MIDDLE EAST

The Dominion Post, Wellington, New Zealand

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www.OtherWords.org

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Der Standard, Vienna, Austria AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018

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ISRAEL NEEDS TO HE HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR ITS ACTIONS

U.S. NEEDS SELF-EXAMINATION WHEN IT COMES TO ISRAEL

To the Independent Record, July 6, 2018 Self-examination seems to be a key— do we treat others as we would like to be treated?

Relevant news: The U.S. withdrew from the Human Rights Council. Nikki Haley accuses the council of an obsessive mistreatment of Israel, calls the council “a cesspool of political bias,” says “the world’s most inhumane regimes continue to escape scrutiny.”

What is an inhumane regime? Is it one that sets snipers on one side of a fence and injures 13,000 people, while none of their own number are injured, and calls the encounters clashes? Is it one that conducts airstrikes against protesting kite flyers? It is one that demolishes the homes of those whose land they covet? Is it one that denies freedom of movement to half the population living in the territory which it governs? Quite possibly! And do we support that government’s apartheid policies?

Sadly, we do while claiming to be a supporter of human rights. Let’s dare to examine ourselves and strive to change our foreign policy by conducting more open public debates.

Dean Grenz, Boulder, MT AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018

To the Arizona Daily Star, May 30, 2018 Re: the May 17 guest column “Blame abundant, solutions elusive in IsraeliPalestinian conflict.”

International law and public opinion outside the U.S. have long rejected the false notion that Israel’s brutal occupation of Gaza and the West Bank—and the resulting decades of violence—represent a conflict between equal forces. Many Israeli and American Jews also oppose the occupation. Israel cannot claim victim status when it is backed by massive amounts of U.S. military aid.

I was horrified anew to read the wellknown quotation from Golda Meir, “We can forgive the Arabs for killing our children. We cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children.” We often hear language like this from mentally disturbed people who commit violent acts and can’t accept responsibility for them. Some outside force, they believe, made them do it.

I want the government that claims to represent me to stop enabling violent behavior inspired by insane logic.

Kim Mathews, Tuscon, AZ

RULING PLACES COURT ON WRONG SIDE OF HISTORY

To the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, June 27, 2018 June 26, 2018, will live in infamy as the day the Supreme Court of the United States sanctioned religious discrimination against Muslims by the U.S. government. Like March 6, 1857, (Dred Scott) and Dec. 18, 1944, (Korematsu) when the Supreme Court’s decisions were on the wrong side of morality, fairness and justice, the so-called travel ban decision is un-American and against the very spirit of our nation.

The intent behind this policy is clear and, in the words of candidate Donald Trump, calls for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.” The fact that the executive order was revised and sanitized to meet legal muster cannot scrub away the basic bigotry and animus toward Muslims. Chief Justice John Roberts choosing to ignore this obvious fact and calling this policy “neutral on its face” is an approach akin to burying one’s head in sand.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor is correct that this decision betrays the promise of religious liberty for Muslims in America and the policy it upholds is motivated by hostility and animus toward the Muslim faith.

I am a proud American Muslim and love

my country and my faith. We are a part of the American fabric and work hard every day as educators, first responders, police officers, soldiers, doctors, engineers, laborers and small-business owners for our country and fellow citizens.

For American Muslims, this decision represents one of the darkest hours in the history of the Supreme Court as it has found narrow grounds to sanction a policy deemed unconstitutional by all lower courts.

But I have faith that one day the overwhelming majority of Americans will come to view this decision as fundamentally wrong and against American ideals, like they did in the case of slavery and Japanese internment.

Zia Moiz Ahmad, president, Muslim Community of St. Louis, MO

“CAN THIS HAPPEN TO ME?”

To The New York Times, June 27, 2018 After visiting the Minidoka internment camp in Idaho, where nearly 10,000 Americans of Japanese descent were imprisoned under Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066, my son asked, “Could that happen to me?”

This wasn’t a child’s unrealistic fear of monsters under the bed. My husband and I are his lucky and grateful adoptive parents, but our son was born in another country to a Muslim birth mother.

So the heart-wrenching answer I have to give after the Supreme Court upheld anti-Muslim discrimination and President Trump’s travel ban is yes, it could happen.

But I can also offer the reassurance of resistance. Yes, as Justice Sonia Sotomayor said in her eloquent dissent, five justices turned “a blind eye to the pain and suffering the proclamation inflicts upon countless families and individuals, many of whom are United States citizens.”

Millions of us, however, are here to witness and protest this immoral decision.

Mary Battenfeld, Jamaica Plain, MA

AMERICAN BIGOTRY AND THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

To The Boston Globe, July 11, 2018 In rereading the Declaration of Independence, helpfully reprinted in the Globe last week, I was struck by the jarring condemnation of “the merciless Indian Savages” contained in an unsettling paragraph I had mercifully forgotten.

When you realize that such language was condoned by our Founding Fathers, you can see why bigotry is so hard to expunge; it may be in our DNA. It is disheartening to see the extent to which big-

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otry still exists, not only in the upper echelons of our present government but throughout our society, to a disturbing degree.

Richard N. Miller, South Orleans, MA

WHAT ARE ISRAEL’S BORDERS?

To The Australian Financial Review, May 29, 2018 Amazing that Alexander Downer (“Feckless West can’t keep falling for Hamas propaganda,” May 29) so effortlessly lauds Israel. After all, Israel is a serial ignorer of U.N. Resolutions, the International Court of Justice, and 4th Geneva Convention. I do not understand why our former foreign minister thinks the Palestinians should just accept living under the orders of a foreign army. Supporting the occupation is nothing to be proud of. Mr. Downer should be ashamed of himself.

The article mentions the word “border” several times. In truth there is no border.

He should ask Binyamin Netanyahu to draw a map of Israel. He might be surprised. As for the argument about Jewish significant contributions to science and scholarship, yes but so what ? Does it justify killing and subjugating others?

John Salisbury, East Malvern, Victoria, Australia

A CALL FOR RENEWED CANADIAN DIPLOMACY WITH IRAN

To the Ottawa Citizen, July 10, 2018 Re: ‘Why Harper was right to speak out on Iran,” July 7.

If David Kilgour were indeed interested in improving Iranian political behaviors, both internationally and domestically, he would be calling for a resumption of direct diplomatic relations with Iran and the reopening of embassies in Tehran and Ottawa, which former prime minister Stephen Harper severed and whose re-establishment has been prevented by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Harper is now directly complicit with the Trump American policy (supported by Israel)—after 40 years of diplomatic estrangement, withdrawing from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action nuclear deal on Iran (which Canada supports in its nuclear-non proliferation policy), and then effecting regime change in Tehran through extreme extraterritorial and illegal sanc72

tions and/or war.

Kilgour should be joining other Canadians in advocating for a Canadian Embassy in Tehran which can pursue the variety of Canadian consular (of particular benefit to Iranian Canadians), trade and political security interests in Iran and can work towards peaceful solutions to Mideast security issues.

George Jacoby, Ottawa, Canadian diplomat posted in Iran 1995-1998

TIME FOR THE WEST TO TAKE A STAND ON ISRAEL

To The Irish News, June 21, 2018 Andrew J. Shaw (May 2) has added blinkers to his rose-tinted glasses in his perception of the horrific actions of the Israeli army on the edge of the open-air prison camp (as described by ex-UK prime minister David Cameron) that is Gaza.

Encyclopaedia Britannica defines a concentration camp as an “internment center for political prisoners and members of national or minority groups who are confined for reasons of state security, exploitation, or punishment usually by executive decree or military order...and without benefit of either indictment or fair trial.”

Does this sound familiar to Mr. Shaw and if so how does he explain the action of Israel with the construction of the Gaza camp where the inmates are penned in on all sides, by land sea and air, unable to leave and murdered at will every few years by what Israeli officials describe as “mowing the lawn.” The most recent invasion in 2014 was described by a senior U.S. military officer as “removing the topsoil,” so horrified was he by the actions of the self-described “most moral army in the world.” And “mowing the lawn” is not a oneoff but must be repeated often.

It is not generally known that 12 years ago, when Israel enclosed the unfortunate Palestinians in their concentration camp,

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

their experts worked out the minimum number of calories the inmates would need to avoid starvation, which would (we hope) have brought world attention to this horrendous crime. Over the intervening years Israel has reduced the amount of food and water supplied by the occupiers to Gaza and electric power is now available for only four hours per day to these largely forgotten people.

Repeat “Hamas terrorists” often enough and Palestinians become fair game. The recent atrocities, where thousands of unarmed men women and children have been mown down, was lamented by the IDF spokesman Brigadier General Ronen Manelis for the damage to Israel’s image.

Hospitals in Gaza, normally overrun, are now unable to help the huge number of badly injured people and, because of the complete blockade, are bereft of the necessary medical supplies to deal with them.

Life is so bleak and hopeless in the camp that the protesters at the fence prefer to face death or serious injury than continue the slow death in the concentration camp.

When are so-called civilized western governments and their Arab allies going to condemn and call for an end to this shocking mayhem?

Eugene F. Parte, Belfast, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom ■

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O• B • I • T • U • A • R • I • E • S Joel Kovel, 81, an activist-scholar, psychiatrist, and the intellectual father of ecosocialism, died April 30 of pneumonia and autoimmune encephalitis in Manhattan, NY. Born in Brooklyn to Jewish immigrants, Kovel studied medicine at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons after his undergraduate studies at Yale. His ideological journey led him through Freudian and later “Marxist psychoanalysis,” and eventually the abandonment of psychiatric practice entirely. Kovel waded into controversy early in his career after penning White Racism: A Psychohistory. In it, he diagnosed racism—varied in its manifestations as it may be—as endemic to Western societies and deeply embedded within its civilizational fabric. From 1977 through 1983, he also directed resident training in psychiatry at Albert Einstein Medical School.

His life was marked by his passionate agitation against what he saw as the evils of capitalism, imperialism, and Zionism—from his activism against the Vietnam War in the ’60s, to his sharp critique of Zionism in works such as Overcoming Zionism. His life also saw a foray into the political arena when he ran as the Green Party candidate for New York’s U.S. Senate seat in 1998, and for the party’s presidential nomination in 2000.

Later in life Kovel would convert to Christianity and was baptized in the Anglican church, carrying within him an abiding admiration for the tradition of liberation theology. Kovel’s last published work, The Lost Traveller’s Dream, is a memoir tracking his political, spiritual, and personal journeys and storied life of activism and scholarship. He is survived by his wife, three children, a brother and nine grandchildren.

Daniel Cohen, 82, died May 6 in Cape May, NJ of sepsis. A prolific author and activist, Cohen devoted himself to the cause of seeking justice for the victims of the Lockerbie bombing. Born and raised in Chicago, Cohen pursued journalism studies at the University of Illinois before embarking upon a writing career during AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018

which he penned close to 200 works— most for children and teens.

He and his wife, Susan Cohen, also a writer, are perhaps most famously known for their activism and writing in the wake of the death of their daughter, Theodora Cohen, in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103. Then 20-year-old Theodora, their only child, was killed along with 269 others over Lockerbie, Scotland in an attack many, including the Cohens, saw as an act of Libyan state-sponsored terrorism. Unsatisfied with the conviction of the single Libyan national sentenced for the attack, the couple wrote a book, Pan Am 103: The Bombing, the Betrayals, and a Bereaved Family’s Search for Justice, detailing the investigations into the attack and the travails of their family and the families of other victims in its wake.

The Cohens rose to become relentless voices and symbols for the bereaved families, agitating unwaveringly for authorities to further their investigations of the fateful attack, and to pursue justice for those slain. Daniel Cohen is survived by his wife and a sister, Jean Cohen.

Maya Jribi, 58, died May 19 of cancer in Radès, Tunisia. A longtime opposition figure in the eras of Habib Bourguiba and Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, Jribi left an indelible mark on the Tunisian political landscape. Born in Bou Arada and raised in Radès, Jribi went on to study at the University of Sfax where she first began her political activism. Upon leaving university life—after stints in factory work, journalism, and working with UNICEF—she soon joined forces with Ahmed Najib Chebbi to establish the Progressive Socialist Rally later rebranded as the Progressive Democratic Party (PDP). In 2006 she would go on to succeed Chebbi to lead the PDP, and became the first female leader of a political party in Tunisia’s modern history.

A year on, she found herself again by Chebbi’s side as they embarked upon a hunger strike to protest the Ben Ali government, taking a significant toll on her health. A feminist, outspoken in her progressive commitments, Jribi spearheaded secular opposition to the establishment of

Compiled by Amin Gharad Islamic laws within the public sphere and within Tunisia’s new constitution post-revolution. She encouraged the Ennahda Party to renounce political Islam in 2016.

Prior to her retirement from politics in 2017, Jribi kept an arduous schedule and seemed omnipresent on the political and activist scene, earning her the nickname “Maya the Bee.” She credited her parents for this rigor, who instilled in her the mindset that she was owed nothing by the world she did not struggle to earn.

Adel Mahmoud, 76, died in Manhattan June 11 of a brain hemorrhage at Mount Sinai St. Luke’s Hospital. The EgyptianAmerican physician, expert in infectious diseases, and pioneer in global public health is credited with developing a number of life-saving vaccines. Microsoft Founder and philanthropist Bill Gates described Dr. Mahmoud as “one of the greatest vaccine creators of our time,” and responsible for saving the lives of countless children around the world.

Dr. Mahmoud received his medical training from the University of Cairo.

After a brief period of political activism on campus under then-Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser, Mahmoud soon committed himself fully to medicine and went on to pursue doctoral studies in the UK. In 1973 he traveled to the U.S. where he assumed a post as a postdoctoral researcher at Case Western Reserve University, eventually rising to chair its Department of Medicine through 1998. That year he took the helm at Merck Vaccines, and would be central in developing life-saving vaccines such as the rotavirus vaccine for potentially fatal diarrhea in young children, as well as the HPV vaccine capable of preventing a number of cancers including, most notably, cervical cancer. To those who knew him, he was not only a brilliant mind and gifted leader in his field, but a bubbly soul of profound warmth who endeared himself to colleagues, students and friends alike. He is survived by his wife of 25 years, Dr. Sally Hodder; sister, Dr. Olfat Abdelfattah; and his brother, Dr. Mahmoud Abdelfattah. ■

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AET’s 2018 Choir of Angels

Following are individuals, organizations, companies and foundations whose help between Jan. 11, 2018 and June 26, 2018 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.

HUMMERS ($100 or more)

Anonymous, San Francisco, CA Rev. Fahed Abu-Akel, Atlanta, GA Saleh Al-Ashkar, Tucson, AZ Joe & Siham Alfred, Fredericksburg, VA Ruby Amatulla, Dhaka, Bangladesh Mr. & Mrs. Thomas Are, Stone Mountain, GA Rev. Robert E. Barber, Parrish, FL Elizabeth Barlow, Augusta, MI John V. Brown, Los Altos, CA John Dirlik, Pointe Claire, Canada Ibrahim Elkarra, San Francisco, CA Michael Gillespie, Maxwell, IA Sherif Gindy, Macomb, MI Dixiane Hallaj, Purcellville, VA Delinda C. Hanley, Kensington, MD James Hillen, North Vancouver, Canada Mary Izett, Walnut Creek, CA Rafeeq Jaber, Palos Hills, IL Stephen Kaye, New York, NY Brian J. Kelly, Albuquerque, NM Susan Kerin, Rockville, MD Mary Ann Laret, Sarasota, FL Anthony Mabarak, Grosse Pointe Park, MI Richard Makdisi & Lindsay Wheeler, Berkeley, CA John Matthews, West Newton, MA Tom & Tess McAndrew, Oro Valley, AZ Alex & Peggy McDonald, Burke, VA

Gwendolyn McEwen, Bellingham, WA Mary Neznek, Washington, DC John Prugh, Long Beach, CA Paul Richards, Salem, OR Neil Richardson, Randolph, VT Amb. William Rugh, Hingham, MA Denis Sabourin, Pattaya, Thailand Richard J. Shaker, Annapolis, MD Dr. Mostafa Hashem Sherif, Tinton Falls, NJ Cathy & Michel Sultan, Eau Claire, WI Thomas & Carol Swepston, Englewood, FL Charles Thomas, La Conner, WA Edmund & Norma Tomey, Dorset, VT Bob Tripp, Reston, VA Women Against Military Madness, Minneapolis, MN Nabil Yakub, McLean, VA Mahmoud Zawawi, Amman, Jordan

ACCOMPANISTS ($250 or more)

Sylvia Anderson De Freitas, Duluth, MN Dr. Ann Bragdon, Houston, TX Ken Galal, San Francisco, CA Raymond Gordon, Bel Air, MD Dr. Marwan Hujeij, Cincinnati, OH Dr. Raymond Jallow Family Foundation, Los Angeles, CA* Brian J. Kelly, Albuquerque, NM Mae Stephen, Palo Alto, CA

Calling all Angels!

Have you responded to our recent donation appeal? As an independent 100 percent readersupported, non-profit magazine and bookstore, we depend on “angels” like you. Newspaper and magazine publishers are facing tariffs on Canadian paper, which are making printing costs skyrocket. Please join our choir and help us print and mail your favorite magazine.

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TENORS & CONTRALTOS ($500 or more)

Dr. & Mrs. Roger Bagshaw, Big Sur, CA Mervat Eid, Henrietta, NY Dr. Wasif Hafeez, W. Bloomfield, MI Brigitte Jaensch, Carmichael, CA Dr. Muhammad M. Kudaimi, Munster, IN Bill & Jean Mansour, McMinnville, OR Gerald & Judith Merrill, Oakland, CA Herbert & Patricia Pratt, Cambridge, MA Lisa Schiltz, Barber, Bahrain Dr. James Zogby, Washington, DC

BARITONES & MEZZO SOPRANOS ($1,000 or more)

Americans for Middle East Understanding, New York, NY Drs. A.J. & M.T. Amirana, Las Vegas, NV G. Edward & Ruth Brooking, Jr., Wilmington, DE Rev. Ronald C. Chochol, Saint Louis, MO Mr. & Mrs. Rajie Cook, Washington Crossing, PA Mo Dagstani, Redington Beach, FL Evan Fotos, Istanbul, Turkey Judith Howard, Norwood, MA Ghazy Kader, Shoreline, WA Jack Love, Kailua Kona, HI Ralph Nader, Public Citizen, Washington, DC Dr. Imad Tabry, Fort Lauderdale, FL Donn Trautman, Evanston, IL

CHOIRMASTERS ($5,000 or more)

Donna B. Curtiss, Kensington, MD*,** Dr. & Mrs. Clyde Farris, West Linn, 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

AuguST/SEPTEMBER 2018

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August/September 2018 Vol. XXXVII, No. 5

A Saudi woman and boy pose for a “selfie” photograph in Jeddah, June 14, 2018, before a wall showing their national soccer team. Nearly everyone in the Kingdom watched the 2018 World Cup Group A soccer match between Saudi Arabia and Russia.

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