Washington Report - October 2018 - Vol. XXXVII, No. 6

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115TH CONGRESS’ HALLS OF FAME AND SHAME

DISPLAY UNTIL 11/14/2018

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TELLING THE TRUTH SINCE 1982

Volume XXXVII, No. 6

On Middle East Affairs

October 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

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Israel’s New Nation-State Law: Zionism Uber Alles— Four Views — Ramzy Baroud, Susan Abulhawa, Gideon Levy, Amira Hass

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Israel’s Retreat from Democracy Creating Widening Division With American Jews — Allan C. Brownfeld

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Nation-State Law Privileging Jews Angers Israel’s Druze Citizens — Jonathan Cook

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Eight Senators, Ten Representatives in 115th Congress’ “Hall of Fame”— Shirl McArthur

Censored Film Names Adam Milstein as Canary Mission Funder— Asa Winstanley and Ali Abunimah

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36 51

54 57

Leaders Who Dehumanize Cross the Threshold— Delinda C. Hanley The American People Must Demand Accountability For U.S. Foreign Policy — Dale Sprusansky Kofi Annan (1938-2018): Diplomacy Backed by Forceful Intellect—Ian Williams In Memoriam: Uri Avnery (1923-2018)—Sara R. Powell Gazans on Edge—Two Views—Mohammed Omer, James Dorsey

SPECIAL REPORTS

The Looming War Against Iran— Eric S. Margolis

Pushing Beirut and Baghdad to Comply With Iran Sanctions Is Risky Business—Imad K. Harb

Climate Change Takes its Toll on Lebanon’s Millennia Cedars—Samar Kadi

Post-Election Pakistan—Two Views—Eric S. Margolis, Graham E. Fuller

47 49 55

Turkey’s Economic Crisis—Jonathan Gorvett Whither Western Sahara?— Marvine Howe Deepening Ties Between China and Israel— John Gee

ON THE COVER: Members of the Israeli Druze community hold banners with political messages

during a demonstration to protest the nation-state law in Tel Aviv, August 4, 2018.

JACK GUEZ/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

Top 5 Things Palestinian Activist Ahed Tamimi Learned in Colonial Israeli Prison, Juan Cole, http://www.juancole.com OV-1

After 14 Years Behind Bars, Albany Imam Will Return to Kurdistan, Paul Grondahl, Albany Times Union OV-8

“It Is a War Against Every Part Of Palestinian Identity”: Israel Destroys Popular Gaza Cultural Center, Ahmad Kabariti, http://mondoweiss.net OV-2i

Fifteen Years of Forever Wars, Chas Freeman, www.consortiumnews.com

The ICC is Reaching out to Victims of War Crimes in Palestine, Nada Kiswanson, https://www.aljazeera.com Poll: Arab Views of U.S. Low, Support for Palestinians High, Derek Davison, https://lobelog.com

OV-3

OV-4

What About Israel’s Airport Mistreatment of Arab Americans?, James J. Zogby, http://www.aaiusa.org

OV-5

Meet VIAB: Virginia’s Taxpayer-Funded Israel Lobby, Grant F. Smith, http://www.antiwar.com

OV-6

OV-9

Why Are Iraqis Protesting?, Fanar Haddad,http://www.aljazeera.com

OV-11

The Myth of a Tragic Mistake, Serge Halimi,Le Monde diplomatique

OV-12

Iran Debates Ties With Russia, Kaveh L. Afrasiabi, https://lobelog.com

OV-13

A Superb New Book on the 2011 Egyptian Uprising Shows How Israel Helped Thwart Democracy There, James North, http://mondoweiss.net

OV-14

War and Literature in Mogadishu, Nanjala Nyabola,https://www.aljazeera.com

OV-15

DEPARTMENTS 5 Publishers’ Page

6 letters to the editor

63 Music & arts: Author, Artist Wafa Ghnaim Shares Centuries-Old Art of Tatreez

65 huMan rights: Rally for Prof. Rabab Abdulhadi Outside San Francisco Federal Court 67 the World looks at the

Middle east — CARtOONS

68 other PeoPle’s Mail

An Israeli protection gear manufacturer, Masada Armour, is marketing its new bulletproof backpack for schoolchildren in the U.S. It’s sold hundreds since the Parkland, Florida school shooting. This model is supposed to protect against 9mm gunfire and costs around $500.

70 book reVieW:

71 Middle east books and More

73 2018 aet choir oF angels

72 obituaries

52 indeX to adVertisers

Finding Jesus Among Muslims

—Reviewed by Amin Gharad

AHMAD GHARABLI/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

60 Waging Peace: Does Hamas Now Have the Upper Hand Over Israel and the PA?

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American Educational Trust

Summer is coming to an end, and that means the 2018 midterm elections are right around the corner. Americans will have a lot on their minds when they head to the polls this fall. Issues such as economic inequality, gun control, immigration, climate change and political chaos are sure to be at the forefront of their minds. We know that our readers in particular will also be thinking about U.S…

ABBAS MOMANI/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Getting Ready to Vote.

Publishers’ Page

tinians, but this “mail deal” is a reminder of how all-consuming the occupation is—even small tasks like retrieving your mail are difficult and require negotiation.

Coming and Going.

Imran Khan, Pakistan’s cricketerturned-prime minister, assumed office on Aug. 18, and has promised to tackle corruption, poverty and Palestinian postal workers sift through sacks of previously un- U.S. meddling in his country. Can delivered mail dating as far back as 2010 after they were finally the celebrity-politician deliver on released by Israel, August 14, 2018. his pledges? We have two views orates (see pp. 57-59). We encourage you on his political ascendancy (see pp. 44-46). As Middle East Policy.

To prepare you for your vote, this issue in- to send the enclosed postcard to urge your some rise, others fall. August saw the deaths of several notable individuals—Israeli peace cludes 14 pages of Congressional voting elected officials to reverse these cuts. activist Uri Avnery, former U.N. secretary-genrecords (pp. 17-30) on key issues from eral Kofi Annan and U.S. Senator John McPalestine to Iran. We hope this resource will Nation-State Law. help you and others in your community eval- This issue also incudes several views on the Cain. All three were actively involved in Middle uate how your representative and senators new nation-state law passed by the Israeli East affairs. All three had their supporters and are reflecting the views of constituents who Knesset (pp. 8-11), which officially declares detractors. We review the legacies of Annan value peace, diplomacy and justice in U.S. Israel as the “nation-state of the Jewish peo- and Avnery on pp. 51-54 of this issue. foreign policy. Use these records to keep ple.” While Israel has long treated its nonyour elected officials accountable! Tell them Jewish citizens as second-class citizens, the Thank You and Next Steps. what you think by calling and e-mailing their enshrining of preferential citizenship into We received a generous response to the offices and, ultimately, by casting your vote.

Basic Law has caused the country’s non- biannual donation appeal that was mailed out Jewish citizens to rise up in protest. Most over the summer. However, we are still in angry are the Druze (see pp. 12-14), who need. With rising printing costs, we continue Your Vote Matters.

Since the new administration and new Con- have long been loyal to the Israeli govern- to rely on our donors to make the printing of gress came to power in 2017, Palestinian aid ment and feel betrayed by this discriminatory this magazine possible. If you haven’t made a has been under constant attack. In January, law. Despite the domestic and international donation yet this year, now is the time to do the Trump administration dealt a major blow backlash, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin so! If you’ve already given all you can, you to the United Nations Relief and Works Netanyahu has stated that he has no inten- can support us by sharing your magazine with others in your community and encouraging Agency for Palestine Refuges in the Near tion of revisiting the law. them to subscribe and donate. Also spread East (UNRWA) by dramatically reducing aid word about our bookstore, Middle East Books by $300 million. In July, UNRWA announced The Absurdity of Occupation. it would be closing its community mental We hope this issue of the magazine arrived and More, which offers an impressive collechealth program, mobile health clinics, at the homes of our subscribers in a timely tion of books, pottery, olive oil and more to Bedouin community food assistance pro- fashion. If not, perhaps you live in Palestine! every shopper via its website, <MiddleEastgram and dismissing 154 staff members due In August, Israel released 10 tons of letters Books.com>. Finally, be sure to mark March to insufficient funds. In March, Congress and packages they had been holding for up 22, 2019 on your calendar. That is the date of passed the Taylor Force Act, which placed to 8 years. Some were held for “security rea- our next Israel Lobby and American Policy additional restrictions on Palestinian aid and sons,” while the majority were simply held as conference in Washington, DC. These conferaccused the Palestinian Authority of support- a show of Israeli domination over Palestine. ences are a game-changer, and coupled with ing terrorism against Israeli and U.S. citi- Israeli officials said the release of the mail the resources in this magazine, empower you zens. On Aug. 24, the Trump administration was a “confidence-building measure” and with the information and networking opportuannounced plans to cut an additional $200 part of a “one-time deal” with Palestinian offi- nities you need to… million in economic aid to Palestine. All of cials. Yes, it is much more outrageous that Isthis while the current situation in Gaza deteri- rael denies freedom of movement to Pales- Make A Difference Today!

OCTOBER 2018

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

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Managing Editor: News Editor: 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.

Published by the American Educational Trust (AET), a non-profit foundation incorporated in Washington, DC by retired U.S. foreign service officers to provide the American public with balanced and accurate information concerning U.S. relations with Middle Eastern states.

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Members of AET’s Board of Directors and advisory committees receive no fees for their services.

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

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Phone: (888) 881-5861 • Fax: (714) 226-9733 Printed in the USA

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LetterstotheEditor

ARLENE SAYEGH: A PEN PAL AND DIFFERENCE MAKER

Many years ago I wrote a column sympathetic to the Palestinian people for the local newspaper. A local resident clipped it and sent it to her sister in Whittier, CA The California sister was Arlene Sayegh who, after graduating from Brigham Young University, went to New York for a job at the United Nations.

It was there that she met and married Fayez Sayegh, the top-ranking Palestinian in this country. She quickly embraced his cause. She began writing to me and giving me subscriptions to various publications, including your own. That greatly widened my understanding of what is really going on over there.

Because of her help I was able to open the eyes of hundreds of otherwise Israel-supporting young conservatives in my classes at Weber State University.

Arlene died as a result of a car accident in California about two months ago.

I’m already greatly missing my pen pal.

In her quiet way, Arlene continued the work of her late husband, Fayez Sayegh.

I would hope that she could be remembered for all that she did.

M.J. Ogden, Ogden, UT We are very sorry to hear about the death of your long-time pen pal (please see her obituary on p. 72). We are also greatly inspired by the relationship you shared with Arlene! Change only occurs when like-minded people network and dialogue—and use their energies to find ways to educate their fellow citizens. The Washington Report exists so that people like your students at Weber State University can have their eyes opened to a way of thinking that is rarely presented by the mainstream media. We encourage you and all our readers to continue passing out copies of this magazine—and any other relevant publication—to those whose minds are open to thinking more critically about the Middle East! Also give gift subscriptions to your friends, and encourage your public and university libraries to subscribe to the Washington Report!

REACHING MORE PEOPLE

If only five or six mainline U.S. newspapers would print the article by Mohammed

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

Omer, “Another Lost Generation in Gaza,” from the August/September 2018 issue of the Washington Report, it many not change many minds in Congress, but it would bring the story of Gaza to the millions of U.S. humanists who truly believe in protecting children.

How can the “American Street” know what is happening when only the Washington Report brings out the truth? How many read your excellent magazine?

We are enclosing a contribution so that more issues reach the person on the street. We always circulate our copies of the magazine.

Rizek and Alice Abusharr, Claremont, CA Thank you for your donation! We too are frustrated by the dearth of quality information on the Middle East available in the U.S. press. We do believe, however, that a growing number Americans are becoming aware about the various injustices in the region, and the role their government has played in initiating and perpetuating these atrocities. Decades-long U.S. support for Israel is, of course, at the center of many of the region’s issues. We will not stop our reporting on the meritless U.S.-Israel “special relationship.”

IS THE MEDIA REALLY CHANGING?

Philip Weiss’ piece “Killing Palestinian Protesters Turns Into a PR Debacle for Israel” (“Other Voices,” supplement of the May 2018 issue) mainly considers alternative media reports. Why didn’t he focus on mainstream media reports? News reports

by Fox, CBS, NBC, AP and others feature video of protesters throwing stones, shooting slingshots, and allegedly ‘hurling firebombs’—all amid fires, billowing black smoke and running masked figures looking to all the world like rioters and terrorists. This is what the vast majority of Americans saw and absorbed, not reports from the marginal—and to most Americans unfamiliar—sources Weiss cites.

As usual, Israel’s PR establishment is counterattacking to neutralize any criticism of these atrocities that made it through major media filters. The Palestinians have fallen into the trap of letting Israel appear to be simply defending itself. There’s only one way to escape this trap: avoiding even the appearance of violence in the tradition of Gandhi and Dr.

OCTOBER 2018

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King. Only then will the obscuring each task its due attention. ing pall lift from those killing Thus, I’ll say that I learned how KEEP THOSE CARDS AND LETTERS fields so the world can see with to effectively complete different COMING! crystal clarity who’s the victim tasks while giving each its deand who’s the perpetrator in served time and effort. I gained Send your letters to the editor to the Washington these crimes against humanity hands-on experience in cusReport, P.O. Box 53062, Washington, DC 20009 and in the conflict in general. tomer service and retail work, or e-mail <letters@wrmea.org>.

Gregory DeSylva, Rhinebeck, such as taking inventory and fulNY filling package delivery orders, Your letter, as well as the previous two yourself, as well as to libraries, members which sounds easier than it really is! letters, are representative of the frustra- of Congress, conferences and elseNot to mention working at the bookstore tion many of us feel when progress where. We appreciate the devotion and allowed me the chance to interact with inmoves at a painfully slow pace. There’s support that you and our Angels regu- teresting and intellectual people almost no doubt that the Israeli PR machine is larly provide! daily. That includes meeting the charisalways hard at work to minimize any matic and resilient Miko Peled whose work public blowback to their military actions. MESSAGE FROM AN INTERN I’ve followed since high school. All the You are correct in pointing out that any- I would like to thank you for the opportu- while, I had opportunities to attend thinkthing resembling violence is used by the nity to intern with the Washington Report tank events, policy forums and panels, media to portray Palestinians as either this summer. It would be an understate- and write about them for the magazine. the aggressor or co-aggressor. As a ment to say that I learned so much in Not only did I get to have my coverage growing number of Americans receive those three months. I strengthened my published, but I also met and spoke with their news from non-traditional sources, skills, as well as built new ones; and I some incredible experts and academics it is, however, becoming increasingly dif- gained experience within my field of inter- such as Tareq Baconi and Noura Erakat. ficult for Israel to propagate its narrative. national affairs as well as experience beI will add that finding my relative’s It’s our work to make sure that the official yond my discipline.

1993 article in the Washington Report, I learned how to collaborate, engage the year I was born, while doing reIsraeli narrative is never able to silence and communicate with other interns search for my own article was serendipior override Palestinian voices. when we didn’t necessarily agree on the tous. It made me feel that not only did I THOUGHTS FROM A LOYAL methods of execution every time. I dislike choose this path, but it chose me. the word “multitask” because the fact is, Last but not least, I was fortunate to READER Every time I receive my Washington Re- no one can effectively multitask while giv- have worked alongside kind colleagues port I try to not read it all in one sitting. and supervisors. It’s been an incredibly When I do read it all in one sitting, I wind unique opportunity to work with this orup re-reading it with the same passion as ganization. The mission of the Washingthe first time. I can’t help but wonder what ton Report and its people is one of a in the world is wrong that more people are kind, particularly existing in the nation’s not outraged by what Israel is doing day capital. Your dedication to the truth gives in and day out to the people of Palestine. me hope. I know now that there are peoRazan al-Najjar—deliberately picked ple who are willing to commit themselves off by snipers—was recognizable given in service of justice and the truth through her white paramedic jacket, and her retheir writings and advocacy. You have incent interview with the New York Times. spired me to keep going, and I urge you Razan was seen as an uplifting voice to keep going as well. and a woman of action for peace, and of In the words of Taha Hussein, “Justice course Israel and U.S. Ambassador to loiter[s], and [is] excessively tardy in the U.N. Nikki Haley would probably decoming, as though walking in chains, scribe that as an act of terror against Ishardly taking a few steps when some rael. Sad, sad, sad. force would pull it back to its resting I of course appreciate receiving my place, where it remained, as far as it Washington Report. I’m still in the “SMU” could possibly be from those who loved OTHERVOICESisan optional16-page supplement (23 hour lockdown) and I don’t wish to it and whom it loved...” available only to subscribers of the Washington miss a single issue. My subscription is Justice loiters, but I believe that with Report on Middle East Affairs. For an additional $15 about to run out, please see if I can conperseverance, it prevails. per year (see postcard insert for Washington Report tinue on your mailing list. I will greatly apLeen Badeeb, via e-mail subscription rates), subscribers will receive Other preciate you.

We were blessed with four incredible Voicesinsideeachissueof their WashingtonReport Michael Lewis, Marienville, PA “Helen Thomas” interns this summer and on Middle East Affairs.

We have gladly extended your sublook forward to greeting our fall interns.

Back issues of both publications are available. To scription. The back pages of this issue We always hope to provide the next gensubscribe telephone 1 (888) 881-5861, fax (714) list the many donors who generously reeration of writers and thinkers with the 226-9733, e-mail circulation@wrmea. org>, or write sponded to our most recent donation apexperiences they need to transform the to P.O. Box 91056, Long Beach, CA 90809-1056. peal. Our Angels make it possible for us world. They, of course, refresh and into send free copies to prisoners such as spire us immensely, as well! ■ OCTOBER 2018

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Four Views

Israel’s New Nation-State Law: Zionism Uber Alles

AHMAD GHARABLI/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

numerous discriminatory laws, all aimed at the very destruction of the Palestinian people, should have given enough clues that Israel was never a democracy to begin with.

The Jewish nation-state law is merely the icing on the cake. It simply gave those who argued all along that Israel’s attempt at combining democracy with ethnic supremacy was racism masquerading as democracy, the munition they needed to further illustrate the point.

There is no escaping the moral imperative now. Those who insist on supporting Israel must know that they are supporting an unabashed A Palestinian citizen of Israel demonstrates in Tel Aviv against the Knesset’s passage of the Jewish nation- apartheid regime. state law, Aug. 11, 2018.

The new law, which was passed after some wrangling on July 19, has divorced Israel from any claim, however untrue, to being a democratic state.

In fact, the law does not mention the word “democracy” in its wording, not even once. References to the Jewish identity of

By Ramzy Baroud the state, however, are ample and dominant, with the clear exclusion of the Palestinian people from their rights in their hisTHE HEAD OF the Arab Joint List Alliance in the Israeli Knestoric homeland: set (Parliament), Ayman Odeh, described the passing of the • “The state of Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people... racist Jewish nation-state law as “the death of our democracy.”

• “The actualization of the right of national self-determination Did Odeh truly believe that, prior to this law, he had lived in a in the state of Israel is unique to the Jewish people… true democracy? Seventy years of Israeli Jewish supremacy, • “The state will labor to ensure the safety of sons of the genocide, ethnic cleansing, wars, sieges, mass incarceration, Jewish people…

Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and editor of Palestine Chron• “The state will act to preserve the cultural, historical and icle. His latest book is The Last Earth: A Palestinian Story (available religious legacy of the Jewish people among the Jewish difrom AET’s Middle East Books and More). Baroud has a Ph.D. in aspora,” and so on.

Palestine Studies from the University of Exeter and is a non-resident But most dangerous of all is the stipulation that “the state UniStudies, International and Global for scholar at Orfalea Center views Jewish settlement as a national value and will labor to versity of California. His website is <www.ramzybaroud.net>.

Jewish Nation-State Law: Why Israel Was Never A Democracy

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WAShingTon REPoRT on MiddLE EAST AffAiRS

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encourage and promote its establishment and development.”

True, illegal Jewish settlements already dot the Palestinian land in the West Bank and Jerusalem; and a de facto segregation already exists in Israel itself. In fact, segregation is so deep and entrenched, even maternity wards in Israeli hospitals separate between mothers, based on their race.

The above stipulation, however, will further accelerate segregation and cement apartheid, making the harm not merely intellectual and political, but physical as well.

The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, Adalah, has documented in its “Discriminatory Laws Database” a list of over 65 Israeli laws that “discriminate directly or indirectly against Palestinian citizens in Israel and/or Palestinian residents of the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) on the basis of their national belonging.”

According to Adalah, “These laws limit the rights of Palestinians in all areas of life, from citizenship rights to the right to political participation, land and housing rights, education rights, cultural and language rights, religious rights, and due process rights during detention.”

While it would be accurate to argue that the Jewish nationstate bill is the officiation of apartheid in Israel, this realization should not dismiss the previous reality upon which Israel was founded 70 years ago.

Apartheid is not a single law, but a slow, agonizing build-up of an intricate legal regime that is motivated by the belief that one racial group is superior to all others.

Not only does the new law elevate Israel’s Jewish identity and erase any commitment to democracy, it also downgrades the status of all others. Palestinian Arabs, the natives of the land of historic Palestine upon which Israel was established, did not feature prominently in the new law at all. There was a mere stipulation made to the Arabic language, but only to downgrade it from being an official language to a “special one.”

Israel’s decision to refrain from formulating a written constitution when it was founded in 1948 was not a haphazard one.

Since then, it has been following a predicable model where it would alter reality on the ground to the advantage of Jews at the expense of Palestinian Arabs.

Instead of a constitution, Israel resorted to what it termed “Basic Laws,” which allowed for the constant formulation of new laws guided by the “Jewish State’s” commitment to racial supremacy rather than to democracy, international law, human rights or any other ethical value.

The Jewish nation-state law is itself a “Basic Law.” And with that law, Israel has dropped the meaningless claim to being both Jewish and democratic. This impossible task was often left to the Supreme Court, which tried, but failed, to strike any convincing balance.

This new reality should, once and for all, end the protracted debate on the supposed uniqueness of Israel’s political system.

And since Israel has chosen racial supremacy over any claim, however faint, to real democracy, Western countries that have often shielded Israel must also make a choice on whether they wish to support an apartheid regime or fight against it.

OCTOBER 2018

The initial statement by the EU foreign affairs chief, Federica Mogherini, was lackluster and feeble. “We are concerned, we have expressed this concern and we will continue to engage with Israeli authorities in this context,” she said, while renewing her commitment to the “two-state solution.”

This is hardly the proper statement in response to a country that had just announced its membership in the apartheid club.

The EU must end its wishy-washy political discourse and disengage from apartheid Israel, or it has to accept the moral, ethical and legal consequences of being an accomplice in Israeli crimes against Palestinians.

Israel has made its choice and it is, unmistakably, the wrong one. The rest of the world must now make its choice as well, hopefully the right one: standing on the right side of history— against Israeli Jewish apartheid and for Palestinian rights. ■

Israel’s “Nation-State Law” Parallels The Nazi Nuremberg Laws

By Susan Abulhawa

MORE THAN 80 YEARS after Nazi Germany enacted what came to be known as the Nuremberg Race Laws, Israeli legislators voted in favor of the so-called “nation-state law.” By doing so, they essentially codified “Jewish supremacy” into law, which effectively mirrors the Nazi-era legislation of ethnoreligious stratification of German citizenry.

Israel’s “nation-state law” stipulates in its first clause that “actualization of the right of national self-determination in the state of Israel is unique to the Jewish people.” In other words, the 1.7 million Palestinian citizens of Israel, the native inhabitants who managed to remain in their homes when European Jews conquered parts of historical Palestine in 1948, shall be without sovereignty or agency, forever living at the mercy of Israeli Jews.

In similar fashion, the first of the Nuremberg Laws, the Reich Citizenship Law, deemed citizenship a privilege exclusive to people of “German or kindred blood.” The remainder were classed as state subjects, without citizenship rights.

Since there was no scientifically sound way to distinguish Jewish Germans from the rest of German society, legislators looked into people’s ancestry to determine their Jewishness. Anyone who had three or four Jewish grandparents was defined as a Jew, regardless of whether that individual identified himself or herself as a Jew or belonged to the Jewish religious community.

That will not be necessary for indigenous Palestinian citizens of Israel because, since its creation in 1948, Israel put protocols in place to ensure that non-Jews do not assimilate into mainstream Jewish society.

This brings us to the second Nuremberg Law: Law for the

Susan Abulhawa is a Palestinian writer and the author of the international bestselling novel, Mornings in Jenin (available from AET’s Middle East Books and More). She is also the founder of Playgrounds for Palestine, an NGO for children. Copyright © 2018 Al Jazeera Media Network. The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial stance.

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Protection of German Blood and German Honor, which sought to prevent mixing of Aryan blood, dubbed “race defilement.”

The new “nation-state law” may not mention “race defilement,” but in Israel, anti-miscegenation laws are already in place, masquerading as legislation meant to protect traditional values. Marriage can only be performed by religious officials, and the Orthodox rabbinate has exclusive purview over Jewish marriages. Interreligious marriage within Israel is strictly forbidden by law.

The Reich Flag Law, which established black, red and white as the national colors of Germany, and the swastika flag as the new national flag, was also part of the Nuremberg Laws.

The second clause of Israel’s “nation-state law” regarding national symbols similarly indicates that “the flag of the state is white, two blue stripes near the edges, and a blue Star of David in the center.” Two days after it was passed, Israeli police and military soldiers arrested a Palestinian boy for holding a Palestinian flag outside the al-Aqsa mosque in occupied Jerusalem.

The third clause of the new nation-state law reiterates Israel’s illegitimate claim to the whole of Jerusalem as its capital, an illegal and internationally unrecognized claim that has been emboldened by U.S. President Donald Trump’s controversial decision to move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Interestingly, however, this new law does not define state borders, and Israel remains the only country in the world without declared borders. This is not surprising, as Israel is a continuously expanding settler-colonial state, even though its admission to the United Nations in 1948 was based on its claim to the areas within the 1948 armistice line only, which does not include Jerusalem or any other part of the West Bank.

This new law also marks the beginning of the erasure of Arabic from the land, as it decrees Hebrew to be the only official language of the state, while Arabic has “special status.” Its fourth clause further explains that use of “the Arab language [sic]” institutionally “will be regulated by law.”

As for the 4.5 million indigenous Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank who do not have Israeli citizenship, the nation-state law alludes to their fate in the seventh clause, which states: “The state views Jewish settlement as a national value and will labor to encourage and promote its establishment and development.”

Simply stated, Israel will continue to work in earnest to build Jewish-only colonies on seized Palestinian land, ostensibly where a Palestinian state was to be formed per the Oslo accords.

We can expect that more settlement will simply accelerate Israel’s ongoing displacement of Palestinians to replace them with imported Jews. We know from the past decades of settlement construction that this process is accomplished by systematic dispossession, marginalization, ghettoization and robbing of indigenous Palestinian inhabitants. This process more closely resembles the Manifest Destiny removal and marginalization of First Nations in North America.

Western media should stop mincing words by calling the nation-state law “controversial” when in fact it is encoding the worst human impulses into law, the likes of which were promoted in Nazi Germany, Jim Crow and Indian Removal America and other abominable moments in human history. ■ 10

A Law That Tells the Truth About Israel

By Gideon Levy THE KNESSET legislated one of its most important laws ever, and the one most in keeping with reality. The nation-state law puts an end to Israel’s vague nationalism and presents Zionism as it is. The law also put an end to the farce about Israel being “Jewish and democratic,” a combination that never existed and could never exist because of the inherent contradiction between the two values that cannot be reconciled, except by deception.

If the state is Jewish, it cannot be democratic, because of the lack of equality; if it’s democratic, it cannot be Jewish, because a democracy does not bestow privilege based on ethnicity. So now the Knesset has decided: Israel is Jewish. Israel is declaring that it is the nation-state of the Jewish people, not a state of its citizens, not a state of the two peoples that live within it, and has therefore ceased to be an egalitarian democracy, not just in practice but also in theory. That’s why this law is so important. It is a truthful law.

The uproar over the bill was intended mainly as an effort to continue the policy of national ambiguity. The president and the attorney general, the ostensible guardians of decency, protested and received compliments from the liberal camp.

The president shouted that the law would be “a weapon in the hands of Israel’s enemies,” and the attorney general warned about the “international ramifications.”

The prospect of Israel’s veil being removed before the world prompted them to act. President Reuven Rivlin, it must be said, cried out with great vigor and courage against the clause allowing community-acceptance committees to screen residents and its implications for the regime, but most liberals were simply horrified to read the reality when it was worded as a law.

Mordechai Kremnitzer, in the July 10 Haaretz, also cried out in vain when he said the bill would “foment a revolution, no less.

It will spell the end of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state...”

He added that the bill would make Israel “a leader among nationalist countries like Poland and Hungary,” as if it isn’t already and hasn’t been for a long time. In Poland and Hungary there is no tyranny over another people lacking rights, which has become a permanent reality and an inseparable part of how this state and its regime operate, with no end in sight.

All those years of hypocrisy were pleasant. It was nice to say that apartheid was only in South Africa, because there everything was rooted in racial laws, and we had no such laws. To say that Hebron is not apartheid, the Jordan Valley is not apartheid, and that the occupation really isn’t part of the regime. To say that we were the only democracy in the region, even with the occupation.

It was nice to claim that since Israeli Arabs can vote, we are an egalitarian democracy. To point out that there’s an Arab party, even if it’s excluded from any influence. To point out that Arabs

Gideon Levy is a columnist for Haaretz. Copyright © Haaretz Daily Newspaper Ltd. All rights reserved.

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can be admitted to the Jews’ hospitals; that they can study in the Jews’ universities and live anywhere they choose. (You bet.)

How enlightened we are; our Supreme Court ruled in the Kaadan case that an Arab family could buy a home in Katzir, after years of litigation and endless evasion. How tolerant we are that the Arabs are permitted to speak Arabic, an official language.

The latter was certainly a fiction; Arabic never was remotely treated as an official language, the way Swedish is in Finland, where the minority is far smaller than the Arab minority here.

It was comfortable to ignore that the lands owned by the Jewish National Fund, which include most of the state’s lands, were for Jews only—with the progressive Supreme Court backing that stance—and claim we’re a democracy. It was much more pleasant to think of ourselves as egalitarian.

Now there is a law that tells the truth. Israel is for Jews only, on the books. The nation-state of the Jewish people, not of its residents. Its Arabs are second-class citizens and its Palestinian subjects are hollow, nonexistent. Their fate is determined in Jerusalem, but they aren’t part of the state. It’s easier this way for everyone.

There remains a small problem with the rest of the world, and with Israel’s image, which this law will tarnish somewhat.

It’s no big deal. Israel’s new friends will be proud of this law.

For them it will be a light unto the nations. And people of conscience all over the world already know the truth and have long been struggling against it. A weapon for the BDS movement? Certainly. Israel has earned it, and will now legislate it. ■

Israel’s Nation-State Law: Teaching Jews That the World Is Flat

By Amira Hass

FROM A BALCONY in Ramallah, surrounded by friends and acquaintances, the nation-state law shrinks to its proper ludicrous proportions. The creationists erased a nation from the written text.

And yet, nine indisputable representatives of that nation sat and joked, turned serious, reminisced, traded political gossip about senior Palestinian Authority officials, voiced fears and concerns, made predictions and retracted them. What a privilege it was for me to sit among them and enjoy what is so natural to them that they don’t even categorize it—a rootedness and a belonging that don’t need verbal trappings; a zest for life; unimaginable strength and courage.

They were born in a village that was destroyed; in a refugee camp in the Gaza Strip; in Damascus, Jaffa, Nablus, Ramallah, Nazareth, Acre. They’re the first, second and third generations of the 1948 refugees. Some are third-class citizens—fifth-class, now—of the state that robbed them of their homeland. Some returned to their homeland after the Palestinian Authority was established in 1994 and settled down in the West Bank, subject to Israeli military orders.

Amira Hass is the Haaretz correspondent for the occupied territories.

Copyright © Haaretz Daily Newspaper Ltd. All rights reserved.

OCTOBER 2018

All are members of the same nation, regardless of what is written on their identity cards. They escaped Israeli bombings in Beirut and in Gaza; they lived under Israeli-imposed curfew, siege and house arrest; they were jailed in Israeli prisons for political activity; they were interrogated by Israel’s Shin Bet security service; they raised themselves from poverty; they wandered, studied, worked in left-wing organizations.

All of them have lost relatives and close friends, killed by Israel or in civil wars in the Arab countries where they used to live. All of them treasure the silent, pained gazes of their parents, who told them about the home that was lost 70 years ago.

Some of them also became bourgeois. Which doesn’t spare them the checkpoints; the Israeli expressions of racism and arrogance; the forced separations from relatives who cannot go (from the Gaza Strip) or come (from Syria); the fears for the future.

Not far, yet very far from there—under a lean-to in Khan alAhmar—women sit on thin mattresses placed on the ground and talk about the attack by police officers two weeks ago and a wedding party that is scheduled for this week. The strength and courage of these women from the Jahalin Bedouin tribe are equally evident. There, in those heartbreaking shelters, Israel’s greedy racism is also an immediate issue, broadcast by the spacious houses of the settlement of Kfar Adumim.

How do they live like this, with nonstop threats and aggression from bureaucrats, soldiers, policemen and settlers who covet the little that remains to them? Where do they get the strength to live in crowded conditions that are hard to get used to, without electricity or running water—which are the minimum conditions for community life—with shrinking pasturage and shrinking income, and yet not give in to the expellers’ orders? Their strength comes from that same rootedness and natural sense of belonging, which the deniers of evolution, the drafters of the nation-state law, are incapable of understanding.

For over a month, this community, which is threatened with a new expulsion, has been hosting mass public events—press conferences, rallies, speeches, delegations. There’s an element of exploitation and ostentation here on the Palestinian Authority’s part.

Yet at the same time, another process is taking place, one that is very political: Palestinians from both urban and rural communities are liberating themselves from the alienation they used to feel toward the Bedouin.

Palestinians from both sides of the Green Line are meeting.

What they have in common is growing stronger, despite their differences. And the Arabic language—with its wealth of Palestinian slang and pronunciations—is spoken without the seal of approval of Israeli Knesset members.

The nation-state law reflects the reality of hedonistic discrimination that creates feelings of superiority and racism. This dangerous law declares the intentions of its authors: to teach additional generations of Israeli Jews that the world is flat and entrust them with the mission of expelling and wiping out a nation.

Infected with superiority and devoid of shame, they’re incapable of understanding that this strength, this courage, this rootedness and belonging that Palestinians have in their homeland, will always find ways to cope, to resist, to innovate and to fight. ■

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The Nakba Continues

Nation-State Law Privileging Jews Angers Israel’s Druze Citizens

A former Israeli Druze officer (r), dressed in half an IDF uniform, holds a banner that reads in Hebrew, “Bibi, look at the absurdity that you have created with your law,” as members of the Israeli Druze community and their supporters protest on Aug. 4 in Tel Aviv against the “Jewish nation-state law.”

ISRAEL’S SMALL DRUZE COMMUNITY, long seen as “loyal” to the state, is on a collision course with the right-wing government of Binyamin Netanyahu over a new law guaranteeing superior citizenship rights for Jews, according to analysts.

Israel has traditionally cited the Druze, a secretive religious sect whose men serve in the Israeli army, as proof that non-Jews can prosper inside a self-declared Jewish state.

However, recent weeks have seen an unprecedented outpouring of anger from large segments of the Druze community over a nation-state law passed in July by the Israeli Knesset.

The new legislation has been widely criticized for making explicit the privileged status of the Jewish majority, while omitting any reference to “democracy” or “equality.”

Jonathan Cook is a journalist based in Nazareth and a winner of the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. He is the author of Blood and Religion and Israel and the Clash of Civilisations (available from AET’s Middle East Books and More).

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JACK GUEZ/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

By Jonathan Cook

One Druze scholar, Rabah Halabi, said his community’s response had been like a mini-“intifada”—the word Palestinians used for two lengthy uprisings against the occupation.

“Much of the Druze community are in a state of shock,” he said. “They thought that by proving their loyalty they would be treated as equals.

But now they are being forced to re-evaluate, to accept that this view was mistaken.”

Halabi, who has written a book on Druze identity, added: “Their illusions are being shattered. It looks like a process of awakening has begun that will leave both sides bruised.”

The new law, which has a constitutional-like status, has angered the fifth of Israel’s population that is not Jewish, mostly descended from Palestinians who survived a campaign of ethnic cleansing in 1948. This Palestinian minority eventually received citizenship.

But unlike the Muslim and Christian communities, the 120,000-strong Druze sect in Israel has long been showcased as “loyal” and plays a key role in the army, especially in combat duties in the occupied territories.

Druze leaders have angrily pointed to the disproportionate sacrifices made by their community, including more than 420 Druze killed while

in uniform.

The Druze also enjoy an outsize influence in Israeli politics. Although comprising about 1.5 percent of Israel’s population, they have five legislators in the 120-member Knesset, four of them in Netanyahu’s ruling coalition.

Unusually, the figurehead of the protests has been a retired and much-decorated Druze general, Amal Asad. He led the speakers at a rally in Tel Aviv on Aug. 4, attended by more than 60,000 Druze and Jewish-Israeli sympathizers, including many former senior security officials. The protest demanded that the new Basic Law be annulled or amended to confer equal rights on all citizens.

Another key Druze figure, spiritual leader Sheikh Muwafaq Tarif, told the crowds: “Despite our unreserved loyalty, Israel doesn't see us as equals.” Crowds chanted “Equality! Equality!” and banners bore the slogan: “If we are brothers, we must be equals.”

Druze legislators and Palestinian leadership organizations in Israel have separately petitioned the Israeli Supreme Court to over-

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OCTOBER 2018

turn the legislation. The court is not expected to hear the cases until early next year.

Adalah, a legal rights group for the Palestinian minority, has described the law as having “apartheid characteristics” and noted that there is “no [other] constitution in the world that does not include the right to equality for all its citizens and residents.”

The Druze protests appear to have blindsided Netanyahu and his cabinet, even though the law was under consideration for nearly a decade. Nonetheless, he has stood his ground. According to analysts, the law is the centerpiece of his efforts to win elections, expected in the coming months, as he tries to face down intensifying corruption investigations.

In a sign of his hard-line approach, Netanyahu walked out of a meeting held shortly before the rally when Druze leaders—including Asad, Tarif and several mayors—refused to accept a compromise that would have offered special benefits to the Druze while keeping the law unchanged.

Wahib Habish, mayor of the Druze town of Yarka in the Galilee, who attended the meeting, told the Israeli media afterward: “We can’t be bought off with benefits and rhetoric on closing gaps.” Amal Jamal, a politics professor at Tel Aviv University and a Druze resident of Habish’s town, said Netanyahu’s strategy was to stoke “internal divisions” in Druze society.

“He has no intention of backing down,” he said. “He hopes to dismiss the protests by saying: ‘If the Druze can’t agree among themselves, how is it possible for us to find a solution?’”

The Druze are a secretive religious sect that broke away from Islam some 1,000 years ago. For protection, they chose to live in a mountainous region of the Middle East that is today split among Israel, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan.

Scholars have noted that, as a survival strategy, the Druze traditionally preferred to ally themselves with whoever was in power.

Some Druze communities in the Galilee supported Zionist forces during the 1948 war that founded Israel on the ruins of the Palestinians’ homeland. A few years later the Druze leadership in Israel signed a pact OCTOBER 2018

PHOTO CREDIT AMIR LEVY/GETTY IMAGES

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Demonstrators with Druze and Israeli flags during a protest against the “Jewish nation-state law” in Rabin Square on Aug. 4, 2018.

with the state, agreeing that the community’s men would be conscripted for three years into the army.

In return, Israel recognized the Druze as a “national” group, rather than a religion, separating them from the rest of the Palestinian minority.

Complicating the picture, a much smaller Druze population fell under Israeli rule in 1967, when Israel occupied Syria’s Golan Heights. The 25,000 Druze in the Golan have mostly stayed loyal to Syria and refused Israeli citizenship. They are not drafted.

Jamal said sections of Israeli Druze society were increasingly wondering whether they had paid a “double price” for their agreement to conscription. “Not only were the Druze discriminated against like other Arab citizens, but they sacrificed their lives on the battlefield too,” he noted. “Looked at this way, the Druze are not just secondclass citizens, they are second-class Arabs.”

As part of the agreement, Israel introduced a separate school system for the Druze in the 1970s, which has encouraged them to view their military service as a “covenant of blood” with the Jewish people.

Dalia Halabi, herself Druze and the executive director of Dirasat, a policy research center in Nazareth, said the Druze education system was among the worst in Israel for matriculation rates. Instead, Israel had used the schools to “brainwash” Druze children.

“The Druze are taught to fear other Arabs,

not only their neighbors in the Galilee but in the wider region,” she said. “They are encouraged to believe that they would be vulnerable and alone without the protection of the Israeli army.”

Israel has long trumpeted the Druze’s military service as proof that it is possible for non-Jewish minorities to integrate.

Druze analysts, however, noted that for many years there had been an intensifying split within the Druze community on the issue of military service that the new Basic Law had brought to a head.

A refusal movement among young Druze men has become more prominent over the past decade, as have complaints that successive Israeli governments failed to make good on promises to give the Druze equal rights.

Druze communities are generally as overcrowded and poorly resourced as other Palestinian communities in Israel, noted Dalia Halabi. “Some 70 percent of Druze lands were confiscated by the state, despite our communities’ ‘loyalty.’ They did not get a better deal than other Palestinian communities.”

Rabah Halabi, who teaches at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, pointed out that the loss of their farmland left many Druze men dependent on Israel’s extensive security economy. More than a quarter are recruited after army service as security guards, prison wardens or border policemen, the latter a paramilitary force operating inside Israel and

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the occupied Palestinian territories, he said.

“For a substantial section of Druze youth, army service is the only way to ensure a career. It is primarily an economic issue for them.”

The new Basic Law has inflamed these existing tensions by enshrining privileges for Jewish citizens in a range of key areas, including immigration rights, access to land, and in housing and budgets. It also downgrades Arabic, stripping it of its status as an official language.

In an unprecedented move for a Druze leader, Asad, the general leading the protests, warned on social media that the Basic Law risked laying the foundations for “apartheid.”

He called the measure “evil and racist.”

The groundswell of anger was apparent too at a recent awards ceremony attended by Avi Dichter, a former head of Israel’s Shin Bet domestic intelligence service and one of the architects of the law. He needed protection as Druze protesters publicly confronted him, denouncing him as a “traitor” and “Nazi.”

Several Druze army officers have resigned, while others have threatened to stop serving, sparking fears of mass insubordination.

Druze leaders have so far refused to cooperate with a special ministerial committee set up by Netanyahu to advance a solution for the Druze, as well as a tiny Circassian community and sections of the Bedouin that also serve.

The committee seems likely to propose extra benefits on an individual basis for Palestinian citizens who serve in the army.

Jamal, of Tel Aviv University, said: “There are many Druze who have invested in this so-called ‘historical bond’ and do not want to lose their special status.

“But at that same time they can’t accept the deal Netanyahu is offering of perks for army service. They don’t want to look like they have been bought off with money, to seem like mercenaries.”

Unless one side backs down, the Druze community now looks set for a major clash with the government for the first time in the country’s history.

A recent poll indicated that 58 percent of Israeli Jews support the law, though a similar number expressed sympathy for Druze concerns. Ayelet Shaked, the justice minister, has already warned of “an earthquake”

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on the political right if the courts dare to annul the law.

Meanwhile, Netanyahu has appeared in no mood for compromise. After his meeting with Druze leaders broke up in acrimony, his officials implied that Gen. Asad and his supporters were disloyal.

Israel’s Channel 2 TV quoted a source close to Netanyahu stating, apparently in reference to Asad and his followers: “Whoever doesn’t like it [the Basic Law], there’s a large Druze community in Syria, and they’re invited to found the state of Druzistan there.”

Dalia Halabi observed: “Netanyahu is fanning the flames because he assumes the Druze will agree to whatever he says. He thinks we now have no option but to be loyal.”

But Mano Abu Salha, aged 58 from Yarka, and among those who attended the mass demonstration in Tel Aviv, said that Netanyahu would be proved wrong.

He said: “We didn’t come from Syria. We are living on our historic lands and we’re not going anywhere. We are the native population. Netanyahu better realize that we are staying put and will fight for our rights.” ■

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Israel and Judaism

Israel’s Retreat From Democracy Creating Widening Division With American Jews

By Allan C. Brownfeld

GIL COHEN-MAGEN/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

ISRAEL’S STEADY RETREAT from democracy, as dramatically manifested by the Knesset passing in July a new nation-state law—and its 51-year occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem—is widening the division between American Jews and the selfproclaimed “Jewish state.”

An opinion poll published in Israel in June shows a growing gap between Israelis and American Jews. The American Jewish Committee (AJC) survey found that 77 percent of Israelis approved of President Donald Trump’s handling of U.S.-Israel relations, while only 34 percent of American Jews did.

Eighty-five percent of Israelis supported the decision to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, upending decades of Ultra-Orthodox Jewish mourners at a funeral in Jerusalem carry the body of Israeli Rabbi U.S. foreign policy and an international Shmuel Auerbach, 86, who opposed attempts to force ultra-Orthodox students to serve in the consensus that the city’s status should military like their secular counterparts. be decided through peace negotiations.

Only 47 percent of American Jews supported the move.

In another recent survey, only a minority of Jews in the San The poll also found that 59 percent of American Jews favor the Francisco Bay Area believe a Jewish state is important, and only establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel, compared to a third sympathize more with Israel than with the Palestinians. only 44 percent of Israelis. The two communities also differ sharply When 18- to 34-year-olds were asked if they were “very aton matters of religion and state, particularly on the ultra-Orthodox tached” to Israel, only 11 percent said yes, compared to 45 permonopoly over religious affairs in Israel. cent of those aged 50 and older. Only 40 percent of the young The vast majority of American Jews identify as either Reform or respondents said they were “comfortable with the idea of a JewConservative, the more liberal streams of Judaism. In Israel, howish state.” ever, Reform and Conservative rabbis cannot perform weddings, Young people feel uncomfortable with the idea of a “Jewish preside over funerals or conduct conversions. American Jews state,” argues Prof. Steven Cohen of the Hebrew Union College, overwhelmingly support religious freedom and separation of reliwho conducted some of the recent surveys, because they have gion and state. Israel, quite to the contrary, is a theocracy. There an aversion to “hard group boundaries,” and the notion that is no such thing as civil marriage. If a Jew and non-Jew wish to “there is a distinction between Jews and everyone else.” marry, they must leave the country to do so. On one of the most In June, five participants in the Birthright Israel program, which controversial issues, regarding mixed gender prayer at brings young people on expense-paid visits to Israel, walked out Jerusalem’s Western Wall, 73 percent of American Jews exon the program to take a tour of the segregated West Bank city pressed support, compared with just 42 percent of Israelis. of Hebron, led by dissident IDF veterans from the group Breaking The Silence, which opposes Israel’s occupation. They Allan C. Brownfeld is a syndicated columnist and associate editor of wanted to see what the Birthright program, which is financed by the Lincoln Review, a journal published by the Lincoln Institute for such supporters of the occupation as casino mogul Sheldon Research and Education, and editor of Issues, the quarterly journal Adelson, wanted to keep from them. of the American Council for Judaism.

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The five female Birthright participants who visited Hebron urged their fellow American Jews to refuse to cooperate with pro-occupation propaganda enterprises like Birthright: “It is morally irresponsible to participate in an institution that is not willing to grapple with reality on the other side of the wall. That’s why we’re on our way to Hebron now.”

In his article “Walking Out Was The Right Thing To Do,” published in the July 3, 2018 issue of The Forward, Avrum Burg, the former speaker of the Knesset and chairman of the Jewish Agency who now supports separation of religion and state, an end to the occupation, and equality for all those under Israeli control, regardless of background, wrote: “These five brave women seem to have realized something that I failed to see...Israel doesn’t have a public relations crisis, it has a moral crisis. Instead of being drawn into Sheldon Adelson’s free trip, these women insisted on acting according to our Jewish values. As Jewish women, they could have indulged their privilege and enjoyed a fun week in Israel. But instead, they chose to acknowledge their responsibility for the oppression of the Palestinians living under the occupation and heed their moral obligation to oppose it...These brave young people are fixing the relationship my generation has insisted on breaking.

This is a sign of hope for an Israel without an occupation based on equality and justice for both Israelis and Palestinians.”

Particularly alienating to large numbers of American Jews was the passage in July by the Knesset of the nation-state law, which moves Israel even further away from being a democracy, which it has always claimed to be.

This legislation declares that the right of self-determination, once envisioned to include all within its borders, is “unique to the Jewish people.” Arabic has been eliminated as an official language. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, a promoter of the law, accurately declared, “This is a defining moment for the State of Israel.”

Claiming that Israel is “the nation-state 16

of the Jewish people,” rather than a state of all its citizens, 20 percent of whom are not Jewish, has a number of problems. Israel, in fact, is not the “nation-state” of American Jews. According to Zionist philosophy, Israel is the “homeland” of all Jews, and those living elsewhere are “in exile.” The Israeli government, with no mandate to do so, repeatedly speaks in the name of “the Jewish people,” the majority of whom are citizens of other countries. Whether Netanyahu likes it or not, the “homeland” of American Jews is the United States. The “homeland” of Jews in the United Kingdom, France, Italy and other countries, similarly, is not Israel.

NORMALIZING THE OCCUPATION

In the view of critics in Israel, this law is another step toward full annexation of the West Bank. Roni Pelli of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel says, “This bill is not about law or justice, it is all about normalizing the Israeli occupation and blurring the difference between Israel and the occupied territories that are under military rule. The explicit aim of the bill is to make things easier for Israeli authorities that harm Palestinians, and to make it more difficult for them to achieve justice.”

Israelis used to think that their country could be both “Jewish” and “democratic.”

Polling by the Israel Democracy Institute indicates that this is now a minority position, with larger subsets saying the country must be either Jewish first or democratic first. Those who say Israel should be Jewish first overwhelmingly belong to the political right, which pushed through this legislation. But the majority of all Jews say that “crucial national decisions” like self-determination should be left to a Jewish majority.

Israel’s democracy has been declining for many years, according to the highly regarded index V-Dem, which tracks countries across a host of metrics. In the mid1990s, Israel scored alongside South Korea and Jamaica. Today, it is seen on par with African democracies such as Namibia and Senegal, and below Tunisia,

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the Middle East’s highest-scored democracy.

Many Jewish voices across the U.S. have sharply criticized the new law, including the American Jewish Committee, the Union for Reform Judaism and the Jewish Federations of North America. Even such stalwart defenders of Israel as the AntiDefamation League and Alan Dershowitz have expressed dismay over the law’s passage. Rabbi Alissa Wise of Jewish Voice for Peace declared: “Apartheid in Israel was just made official and it’s devastating. This is a...racist and discriminatory move to punish and rob Palestinians of their most basic rights and freedoms. And as a Jew and a rabbi, this runs counter to the Judaism that I love. This bill cements Israel as an apartheid state. Palestinians, no matter where they live, are controlled by an Israeli government that robs them of basic rights and freedoms.”

The respected Israeli conductor Daniel Barenboim, whose career has taken him to institutions such as La Scala in Milan, and led him to create, along with the late Edward Said, the West-East Divan Orchestra (WED), which brings together young musicians from throughout the Middle East, both Arab and Israeli, responded to the new nation-state bill by saying, “The racist new law makes me ashamed to be an Israeli.” In articles in Haaretz and The Guardian, he characterized the law as “a very clear form of apartheid.” Israel, he lamented, has rejected the equality called for in its Declaration of Independence and “has passed a law that replaces the principle of equality and universal values with nationalism and racism.”

If the new nation-state law is, as Prime Minister Netanyahu declares, a “defining moment” for Israel, it is, sadly, defining itself as something other than a Westernstyle democracy which seeks peace with its neighbors. It is, more and more American Jews are coming to believe, turning its back on the Jewish moral and ethical tradition as well. Any thought that Israel shares the democratic values held by most American Jews is slowly coming to an end. ■ OCTOBER 2018

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Special Report

Eight Senators, Ten Representatives in 115th Congress’ “Hall of Fame” By Shirl McArthur WITH IMPORTANT midHALL OF FAME term elections right Career Pro-Israel around the corner, the Senate PAC Donations Washington Report again Carper, Thomas (D-DE)* $ 62,900 presents its Report Card Feinstein, Dianne (D-CA)* 159,342 Leahy, Patrick (D-VT) 152,481 for members of the curMerkley, Jeff (D-OR) 40,725 rent Congress.* Issues Murray, Patty (D-WA) 225,523 Sanders, Bernie (I-VT)* 4,000 were subjectively chosen Schatz, Brian (D-HI) 40,270 to demonstrate congresUdall, Tom (D-NM) 75,000 sional support for, or harm *Senators up for re-election in 2018 to, U.S. national interests in the Middle East.

House In 2015, Israeli Prime Beyer, Don (D-VA) $ 9,610 Minister Binyamin NeBlumenauer, Earl (D-OR) 28,860 DeFazio, Peter (D-OR) 23,710 tanyahu, in an address to Doyle, Mike (D-PA) 10,510 Congress, blatantly atEllison, Keith (D-MN) 12,110 Gutierrez, Luis (D-IL) 42,561 tacked then-President McGovern, Jim (D-MA) 20,225 Barack Obama with an allPingree, Chellie (D-ME) 16,676 Speier, Jackie (D-CA) 13,000 out effort to scuttle the Welch, Peter (D-VT) 17,500 Iran nuclear negotiations then under way. Since then, U.S.-Israel and U.S.Iran relations have become strongly partisan issues. Consequently, all members of this current “Hall of Fame” are Democrats, and most members of the “Hall of Shame” are Republicans.

For the House, five positive and five negative issues were chosen. Ten members registered in all five positive columns with no negative mark, and they are shown in the “Hall of Fame.” The “Hall of Shame” lists the 17 House members who registered in all five negative columns with no positive mark.

For the Senate, five positive and four negative issues were chosen. Eight senators registered in four or five positive columns with no negative mark, and they are shown in the “Hall of Fame.” The “Hall of Shame” lists those 11 senators who registered in all four negative columns with no more than one positive mark.

THE ISSUES

HOUSE: The Positives 1. No on More Goodies for Israel. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), as one of her final pro-Israel acts before retiring, introduced H.R. 5141, a grab bag of goodies for Israel. It is

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

OCTOBER 2018

co-sponsored by more than half the House Career Pro-Israel members. Those NOT Senate PAC Donations co-sponsoring are Blumenthal, Richard (D-CT) $ 49,800 shown in Column 1.

Coons, Chris (D-DE) 50,000 Cornyn, John (R-TX) 90,580 2. Yes on the TwoCruz, Ted (R-TX)* 18,500 State Solution. Three Inhofe, James (R-OK) 138,800 Kennedy, John (R-LA) 18,000 measures were introMenendez, Robert (D-NJ)* 250,330 duced urging a two-state Nelson, Bill (D-FL)* 204,871 Perdue, David (R-GA) 23,000 solution to the IsraeliRubio, Marco (R-FL) 55,100 Palestinian conflict. CoYoung, Todd (R-IN) 28,000 sponsors of at least one House of these measures are Barletta, Lou (R-PA) shown in Column 2.

DeSantis, Ron (R-FL) $ 8,500 DesJarlais, Scott (R-TN) 0 3. Palestinian ChilDuncan, Jeff (R-SC) 17,000 dren. Rep. Betty McColGaetz, Matt (R-FL) 500 Gottheimer, Josh (D-NJ) 14,500 lum (D-MN) introduced Lamborn, Doug (R-CO) 39,500 H.R. 4391 to prohibit McKinley, David (R-WV) 0 Meadows, Mark (R-NC) 9,500 U.S. aid to Israel from Perry, Scott (R-PA) 2,000 being used to support Renacci, James (R-OH) 1,500 Rokita, Todd (R-IN) 0 the military detention of Roskam, Peter (R-IL) 71,732 Tenney, Claudia (R-NY) 5,500 Palestinian children. CoWeber, Randy (R-TX) sponsors are recognized Yoho, Ted (R-FL) 10,500 Zeldin, Lee (R-NY) 57,000 in Column 3.

4. No on Muslim Registry. H.R. 489, prohibiting U.S. government officers or employees from establishing or using a registry classifying people based on religious affiliation, was introduced by Rep. Suzan DelBene (D-WA). Co-sponsors are recognized in Column 4.

5. No on More Iran Sanctions. In December 2017, in a roll call vote, the House passed H.R. 1638, imposing sanctions on some of Iran’s leaders. Those voting no are listed in Column 5.

HALL OF SHAME

HOUSE: The Negatives 6. Cut Palestine Aid. In December 2017, the House passed H.R. 1164, the “Taylor Force Act,” prohibiting aid to the West Bank and Gaza that directly benefits the Palestinian Authority. Co-sponsors are shown in Column 6.

7. Jerusalem. Several measures were introduced promoting Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, including two expressing disapproval of the U.N. General Assembly’s resolution “rejecting” President Donald Trump’s ill-advised recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Co-sponsors of at least one of the measures are shown in Column 7.

8. Support for Israel’s Colonies. The so-called “Israel Anti-Boycott” bills, H.R. 1697 in the House, are strongly pro-

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

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moted by AIPAC. Supporters of those bills claim that the “Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions” movements are aimed at firms doing business in Israel, but in fact the purpose of the bills is to protect Israel’s colonies on the West Bank. Cosponsors of H.R. 1697 are identified in Column 8.

9. Support for Anti-U.N. Bills. Four bills were introduced aimed at eliminating or reducing U.S. contributions to the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees. Co-sponsors of at least one of these bills are named in Column 9.

10. Hezbollah, Muslim Brotherhood.

H.R. 377 was introduced in January 2017 to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization, and H.R. 3329 was introduced in July 2017, to curtail Hezbollah financing. Co-sponsors of at least one of these measures are named in Column 10.

SENATE: The Positives A. Yes on Iran Nuclear Deal. Letters were sent in September 2017, and May 2018, and S.Res. 535 was introduced in June 2018, all supporting the Iran nu-

clear agreement. Signers and co-sponsors are recognized in Column A. B. No on More Goodies for Israel. S. 2497 is the Senate version of the grab bag of goodies for Israel. Those NOT cosponsoring are shown in Column B. C. No on More Iran Sanctions. S. 722, introduced in March 2017 by Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) to impose a broad list of sanctions on Iran, was passed by the full Senate in June 2017. Those NOT co-sponsoring are recognized in Column C. D. No on U.S. in Saudi-Yemen Conflict. Two resolutions, S.J.Res. 54 and S.J.Res. 58, concerned U.S. involvement in Saudi actions in Yemen. Cosponsors are shown in Column D. E. Yes on U.N. Criticizing Israel’s Colonies. In December 2016, the U.N. Security Council passed Res. 2334, calling Israel’s colonies on the West Bank and East Jerusalem illegal. This prompted several congressional measures condemning the UNSC action.

The Senate measure getting the most support was S.Res. 6. Those NOT among its co-sponsors are recognized in

*excluding members who died or resigned while in office

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WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

Column E.

SENATE: The Negatives F. Cut Palestine Aid. The Senate version of the “Taylor Force Act,” prohibiting aid to the West Bank and Gaza that directly benefits the Palestinian Authority, is S.1697. Co-sponsors are shown in Column F. G. Support for Israel’s Colonies.

The Senate version of the so-called “Israel Anti-Boycott” bills, aimed at protecting Israel’s colonies on the West Bank, is S. 720. Co-sponsors are named in Column G. H. Yes on More Iran Sanctions. At least five other measures besides S. 722, that would impose further sanctions on Iran, were introduced. Co-sponsors of at least one are identified in Column H. I. Hezbollah, Muslim Brotherhood.

S. 68 was introduced in January 2017, to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization, and S. 1595 was introduced in July 2017, to curtail Hezbollah financing. Co-sponsors of at least one of these bills are named in Column I. ■

OCTOBER 2018

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REPORT CARD FOR THE 115th CONGRESS

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REPRESENTATIVES

Alabama

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

OCTOBER 2018

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WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

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REPRESENTATIVES

California

Colorado

Connecticut

DC 20

Issa, Darrell (R) Khanna, Ro (D) Knight, Steve (R) LaMalfa, Doug (R) Lee, Barbara (D) Lieu, Ted (D) Lofgren, Zoe (D) Lowenthal, Alan (D) Matsui, Doris (D) McCarthy, Kevin (R) McClintock, Tom (R) McNerney, Jerry (D) Napolitano, Grace (D) Nunes, Devin (R) Panetta, Jimmy (D) Pelosi, Nancy (D) Peters, Scott (D) Rohrabacher, Dana (R) Roybal-Allard, Lucille (D) Royce, Ed (R) Ruiz, Raul (D) Sanchez, Linda (D) Schiff, Adam (D) Sherman, Brad (D) Speier, Jackie (D) Swalwell, Eric (D) Takano, Mark (D) Thompson, Mike (D) Torres, Norma (D) Valadao, David (R) Vargas, Juan (D) Walters, Mimi (R) Waters, Maxine (D) Buck, Ken (R) Coffman, Mike (R) DeGette, Diana (D) Lamborn, Doug (R) Perlmutter, Ed (D) Polis, Jared (D) Tipton, Scott (R) Courtney, Joe (D) DeLauro, Rosa (D) Esty, Elizabeth (D) Himes, Jim (D) Larson, John (D) Norton, Eleanor Holmes (D)

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WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

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REPRESENTATIVES

Delaware Florida

Georgia

Guam Hawaii Idaho OCTOBER 2018

Blunt, Lisa (D) Bilirakis, Gus (R) Buchanan, Vern (R) Castor, Kathy (D) Crist, Charlie (D) Curbelo, Carlos (R) Demings, Val (D) DeSantis, Ron (R) Deutch, Ted (D) Diaz-Balart, Mario (R) Dunn, Neal (R) Frankel, Lois (D) Gaetz, Matt (R) Hastings, Alcee (D) Lawson, Al (D) Mast, Brian (R) Murphy, Stephanie (D) Posey, Bill (R) Rooney, Francis (R) Rooney, Tom (R) Ros-Lehtinen, Ileana (R) Ross, Dennis (R) Rutherford, John (R) Soto, Darren (D) Wasserman Schultz, D. (D) Webster, Daniel (R) Wilson, Frederica (D) Yoho, Ted (R) Allen, Rick (R) Bishop, Sanford (D) Carter, Earl (R) Collins, Doug (R) Ferguson, A. Drew (R) Graves, Tom (R) Handel, Karen (R) Hice, Jody (R) Johnson, Hank (D) Lewis, John (D) Loudermilk, Barry (R) Scott, Austin (R) Scott, David (D) Woodall, Rob (R) Bordallo, Madeleine (D) Gabbard, Tulsi (D) Hanabusa, Colleen (D) Labrador, Raul (R)

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REPRESENTATIVES

Idaho Illinois

Indiana

Iowa

Kansas

Kentucky

Louisiana

22

Simpson, Mike (R) Bost, Mike (R) Bustos, Cheri (D) Davis, Danny (D) Davis, Rodney (R) Foster, Bill (D) Gutierrez, Luis (D) Hultgren, Randy (R) Kelly, Robin (D) Kinzinger, Adam (R) Krishnamoorthi, Raja (D) LaHood, Darin (R) Lipinski, Daniel (D) Quigley, Mike (D) Roskam, Peter (R) Rush, Bobby (D) Schakowsky, Jan (D) Schneider, Bradley (D) Shimkus, John (R) Banks, Jim (R) Brooks, Susan (R) Bucshon, Larry (R) Carson, Andre (D) Hollingsworth, Trey (R) Messer, Luke (R) Rokita, Todd (R) Visclosky, Peter (D) Walorski, Jackie (R) Blum, Rod (R) King, Steve (R) Loebsack, Dave (D) Young, David (R) Estes, Ron (R) Jenkins, Lynn (R) Marshall, Roger (R) Yoder, Kevin (R) Barr, Andy (R) Comer, James (R) Guthrie, Brett (R) Massie, Thomas (R) Rogers, Harold (R) Yarmuth, John (D) Abraham, Ralph (R) Graves, Garret (R) Johnson, Mike (R) Richmond, Cedric (D)

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WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

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X OCTOBER 2018

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REPRESENTATIVES

Louisiana Maine

Scalise, Steve (R) Pingree, Chellie (D) Poliquin, Bruce (R) Mariana Islands Sablan, Gregorio (D) Maryland Brown, Anthony (D) Cummings, Elijah (D) Delaney, John (D) Harris, Andy (R) Hoyer, Steny (D) Raskin, Jamie (D) Ruppersberger, Dutch (D) Sarbanes, John (D) Massachusetts Capuano, Michael (D) Clark, Katherine (D) Keating, William (D) Kennedy, Joseph III (D) Lynch, Stephen (D) McGovern, Jim (D) Moulton, Seth (D) Neal, Richard (D) Tsongas, Niki (D) Michigan Amash, Justin (R) Bergman, Jack (R) Bishop, Mike (R) Dingell, Debbie (D) Huizenga, Bill (R) Kildee, Dan (D) Lawrence, Brenda (D) Levin, Sander (D) Mitchell, Paul (R) Moolenaar, John (R) Trott, Dave (R) Upton, Fred (R) Walberg, Tim (R) Minnesota Ellison, Keith (D) Emmer, Tom (R) Lewis, Jason (R) McCollum, Betty (D) Nolan, Rick (D) Paulsen, Erik (R) Peterson, Collin (D) Walz, Tim (D) Mississippi Harper, Gregg (R) Kelly, Trent (R) Palazzo, Steven (R) Thompson, Bennie (D) OCTOBER 2018

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WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

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REPRESENTATIVES

Missouri

Clay, William (D) Cleaver, Emanuel (D) Graves, Sam (R) Hartzler, Vicky (R) Long, Billy (R) Luetkemeyer, Blaine (R) Smith, Jason (R) Wagner, Ann (R) Montana Gianforte, Greg (R) Nebraska Bacon, Don (R) Fortenberry, Jeff (R) Smith, Adrian (R) Nevada Amodei, Mark (R) Kihuen, Ruben (D) Rosen, Jacky (D) Titus, Dina (D) New Hampshire Kuster, Ann (D) Shea-Porter, Carol (D) New Jersey Frelinghuysen, Rodney (R) Gottheimer, Josh (D) Lance, Leonard (R) LoBiondo, Frank (R) MacArthur, Tom (R) Norcross, Donald (D) Pallone, Frank (D) Pascrell, Bill (D) Payne, Donald (D) Sires, Albio (D) Smith, Chris (R) Watson Coleman, B. (D) New Mexico Lujan, Ben (D) Lujan Grisham, Michelle (D) Pearce, Steve (R) New York Clarke, Yvette (D) Collins, Chris (R) Crowley, Joe (D) Donovan, Dan (R) Engel, Eliot (D) Espaillat, Adriano (D) Faso, John (R) Higgins, Brian (D) Jeffries, Hakeem (D) Katko, John (R) King, Peter (R) Lowey, Nita (D) Maloney, Carolyn (D) 24

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REPRESENTATIVES

New York

Maloney, Sean (D) Meeks, Gregory (D) Meng, Grace (D) Nadler, Jerrold (D) Reed, Tom (R) Rice, Kathleen (D) Serrano, Jose (D) Stefanik, Elise (R) Suozzi, Thomas (D) Tenney, Claudia (R) Tonko, Paul (D) Velazquez, Nydia (D) Zeldin, Lee (R) North Carolina Adams, Alma (D) Budd, Ted (R) Butterfield, G.K. (D) Foxx, Virginia (R) Holding, George (R) Hudson, Richard (R) Jones, Walter (R) McHenry, Patrick (R) Meadows, Mark (R) Pittenger, Robert (R) Price, David (D) Rouzer, David (R) Walker, Mark (R) North Dakota Cramer, Kevin (R) Ohio Beatty, Joyce (D) Chabot, Steve (R) Davidson, Warren (R) Fudge, Marcia (D) Gibbs, Bob (R) Johnson, Bill (R) Jordan, Jim (R) Joyce, David (R) Kaptur, Marcy (D) Latta, Bob (R) Renacci, James (R) Ryan, Tim (D) Stivers, Steve (R) Turner, Michael (R) Wenstrup, Brad (R) Oklahoma Cole, Tom (R) Lucas, Frank (R) Mullin, Markwayne (R) Russell, Steve (R) OCTOBER 2018

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REPRESENTATIVES

Oregon

Pennsylvania

Puerto Rico Rhode Island South Carolina

South Dakota Tennessee

Texas

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Blumenauer, Earl (D) Bonamici, Suzanne (D) DeFazio, Peter (D) Schrader, Kurt (D) Walden, Greg (R) Barletta, Lou (R) Boyle, Brendan (D) Brady, Robert (D) Cartwright, Matt (D) Costello, Ryan (R) Doyle, Mike (D) Evans, Dwight (D) Fitzpatrick, Brian (R) Kelly, Mike (R) Lamb, Conor (D) Marino, Tom (R) Perry, Scott (R) Rothfus, Keith (R) Shuster, Bill (R) Smucker, Lloyd (R) Thompson, Glenn (R) Gonzalez-Colon, Jenn (R) Cicilline, David (D) Langevin, Jim (D) Clyburn, James (D) Duncan, Jeff (R) Gowdy, Trey (R) Norman, Ralph (R) Rice, Tom (R) Sanford, Mark (R) Wilson, Joe (R) Noem, Kristi (R) Black, Diane (R) Blackburn, Marsha (R) Cohen, Steve (D) Cooper, Jim (D) DesJarlais, Scott (R) Duncan, John (R) Fleischmann, Chuck (R) Kustoff, David (R) Roe, Phil (R) Arrington, Jodey (R) Babin, Brian (R) Barton, Joe (R) Brady, Kevin (R) Burgess, Michael (R)

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Texas

Carter, John (R) Castro, Joaquin (D) Cloud, Michael (R) Conaway, K. Michael (R) Cuellar, Henry (D) Culberson, John (R) Doggett, Lloyd (D) Flores, Bill (R) Gohmert, Louie (R) Gonzalez, Vincent (D) Granger, Kay (R) Green, Al (D) Green, Gene (D) Hensarling, Jeb (R) Hurd, Will (R) Jackson Lee, Sheila (D) Johnson, Eddie Bernice (D) Johnson, Sam (R) Marchant, Kenny (R) McCaul, Michael (R) Olson, Pete (R) O'Rourke, Beto (D) Poe, Ted (R) Ratcliffe, John (R) Sessions, Pete (R) Smith, Lamar (R) Thornberry, Mac (R) Veasey, Marc (D) Vela, Filemon (D) Weber, Randy (R) Williams, Roger (R) Utah Bishop, Rob (R) Curtis, John (R) Love, Mia (R) Stewart, Chris (R) Vermont Welch, Peter (D) Virgin Islands Plaskett, Stacey (D) Virginia Beyer, Don (D) Brat, Dave (R) Comstock, Barbara (R) Connolly, Gerald (D) Garrett, Thomas (R) Goodlatte, Robert (R) Griffith, Morgan (R) McEachin, A. Donald (D) Scott, Robert (D) OCTOBER 2018

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Jeru

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HALL OF FAME. Appears in all five positive columns with no marks in the negative column.

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mcarthur_halls_17-30.qxp_Special Report 8/29/18 9:48 AM Page 28

REPRESENTATIVES

Virginia

Taylor, Scott (R) X Wittman, Rob (R) Washington DelBene, Suzan (D) Heck, Denny (D) Herrera Beutler, Jaime (R) Jayapal, Pramila (D) X Kilmer, Derek (D) Larsen, Rick (D) McMorris Rodgers, Cathy (R) Newhouse, Dan (R) X Reichert, Dave (R) X Smith, Adam (D) X West Virginia Jenkins, Evan (R) X McKinley, David (R) Mooney, Alex (R) Wisconsin Duffy, Sean (R) Gallagher, Mike (R) Grothman, Glenn (R) Kind, Ron (D) Moore, Gwen (D) X Pocan, Mark (D) X Ryan, Paul (R) X Sensenbrenner, Jim (R) X Wyoming Cheney, Liz (R) X

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

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Jones, Doug (D) Shelby, Richard (R) Murkowski, Lisa (R) Sullivan, Dan (R) Flake, Jeff (R) Boozman, John (R) Cotton, Tom (R) Feinstein, Dianne (D) Harris, Kamala (D)

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

F or

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Yes , Ira nN ucle ar D eal No, Isra More Goo el dies for

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HALL OF SHAME. Appears in all four negative columns and no more than one mark in the positive column.

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

No, Mor e Ir an S anc tion s No, U Con .S. in flict Sau di-Y eme n Yes , Isra U.N. C el’s r Col iticizin oni es g

SENATE KEY:

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Nevada

Cortez Masto, Catherine (D) Heller, Dean (R) New Hampshire Hassan, Margaret Wood (D) Shaheen, Jeanne (D) New Jersey Booker, Cory (D) Menendez, Robert (D) New Mexico Heinrich, Martin (D) Udall, Tom (D) New York Gillibrand, Kirsten (D) Schumer, Charles (D) North Carolina Burr, Richard (R) Tillis, Thom (R) North Dakota Heitkamp, Heidi (D) Hoeven, John (R) Ohio Brown, Sherrod (D) Portman, Rob (R) Oklahoma Inhofe, James (R) Lankford, James (R) Oregon Merkley, Jeff (D) Wyden, Ron (D) Pennsylvania Casey, Robert (D) Toomey, Patrick (R) Rhode Island Reed, Jack (D) Whitehouse, Sheldon (D) South CarolinaGraham, Lindsey (R) Scott, Tim (R) South Dakota Rounds, Mike (R) Thune, John (R) Tennessee Alexander, Lamar (R) Corker, Bob (R) Texas Cornyn, John (R) Cruz, Ted (R) Utah Hatch, Orrin (R) Lee, Mike (R) Vermont Leahy, Patrick (D) Sanders, Bernie (I) Virginia Kaine, Tim (D) Warner, Mark (D) Washington Cantwell, Maria (D) Murray, Patty (D) West Virginia Capito, Shelley Moore (R) Manchin, Joe (D) Wisconsin Baldwin, Tammy (D) Johnson, Ron (R) Wyoming Barrasso, John (R) Enzi, Michael (R) 30

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abunimah_31-32.qxp_Special Report 8/30/18 5:29 PM Page 31

Special Report

Censored Film Names Adam Milstein as Canary Mission Funder

By Asa Winstanley and Ali Abunimah

SCREENSHOT COURTESY THE ELECTRONIC INTIFADA

ISRAEL LOBBY FINANCIER Adam Milstein has been identified as the funder of Canary Mission, the anonymous website that aims to tarnish the reputations of U.S. supporters of Palestinian rights.

Milstein is named as the financier of Canary Mission by Eric Gallagher, a former employee of The Israel Project, in Al Jazeera’s censored investigative film, “The Lobby—USA.” The Electronic Intifada released segments it obtained of the film: one shows Gallagher telling an undercover Al Jazeera reporter about Milstein’s role and the other shows Milstein talking about the need to “investigate” and “expose” critics of Israel, who Milstein believes are not only antiThe Israel on Campus Coalition’s Ian Hersh (l) and Jacob Baime explain to an undercover Semites, but also “anti-Christian” and reporter how their blacklisting sites work. “anti-freedom” activists who “terrorize us.”

The film also reveals that Israel lobby MCCARTHYISM FOR ISRAEL operatives who rely on information provided by Canary Mission “coordinate” their activities with the Israeli government.

Alongside his associate Sheldon Adelson, Milstein is a high-profile The revelation could help explain more recent reports that Cafigure in the Israel lobby. Milstein’s foundation funds such antinary Mission profiles are being used by Israeli border officials to Palestinian organizations as the Israel on Campus Coalition, deny Palestinian Americans entry to their homeland.

StandWithUs, CAMERA, the AMCHA Initiative and the FoundaAs a broadcaster licensed in the UK, Al Jazeera operates action for Defense of Democracies. Milstein also funds the Israelicording to the code set by the regulator Ofcom.

American Council, a lobby group whose board he chairs.

These rules require that Milstein and other pro-Israel figures An Israeli-born real estate mogul based in California, Milstein featured in the film be given an opportunity to reply to allegaserved time in federal prison for a 2009 conviction for tax evasion. tions. Neither Milstein, Gallagher nor dozens of other pro-Israel Canary Mission has targeted some 1,900 students and acadfigures who appear in the film responded to Al Jazeera’s “right emics in its profiles since 2015, smearing them as “racist,” “antito reply” letters, the film states.

American” and “anti-Semitic.”

Despite intense efforts to find out who is behind Canary MisIn the film, a Milstein associate states regarding Canary Mission, it is only Al Jazeera’s investigative unit that has been able sion: “Adam Milstein, he’s the guy who funds it.” The admission to identify Milstein as the website’s driving force. was made by Eric Gallagher, who was then in charge of fundraisLast week The Grayzone Project reported that Howard Stering at The Israel Project, one of the organizations bankrolled by ling, a wealthy lawyer and fervent supporter of Israel, owns the Milstein. Prior to that, Gallagher worked at the Israel lobby giant internet domain name used by the Canary Mission website. But the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

Sterling, unlike Milstein, is relatively unknown.

Gallagher spoke to “Tony,” the Al Jazeera reporter who went undercover as an intern with The Israel Project. Gallagher stopped working for The Israel Project after pro-Israel groups Ali Abunimah is co-founder of the electrionic intifada and author of learned about Al Jazeera’s undercover investigation. the battle for Justice in palestine and One country: a bold pro“So Adam Milstein funds The Israel Project and he’s funding posal to end the israeli-palestinian impasse. Asa Winstanley is a the Canary Mission website?” Tony asks in the film.

UK-based investigative journalist with the electronic intifada. Copyright © 2000-2018 ElectronicIntifada.net. Reprinted with permission.

Gallagher replies: “Yeah, which is interesting because it makes OctOber 2018

WashingtOn repOrt On Middle east affairs

31

abunimah_31-32.qxp_Special Report 8/30/18 6:11 PM Page 32

it seem as though we’re a part of it [at The Israel Project]. But we’re not.”

Gallagher explains to Tony that he doesn’t know who Milstein hired to run Canary Mission.

The Al Jazeera documentary shows that the Israel on Campus Coalition, another group funded by Milstein, operates in close coordination with Canary Mission.

Jacob Baime, executive director of the Israel on Campus Coalition, boasts in the film that “Canary Mission is highly, highly effective to the extent that we monitor the Students for Justice in Palestine and their allies.”

The film also shows footage of Milstein and Baime in lengthy private discussions on the sidelines of a StandWithUs conference.

Baime discusses Canary Mission as an example of the Israel on Campus Coalition’s secretive strategy of putting “up some anonymous website,” promoted by targeted Facebook ads, to smear Palestine solidarity activists on campus.

The Israel on Campus Coalition’s Ian Hersh and Jacob Baime explain how their blacklisting sites work.

Asked by Tony if he has any links to Canary Mission, Baime replies with a wide grin: “No, Canary Mission is totally anonymous. It’s really hard to figure out who’s behind it.” But soon afterwards, Baime inadvertently admits to a direct role.

Speaking of the need to respond to publications, including The Electronic Intifada, which expose the work of anti-Palestinian organizations, Baime says, “F*** them, we’re doing it back. I mean, not ‘we’ but, um, just some anonymous group.”

Baime explains his reticence to openly claim credit for these types of operations, emphasizing that “we do it securely and anonymously and that’s the key.”

“If one of these terrorists on campus wants to disrupt a pro-Israel lecture or something and like unfurl a banner or whatever else, we’re going to investigate them,” he says. “That stuff becomes very useful in the moment and there are any number of ways to push it out.”

Baime also describes his organization’s cooperation with the strategic affairs ministry, Israel’s covert agency for fighting the 32

Palestine solidarity movement around the world—particularly the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement, or BDS. The ministry’s director general is Sima Vaknin-Gil, a former senior officer with Israel’s military intelligence. It is staffed by officers from Israel’s various spy agencies whose identities are mostly classified, although some have been exposed.

SPYING FOR ISRAEL

For information sharing, “we did add the Ministry of Strategic Affairs to our operations and intelligence brief,” Baime’s deputy Ian Hersh explains in the film.

Hersh said this link with Israel relates to how “we get information about what’s going on on American college campuses.”

Baime also confides to Tony, who is British, of his ties with the Israeli government, explaining that “my view and the view of Israel’s Ministry of Strategic Affairs, which we coordinate with sometimes, we communicate with sometimes, is, um, like Europe is lost and it’s basically over and like they’re turning a lot of attention now to the U.S. because they feel we’re on your path.”

According to Baime, their strategy is to “drip out a new piece of the opposition research” every few hours. “It’s psychological warfare. It drives them crazy,” he states. Baime describes the approach as “modeled on General Stanley McChrystal’s counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq.”

The Israel on Campus Coalition has a “very high tech” research operation, Baime states, which amounts to “a million and a half [dollars] or more. Probably it’s like even $2 million at this point. I don’t even know, it’s huge.”

Baime’s admissions raise questions about whether the Israel on Campus Coalition and individuals associated with the work he describes are acting as agents of a foreign state without registering, as required by U.S. law, with the counterintelligence division of the Department of Justice.

In footage viewable on the Electronic Intifada, Adam Milstein explains the strategy in similar terms, though he does not admit to any direct role in Canary Mission.

“We need to expose what they really are. And we need to expose the fact that

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

they are anti-everything we believe in. And we need to put them on the run,” Milstein states. “We’re doing it by exposing who they are and what they are, the fact that they are racist, the fact that they are bigots, they’re anti-democracy.”

Tony asks if the targets of these tactics should be labeled as anti-Semites. Milstein replies: “Not just anti-Semites, it’s too simple. We need to present them for what they really are. They’re anti-freedom, they’re anti-Christian.”

BLACKLISTING

Canary Mission began publishing profiles of student activists in 2015. Its McCarthyite harassment campaign has targeted nearly 2,000 students and academics. The profiles smear Palestine solidarity activists— often students of Palestinian heritage—as anti-Semitic, with the explicit aim of harming their future career prospects.

In the film, Baime explains the effect of the strategy on its targets: “They either shut down or they spend time responding to it and investigating it, which is time they can’t spend attacking Israel. That’s incredibly effective.”

Many of those targeted by the website “have reported being questioned by current and prospective employers and schools about their support for Palestinian rights,” Palestine Legal has stated.

Others have been put on leave, denied bank accounts, received death threats and been denied entry by Israel, including to the occupied West Bank, the civil rights group says.

The film is a follow-up to “The Lobby,” Al Jazeera’s undercover investigation of proIsrael groups in the UK, broadcast in January last year.

Since the UK’s broadcasting regulator vindicated that film in October, it became increasingly clear that the Qatari government has banned Al Jazeera from broadcasting the sequel.

The film has been censored even though it addresses matters of considerable public interest, including covert efforts on behalf of a foreign state to spy on, harass or prevent Americans from engaging in activities protected by the First Amendment. ■ OCTOBER 2018

hanley_33-34.qxp_Special Report 8/30/18 9:52 PM Page 33

Special Report

Leaders Who Dehumanize Cross the Threshold

By Delinda C. Hanley

President Donald Trump continues to stun the world with his tweets and racist, denigrating remarks. In fact, The New York Times published a list of “487 People, Places and Things President Donald Trump Has Insulted on Twitter.” Trump decried the migration of citizens from “shithole countries,” and worked hard to ban Muslims from entering America. As a candidate, he said he would consider surveillance of mosques—shutting some down— and suggested the establishment of a national database to register Muslims. During a June 2015 speech announcing his candidacy, Trump referred to some Mexican immigrants as “rapists.” He’s disparaged women, almost every ethnic or racial group, and regularly dehumanizes his enemies by using canine insults.

His tweets on Aug. 14, regarding Omarosa Manigault Newman, his former reality TV protégé and White House staffer, author of a tell-all book, Unhinged, hit a new low: “When you give a crazed, crying lowlife a break, and give her a job at the White House, I guess it just didn’t work out.” Trump added, “Good work

by General Kelly for quickly firing that dog!”

Washington Post correspondent Philip Rucker noted, “Animalistic slurs come easily to Trump, who over the past few years has likened a long list of perceived enemies to dogs—including former FBI director James B. Comey, former acting attorney general Sally Q. Yates, former chief White House strategist Stephen K. Bannon, 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), journalist David Gregory and conservative commentator Erick Erickson....

“The president’s calling a woman a dog—and not just any woman, but the highest-ranking African American who has served on his White House staff—drew stern condemnations,” Rucker continued.

Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-MD) tweeted: “Mr. President, it is beneath you and the office of the presidency to call any woman a dog...It is degrading and demeaning, and I pray that you will stop this vulgar behavior. Our country is better than this.”

Rucker quotes David Livingstone Smith, a philosophy professor who studies dehumanization and racism and wrote a book on the subject, Less Than Human: “In the fascist style of politics, one of the crucial elements is distinguishing ‘us’ from ‘them.’ We are intrinsically good; they are intrinsically bad, defective, subhuman, etc.” Rucker paraphrases Smith who says leaders use dehumanizing rhetoric to elicit fear and solidarity against some perceived existential threat from “others.”

Delinda C. Hanley is news editor of the Washington Report.

OCTOBER 2018

So many Americans believe that our president has crossed the threshold as he divides our country into “us” and “them.”

They’re writing, blogging and running for office. They’ll register their dismay at the ballot box.

At what point do the slurs, violence and racist legislation that have taken place in Israel since its inception cross the threshold for American supporters? Many Jewish Americans criticize Israel, but too many non-Jews hang back for fear of the “anti-semitic” accusation. U.S. taxpayers and leaders continue to bankroll and support Israel, turning a blind eye to stomach-turning statements. A longer list will be printed on our website, but here are just a few:

PRIME MINISTERS OF ISRAEL Ehud Barak, prime minister of Israel 1999-2001:

“The Palestinians are like crocodiles, the more you give them meat, they want more.”....speech on Aug. 28, 2000, reported in the Aug. 30, 2000 Jerusalem Post

Menachem Begin, prime minister of Israel 1977-1983:

“[The Palestinians are] beasts walking on two legs.” Speech to the Knesset in June 1982

David Ben-Gurion, the first Israeli prime minister, 19481953:

“We must expel Arabs and take their places.” 1947 “We must do everything to ensure they [the Palestinians] never do return.” 1938 letter Assuring his fellow Zionists that Palestinians will never come back to their homes: “The old will die and the young will forget.”

1948 “What matters is not what the goyim say, but what the Jews do.” Recorded in the Jerusalem Post, May 22, 2009

Golda Meir, Israeli prime minister, 1969-1974:

“How can we return the occupied territories? There is nobody to return them to. We can't send it to Nasser by parcel post.”

March 8, 1969 “There is no such thing as a Palestinian people...It is not as if we came and threw them out and took their country. They didn’t exist.” A statement to The Sunday Times, June 15, 1969 “We can forgive [them] for killing our children. We cannot forgive them from forcing us to kill their children. We will only have peace with [them] when they love their children more than they hate us.”

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1969 press conference in London.

Bibi Netanyahu, prime minister, 1996-1999, 2009 to present:

“[The way to deal with Palestinians is to] beat them up, not once but repeatedly, beat them up so it hurts so badly, until it’s unbearable.” Caught on video speaking to Israeli settlers, 2001 “Will we surround all of the State of Israel with fences and barriers? The answer is yes. In the area that we live in, we must defend ourselves against the wild beasts.”

Haaretz, Feb. 9, 2016 “Israel should have exploited the repression of the demonstrations in China, when world attention focused on that country, to carry out mass expulsions among the Arabs of the territories.” Speech to students at Bar Ilan University in 1989

Yitzhak Rabin, prime minister 19741977, 1992-1995: Nobel Laureate who

instructed soldiers to break the arms and legs of Palestinians when they began their popular uprising against the Israeli occupation in 1987. Israel will “create in the course of the next 10 to 20 years conditions which would attract the voluntary migrations of Palestinians.”

Yitzhak Shamir, prime minister 19831984, 1986-1992, speech to Israeli set-

tlers: “[The Palestinians] would be crushed like grasshoppers...heads smashed against the boulders and walls.” Speech quoted in the New York Times, 1988

Ariel Sharon, prime minister 20012006:

“Every time we do something you tell me America will do this and will do that...I want to tell you something very clear: Don't worry about American pressure on Israel. We, the Jewish people, control America, and the Americans know it.” Oct. 3, 2001, to Shimon Peres, as reported on Kol Yisrael radio.

“You buy from Arabs. For this they piss on you.” Quote recalled by Haaretz columnist Kobi Niv “Everybody has to move, run and grab as many hilltops as they can to enlarge the settlements because everything we take 34

now will stay ours...Everything we don’t grab will go to them.” Agence France Press, Nov. 15, 1998 “No one will touch Judea and Samaria [the occupied West Bank]! Or Gaza either!

They belong to us. They have been ours for thousands of years, eternally.” The Guardian, 1982 “I am for the expulsion of anyone who throws a stone in the occupied territories.”

March 16, 1988 “Israel may have the right to put others on trial, but certainly no one has the right to put the Jewish people and the State of Israel on trial.” BBC News Online, March 25, 2001

MEMBERS OF THE KNESSET AND OTHER PUBLIC OFFICIALS MK Rabbi Eli Ben-Dahan, deputy minister of religious services 2013-2015,

currently deputy minister of defense, responsible for the IDF’s civil administration running government affairs in the West Bank: “[Palestinians] are beasts, they are not human.” Aug. 1, 2013 “To me, they are like animals, they aren’t human...The Palestinians aren’t educated towards peace, nor do they want it.” 2013 radio interview, reported in The Times of Israel, May 11, 2015 “A Jew always has a much higher soul than a gentile, even if he is a homosexual.”

Reported in Maariv, Dec. 27, 2013

Naftali Bennett, minister of education since 2015 and minister of diaspora affairs since 2013:

“If you catch terrorists, you have to simply kill them...I’ve killed lots of Arabs in my life—and there’s no problem with that.”

Said at a July 2013 Knesset meeting, reported by Yedioth Ahronoth

Rafael Eitan, Israeli general, former chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces, and later a Knesset member:

“We declare openly that the Arabs have no right to settle on even one centimeter of Eretz Israel...Force is all they do or ever will understand. We shall use the ultimate force until the Palestinians come crawling

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

to us on all fours.” April 13, 1983 “When we have settled the land, all the Arabs will be able to do about it will be to scurry around like drugged cockroaches in a bottle.” April 14, 1983

MK Moshe Feiglin, 2013-2015:

“Gaza is part of our Land and we will remain there forever...Subsequent to the elimination of terror from Gaza, it will become part of sovereign Israel and will be populated by Jews.” July 2014 op-ed on Arutz Sheva website “Our soldiers are the only innocents in Gaza. Under no circumstances should they be killed because of false morality that prefers to protect enemy civilians.

One hair on the head of an Israeli soldier is more precious than the entire Gazan populace, which elected the Hamas and supports and encourages anyone who murders Israelis.” Feiglin’s Facebook page, July 2014

Theodor Herzl, founder of the World Zionist Organization, speaking of the

Arabs of Palestine: “Spirit the penniless population across the frontier by denying it employment...Both the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly.” Complete Diaries, June 12, 1895 entry

MK Tzipi Hotovely, deputy minister of foreign affairs since 2015.

“[There are] 92,000 families in Israel in which one of the partners is not Jewish—we have a real problem that we have to deal with.” The Jerusalem Post, Feb. 11, 2011

Ze’ev Jabotinsky, spiritual father of the Likud Party:

“The Islamic soul must be broomed [swept, ethnically cleansed] out of EretzYisrael.”

“Arabs must make room for Jews. If it was possible to transfer the Baltic peoples, it is also possible to TRANSFER the Palestinians.”

"If we desire that Israel should become and remain a Jewish State, we must first Continued on page 48 OCTOBER 2018

October 2018 issue 8/30/17 10:55 AM Page 33

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Special Report

The American People Must Demand Accountability for U.S. Foreign Policy

By Dale Sprusansky

STRINGER/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

lobbyists to protect them from unfavorable legal reforms, and teams of lawyers to shield them from the consequences of violating current laws.

This outrage at the seemingly consequence-less actions of the country’s elite ought to unite Americans with another group of people who suffer at the hands of the powerful: the people of the Middle East. From Iraq to Yemen to Palestine to Libya and elsewhere, many people in the region have been forced to endure war and sanctions in the name of U.S. national security. They too feel powerless, as the U.S., with its dominance over Yemenis dig graves for children who were killed when their bus was hit during a Saudi-led coalition air strike in Saada, Aug. 10, 2018. The discovery that the attack was carried out with a U.S.-manufactured weapon the U.N. and the global economic system, is seemingly resulted in calls for the U.S. to terminate its involvement in the four-year-old war. immune from facing repercussions for its actions. They also wonder if “the system”—in this “ACTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES.” At one point or another, case the global order—is stacked against them. every teenager has likely heard this phrase uttered by their parAmericans at least have some agency when it comes to reents as they received a punishment for their juvenile malfeaform. The power of special interests and the role of money in polsance. Such reasoning is easy for children to comprehend when itics can seem like insurmountable challenges, but at the end of they are confined to their rooms while their friends are out enthe day Americans have the power of the ballot. Victims of U.S. joying a jovial evening. foreign policy have no such political recourse. Without the posFor adults, however, the idea that actions have consequences sibility of redress, they are subjected to the policies of U.S. leadis harder to digest, at least on a larger societal scale. We witness ers who are indebted to the military-industrial complex, the Israel how class and race determine the severity with which crimes are lobby and other influential groups. This naturally leads to widepunished. We see good and moral people struggling to survive scale anger and, for a small number of people, the compulsion as greedy nihilists live large. We see rich and powerful nations to seek violent retribution. impose their will on weak and impotent countries.

Indeed, U.S. intelligence officials worry about “blowback” Many Americans are outraged at the economic inequality that caused by American foreign policy. It is widely accepted that the exists in their country. They are tired of seeing corporate execuperpetrators of the 9/11 attacks were motivated by the presence tives making millions or billions as their employees struggle to of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia and Washington’s unabashed put food on the table. They know the wealthy have cohorts of support for Israel. Some have warned that the U.S. drone program only perpetuates the cycle of violence. The Guantanamo Dale Sprusansky is editor of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.

Bay detention facility is cited as a recruitment tool for terrorist 36

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OCTOBER 2018

groups. Others worry that xenophobic and Islamophobic rhetoric by U.S. leaders legitimizes the radical idea of an existential struggle between East and West.

All of the above is likely true, and is widely accepted by most members of the national security apparatus. Yet the wars continue and U.S. policy toward the Middle East remains largely unchanged.

Some may argue that this “blowback” is a necessary price to pay for protecting American interests in the region—the free flow of oil, the stability of friendly governments and the disempowerment of armed non-state actors. Others may argue our investment in a massive domestic security and intelligence network is a valuable safety net that protects us in an era of antiAmericanism. Some even dismiss the idea of “blowback” entirely, putting aside self-reflection in favor of repeating the “they hate us because we’re free” manta.

Those not buying into these uncritical status quo narratives—especially the citizens of the region forced to pay a hefty price in order for the U.S. to accomplish its objectives—may argue that the U.S. doesn’t change its approach to the region because, aside from the actual dollars being spent, it isn’t paying a significant price for its regional policy. Its cities aren’t being bombed, besieged or sanctioned. Its people aren’t scarred physically and emotionally from violence. America has been at perpetual war since 2001 and yet this reality has had very little impact on the daily lives of the vast majority of the country’s citizens. We, the citizens of the global hegemon, live a privileged war-time existence.

To be clear, this is not to suggest that it would be beneficial for Americans to live in terror or that more U.S. troops should be killed and maimed overseas. Rather, it is a plea for a reality check. Americans must realize that people are suffering immensely in the name of our security. We are lucky enough to live in relative peace.

We are not forced to grapple with the realities of war and repression, but we must think critically about what is being done in our name and, in many cases, with our tax dollars.

OCTOBER 2018

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A supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood gestures during clashes with police in Cairo on Aug. 14, 2013. Security forces backed by bulldozers moved in on two huge protest camps occupied by supporters of ousted President Mohamed Morsi. More than 1,000 were killed as a result, while thousands of Morsi’s supporters were arrested by the regime of former general and current President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.

SELLING DEATH IN YEMEN

Since 2015, a catastrophic war has been waged in Yemen, with American weapons and intelligence being used to assist the Saudi-led coalition that is using blockade and bombardment as tools to confront the Houthi rebels. Every few months or weeks we hear a news story about an attack on a large group of innocent civilians, the latest cholera outbreak, or the staggering level of malnutrition in the country.

Sometimes these news stories even make the front pages, such as the Aug. 9 Saudi-led coalition bombing of a school bus in Saada that killed 44 children. The strike, carried out with a weapon produced

by Lockheed Martin, prompted CNN to produce a map showing where in Yemen American-made bombs have been dropped, and how many people were killed as a result. The map went semi-viral on social media.

For many Americans it was probably a horror to learn that weapons made by Raytheon, General Dynamics and Lockheed Martin are regularly being used to kill innocent Yemenis. These companies are

included in the stock portfolios of many Americans. These companies employ many Americans. These realities raise some very uncomfortable questions. Do I want to profit from war? Is my job worth the lives of thousands of people?

Senator Richard Shelby (R-AL) in August blocked an amendment that would have cut off U.S. support for the Saudi-led coalition. Boeing and Lockheed Martin are the senator’s largest campaign contributors. The ten largest U.S. defense companies all have operations in Alabama. Did the senator make a moral or financial decision?

Sen. Chis Murphy (D-CT) introduced the amendment after the strike in Saada.

“The United States is a key player in this bombing campaign,” he said on the Senate floor. “The United States has personnel that sits in the targeting center when decisions are made as to what sites on the ground will be bombed. The United States pays to put planes in the air, to refuel the fighter jets flown by the Saudis and the Emiratis, and the United States sells the coalition the bombs that are used.”

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FINANCING REPRESSION IN EGYPT

August was also the somber five-year anniversary of the 2013 Rabaa Square massacre, when the Egyptian military killed more than 1,000 individuals in Cairo protesting the coup that brought current President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to power. At the time, President Barack Obama acquiesced to the coup. His administration even demeaned the intelligence of observers and human rights activists by refusing to refer to the military’s forceful capture of power as a coup. Since the coup, Egypt has retreated into an era of repression that many view as being worse than the reign of former President Hosni Mubarak. Free expression and dissent are not tolerated, and the country’s prisoner population has swelled.

Despite this, the Trump administration has cultivated an amicable relationship with Cairo. “I just want to let everybody know that we are very much behind President el-Sisi,” Trump said during the Egyptian leader’s April 2017 visit to the White House. “He has done a fantastic job in a very difficult situation.” Trump also congratulated Sisi for winning 97 percent of the vote in an election held this March.

The Egyptian security services systematically targeted and harassed anyone who pondered mounting a legitimate challenge to Sisi’s re-election.

This summer, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo removed restrictions on $390 million in military aid that was frozen last year due to concerns about human rights abuses. The U.S. gives $1.3 billion in military aid to Egypt every year.

The U.S. has long supported repressive governments in Egypt in the name of “stability.” In return for cooperating with Israel and serving as an American partner, Washington has agreed to pay only occasional lip service to human rights violations in Egypt. As Mubarak’s toppling in 2011 shows, however, “autocratic stability” is inherently unstable. Repressive governments inevitably fall, and chaos usually ensues. The U.S.’ shortsighted plan for stability jeopardizes the long-term viability of the country. The 100 million people of Egypt are also being asked to accept repression in the name of U.S. interests. As Americans, the idea that others must suffer for us to prosper ought to be nauseating and repulsive.

“Our government’s silence on human rights abuses in Egypt, a major recipient of U.S. military assistance, directly contradicts basic American principles,” Egyptian-American Mohamed Soltan wrote in the Aug. 14 Washington Post.

Soltan was present in Rabaa Square during the massacre and was imprisoned and tortured by the Sisi regime for 22 months. “The 77 billion tax dollars of U.S.

assistance we have paid to Egypt since 1948 have made our country a co-conspirator in Egypt’s continuing brutalization of its own people,” he continued. “Our complacency is incriminating, and our silence is deafening.”

It’s easy for Americans to understand the consequences of domestic policies when those laws personally impact their livelihood and dignity. It is much more difficult to see how unjust U.S. policies harm individuals abroad. But the injustices caused by U.S. foreign policy must equally outrage us. Americans demand to be treated with dignity, and not as pawns to help others grow in wealth and power.

Likewise, the people of the Middle East do not want to be treated as sacrificial lambs for American security, or as a lucrative revenue stream for arms manufacturers.

The U.S. has faced relatively few consequences for its actions in the Middle East. This has permitted war and U.S.endorsed human rights violations to continue without immense scrutiny from the American people. This must change. The U.S. ought to alter its course in the region—yes, because failure to do so may result in devastating “blowback,” but more importantly because our current policies are perpetuating and enabling the very injustices we purportedly stand against. ■

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IATTA KENARE/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

The Looming War Against Iran

Special Report

By Eric S. Margolis

Iranian students stand on a tank at the Holy Defense Museum in Tehran, July 17, 2018. The museum displays items from the 1980-88 IranIraq war.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP and his neocon advisers have been trying to provoke a war with Iran and Syria for many months.

The neocons are echoing Cato the Elder’s cry, “delenda est Carthago!” Iran must be destroyed.

So far, Tehran and its ally Damascus have refused to respond to U.S. naval and air incursions or Israel’s growing air attacks in Syria. But the war of words between the U.S. and Iran has now reached a critical phase.

In late July, Trump, who evaded military service during the Vietnam War, made his loudest threats yet against Iran, bringing the

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. october 2018

danger of war to the boiling point. On May 21, the hard-line U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delivered a thunderous ultimatum to Iran during an address to the U.S. Heritage Foundation, a rich, influential arm of America’s Israel lobby.

Pompeo made 12 totally unacceptable demands on Iran that were clearly designed to be rejected by Tehran. Not since Austria-Hungary’s ultimatum against Serbia in 1914 have we seen such a clear effort to bring about war. Tehran quickly dismissed Pompeo as “a gangster.”

We are by now used to blood and thunder rhetoric between Washington and Tehran. But this time White House policy is clearly being directed by pro-Israel American neocons who want the U.S. military to crush Iran as it did Iraq.

Crushing Iran will leave Israel with unfettered control of the Mideast and its oil—unless Russia or Turkey intervene against Israel, which is most unlikely. Some think Russia and Israel—

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and the U.S.—have already made a deal to divvy up the central Mideast.

“Let the Americans come,” one Iranian militant told me, “they will break their teeth on Iran.” Very colorful but hardly accurate.

The U.S. and Israel will surely avoid a massive, costly land campaign again Iran, a vast, mountainous nation that was willing to suffer a million battle casualties in its eight-year war with Iraq that started in 1980. This gruesome war was instigated by the U.S., Britain, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia to overthrow Iran’s new popular Islamic government.

The Pentagon has planned a high-intensity air war against Iran that Israel and the Saudis might very well join. The plan calls for over 2,300 air strikes against Iranian strategic targets: airfields and naval bases, arms and petroleum, oil and lubricant depots, telecommunication nodes, radar, factories, military headquarters, ports, water works, airports, missile bases and units of the Revolutionary Guards.

Iran’s air defenses range from feeble to non-existent. Decades of U.S.-led military and commercial embargos against Iran

have left it as decrepit and enfeebled as was Iraq when the U.S. invaded in 2003.

The gun barrels of Iran’s ’70s-vintage tanks are warped and can’t shoot straight, its old British and Soviet AA missiles are mostly unusable, and its ancient MiG and Chinese fighters are ready for the museum, notably its antique U.S.built F-14 Tomcats, Chinese copies of obsolete MiG-21s, and a handful of barely working F-4 Phantoms of Vietnam War vintage.

Air combat command is no better.

Everything electronic that Iran has will be fried or blown up in the first hours of a U.S. attack. Iran’s little navy will be sunk in the opening attacks. Its oil industry may be destroyed or partially preserved depending on U.S. post-war plans for Iran.

The only way Tehran can riposte is by staging isolated commando attacks on U.S. installations in the Mideast of no decisive value, and, of course, blocking the narrow Strait of Hormuz that carries two-thirds of Mideast oil exports. The U.S. Navy, based nearby in Bahrain, has been practicing for (Advertisement)

decades to combat this threat.

China vows to keep buying Iranian oil in spite of the U.S. blockade to be imposed this fall. This could put the U.S. and China on a collision course.

While Iran may be able to interdict some oil exports from the Arab states, and cause maritime insurance rates to skyrocket, it’s unlikely to be able to block the bulk of oil exports unless it attacks the main oil terminals in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf with ground troops. During the IranIraq war, neither side was able to fully interdict the other’s oil exports.

Direct Western intervention in a major ground campaign seems unlikely. But the U.S. and Israeli war plan would aim to totally destroy Iran’s infrastructure, communications and transport (including oil), crippling this important nation of 80 million and taking it back to the pre-revolutionary era.

That was the plan for Iraq, the Arab world’s most industrialized nation. Today Iraq still lies in ruins.

One recalls the words of the great Roman historian Tacitus: “they make a desert and call it peace.” ■

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OCTOBER 2018

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Special Report

HAIDAR HAMDANI/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Pushing Beirut and Baghdad to Comply with

By Imad K. Harb Iran Sanctions is Risky Business will be felt by large and small economies.

Given their economic relationship with the United States and the American currency, Lebanon and Iraq have no recourse but to abide by what Washington wants.

But, unfortunately for the two countries, the devil is in the details of their political realities. Both currently have caretaker governments that prevent them from making firm decisions on compliance with sanctions.

An Iraqi vendor sells Iranian currency in a street in Najaf on Aug. 14, 2018. Iraqis in the holy city of Najaf are Both have pro-Iranian being hit hard by U.S. sanctions on neighboring Iran, which have forced cash-strapped pilgrims to stay home. political forces that oppose the sanctions—seeing them as a foreign tool to effect regime change in Tehran—and conPRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP has reimposed an old set of sider it their duty to help defend the current regime.

American sanctions on Iran, as well as new ones following his abandonment of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action LEBANON’S TROUBLE (JCPOA) in May. For regional neighbors Lebanon and Iraq, these sanctions Lebanon’s parliamentary elections last May produced a small macould not have come at a worse time. Both are in the throes of jority for Iran-supported Hezbollah and its affiliated political facpolitical crises that threaten their fragile democracies. Both need tions. Their approval of government policies, domestic and foreign, to avoid the complications arising out of a poorly-thought-out is pivotal.

Trump decision.

American-friendly Prime Minister-designate Saad al-Hariri canIn fact, if the Trump administration wants to help its friends in not form a cabinet without the support of the Party of God. But the Arab world, it would do well to try to blunt the impact of these this support is not automatic and does not come cheap. Hezbolsanctions on these two countries. lah has previously used its political and military power to impose On Aug. 6, the U.S. reimposed sanctions on the use of dollar conditions on the Lebanese state and successive governments. bank notes in Iran’s trade transactions, which had been permitThis time is no different. ted when the Islamic Republic signed the JCPOA, or Iran nuWhile abiding by some sensitivities regarding Lebanon’s secclear deal, in July 2015. tarian politics and relations with the United States, Hezbollah is Another oil-related batch of sanctions will be imposed on Nov. not likely to accept a full compliance with American sanctions.

5 and are likely to reduce Iran’s exports by about 500,000 barrels Obliquely sending a message to his political adversaries, inper day, thus disrupting international energy markets and causcluding Hariri, Hezbollah’s Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah ing a price increase of about $20 per barrel. predicted on Aug. 14 that the sanctions will fail. He also declared In fact, aside from the domestic impact in Iran, these measures his belief in the resilience of the Iranian regime, and that the are likely to cause global financial and commodity disruptions that Trump administration is merely “building dreams.”

Hezbollah—considered a terrorist organization by the United Imad K. Harb is the director of research and analysis at the Arab States—has itself been chafing under American sanctions. What Center Washington DC. Published on LobeLog, Aug. 26, 2018.

Reprinted with permission.

Continued on page 43 OCTOBER 2018

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Special Report

Climate Change Takes its Toll on Lebanon’s Millennia Cedars

By Samar Kadi

STAFF PHOTO DALE SPRUSANSKY

rently, the range of the cedar forTHEY HAVE capped Lebanon’s est is 4,000-5,900 feet. For the mountaintops for thousands of past two years, we have been years. The Phoenicians used able to do reforestation at higher their wood to build merchant altitudes, up to 6,200 feet. The ships and Egyptians used their treeline is different now. resin to mummify the dead.

“We are replanting trees on Now the emblematic cedars of the higher slopes to make the Lebanon (Cedrus Libani) are ecosystem more resilient to clifacing their biggest challenge— mate change. We are enlarging climate change. the surface of the cedar forest Cedar forests covered 1,900 because the bigger it is, the betsq. miles. of Lebanon’s highter it will be able to adapt to lands in ancient times. They change.” have outlived invaders, empires Still, Hani said hope is not lost and modern wars, but centuries for trees at lower altitudes. “The of deforestation have reduced cedar tree is a very resilient the forests to 7.7 sq. miles. tree,” he said. “Those existing at The trees, some 3,000 years lower altitudes will survive beold, thrive on moisture and cool cause the trees can adapt.” temperatures and their seeds But altitude is not the only need a minimum amount of problem. The most lethal enesnow and rain for regeneration. mies of the cedars are insects However, with climate change, that are present in the forests’ winters are shorter and there is ecosystem and have been deless snow, a change that affects veloping at an increased rate bethe cedar forests’ ecosystem. cause of climate change, said “The effect of climate change Some of the last remaining cedar trees in a forest near the town of Nabil Nemer, of the agricultural is there,” acknowledged Nizar Bcharre in northern Lebanon. sciences department at the Holy Hani, director of the Cedar Spirit University of Kaslik.

Biosphere in the Chouf Mountains.

“In the Tannourine and Ehden cedar forests, a type of insect “The natural regeneration conditions of the cedar forest are (Cephalcia tannourinensis) has been developing at a fast rate. changing,” he said. “The seedlings, which normally should stay The insects’ life cycle has changed. In the past, they used to hiburied in the snow for 2 to 3 months, are germinating in February bernate between 3 to 7 years. They are now waking up every instead of April because the snow is melting very early. That early year because of warm and dry weather and causing harm to the germination puts them at a very high risk of dying in cold snaps.” trees. Such stress over three consecutive years leads to the Because of climate change, cedar forests, which now are at a death of the tree,” Nemer said. minimum of three-fourths of a mile above sea level, need to be The Tannourine Cedar Forest Natural Reserve has lost tens located at higher altitudes where more suitable conditions exist, of trees to insect infestations unknown before the 1990s. he said.

Nemer has been breeding the predator of the insects, a type “This is a kind of mitigation in which trees will be growing in of fungi that exist naturally in the forest and can kill the larvae. the right conditions to live and to regenerate,” Hani said. “CurA national strategy for the preservation of green areas began four years ago and envisioned the planting of 30 million trees, Samar Kadi is the Arab Weekly society and travel section editor. including cedars, to increase the area of the forests in Lebanon.

Copyright ©2018 The Arab Weekly. Distributed by Agence Global.

Reprinted with permission.

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lution is not by replanting trees,” Nemer said. “First, we need to take care of the health of the ecosystem in which the cedar trees and other trees are living. I am afraid that we will not be able to confront climate change at the speed it is going on. We might also have new types of insects appearing because of warmer weather.”

In the 1960s and 1970s, Lebanon had a Green Plan that replanted many cedars, but the plan was forgotten during the 15year civil war.

“In the past ten years we have planted more than 740 acres (in the Chouf biosphere),” Hani said. “These include other species of trees, like oaks and pines.

When we do restoration it is not only with cedar trees but with all the species that exist in the cedar forest.”

Cedars grow slowly, bearing no cones until they are 40-50 years old. When they are young by cedar standards, they look much like other conifers but, after about (Advertisement)

American FFrie American riends nds of Birzeit Birzeit Unive Univers rsity ity

100 years, they develop their distinctive shape with branches stretching parallel to the ground.

The majestic tree that is emblazoned on Lebanon’s national flag, currency and national airline is seen as a unifying emblem by the Lebanese and a reflection of their country’s resilience to the mishaps of ancient and modern history. ■

Iranian Sanctions Continued from page 41

has saved Lebanon’s economy has been the creative methods Lebanese financial authorities have employed to avoid them.

With Hezbollah sharing the same foxhole with Iran, it is thus very difficult for whatever government that takes the reins in Beirut to fully comply with the newest American sanctions on the Islamic Republic.

IRAQ’S PUSH AND PULL

Iraq fares no differently. Results from its May parliamentary elections, after a manual recount following allegations of electoral fraud and corruption, have showed a diffuse power distribution of parliamentary seats between centrists and pro-Iranian political forces.

Caretaker Prime Minister Haider alAbadi, whose coalition came in third with 42 seats, is still considered to be the most acceptable politician to form Iraq’s new

government.

He has very good relations with the United States and is seen as having done well in fighting the Islamic State. His main domestic supporter is cleric Muqtada alSadr who currently challenges Iran’s influence among Iraq’s Shia and controls a parliamentary coalition of 54 seats.

But Abadi’s announcement on Aug. 7 that his government will abide by the American sanctions on Iran put his prospects as premier in jeopardy.

Surprised and disappointed by his stance, Tehran also berated him for his “disloyal attitude” and for supposedly dishonoring the Iranian “martyrs” who fought for Iraq against the Islamic State. Consequently, he felt compelled to cancel a visit he had planned to Iran.

In the end, Abadi had to temper his commitment to the American sanctions, and even offered a concession to the Islamic Republic. It is thus plainly evident that his difficulties make it hard for him to be a reliable partner in the Trump administration’s strategy against Iran.

The coalition of states the Trump administration hopes to build to impose a solid front on Iran has two very weak links.

Pushing Beirut and Baghdad to fully comply with sanctions may very well collapse whatever political stability they still possess, and deprive Washington of two crucial allies. ■

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WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

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Two Views

Post-Election Pakistan

AAMIR QURESHI/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

dictator, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, is hiding out in Dubai awaiting charges of treason.

I spent a good deal of time with Pakistan’s former leaders, Gen. Zia ul-Haq and his bitter foe, Benazir Bhutto, both of whom were later murdered. Neither Musharraf nor Nawaz measured up to these colorful personalities in political skills, vision or personality.

Imran Khan is sometimes called “Pakistan’s Jack Kennedy” for his movie-star good looks, charisma and zesty love life.

He no longer plays professional cricket, though he is still idolized in Pakistan and, interestingly, bitter foe India.

Khan (who is of Pashtun tribal blood) is also a philanthropist and respected thinker.

Pakistan’s cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan speaks to the media after voting in Islam- He says he is determined to begin rooting abad on July 25, 2018. corruption out of Pakistan and to revivify its ailing economy. Pakistan’s GDP is only $1,641 per person, compared to India’s $2,134. The illiteracy rate is about 40 percent, notably among women, who are the priBy Eric S. Margolis mary teachers of the young.

As Imran Khan takes office, Pakistan’s coffers are almost THE WORDS “HOPE” and “Pakistan” do not often appear toempty. Islamabad has had to take 12 loans from the International gether. Pakistan, a sprawling nation of 205 million, is hard to govMonetary Fund in the last 40 years, in part to pay for its oil imern, even harder to finance, and seething with tribal or religious ports. violence and discord.

Now, Islamabad is negotiating yet another loan of $57 billion But Pakistan, which for me is one of the most interesting and from its most important ally, China, whose vast “One Belt, One important nations on earth, is by far the leading nation of the Road” project (see June/July 2017 Washington Report, p. 40) covMuslim world and a redoubtable military power. Created in 1947 ering transportation, ports and infrastructure seeks to modernize from former British India as a haven for oppressed Muslims, PakPakistan and turn it into a primary conduit to the Arabian Sea. istan has been ruled ever since by military juntas or by slippery But Donald Trump’s Washington is angry over China’s dollar and often corrupt civilian politicians. diplomacy, formerly a preserve of U.S. foreign policy. U.S. SecAfter decades of dynastic politics under the Bhutto and Sharif retary of State Mike Pompeo, who plays bad cop to Trump’s bad families, there is suddenly hope that newly elected cricket star cop, lambastes Pakistan for the Chinese loan.

Imran Khan and his Tehreek-e-Insaf Party (PTI) may—just may— The White House is obviously dismayed by China’s growing tackle Pakistan’s four biggest problems: endemic corruption, miliinfluence over Pakistan, caused, in large part, by the U.S. decitary interference, political tribalism, and a half-dead economy. sion to cut aid to Pakistan and favor its old enemy, India. PresiIn July former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was sentenced to dent George Bush aided India’s military nuclear program, alarm10 years in jail over a corruption scandal. The exiled former military ing China and Pakistan. Now, Trump is working to mobilize India Eric S. Margolis is an award-winning, internationally syndicated against China. So far, India has been too smart to act as an columnist and the author of American Raj: Liberation or DominaAmerican strategic proxy. tion? Resolving the Conflict Between the West and the Muslim Imran Khan will now have a chance to resolve the Indo-PakCopyMore). and Books East Middle World (available from AET’s right © 2018 EricMargolis.com. istani dispute over contested Kashmir that has flared since 1947.

Pakistan Needs a Strong New Leader

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WAshington REpoRt on MiDDLE EAst AffAiRs

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India keeps one million soldiers and police there to repress the rebellious majority Muslim population that seeks to join Pakistan or create an independent state. The U.N. mandated a referendum to determine Kashmir’s future, but India ignores it.

The new Khan government must also try to find a way to get the U.S. out of the giant hole it has dug in Afghanistan. Imran has been a vocal critic of the stalemated U.S. war in Afghanistan. Soon, he will control the major supply lines to U.S. forces there.

India and Pakistan are important nuclear-armed powers. Their nuclear forces are on a hair-trigger alert of less than 5 minutes.

There is frequent fighting on the Kashmir cease-fire line between the two sides. India’s vastly larger forces are poised to invade Pakistan. Islamabad says it must have tactical nuclear weapons to deter such an overwhelming Indian attack.

The Kashmir border is the world’s most dangerous flash point.

Imran Khan may be able to calm tensions over Kashmir and open meaningful talks with India, where he is very popular. In the 1980s, Gen. Zia ul-Haq headed off an invasion by India by flying to Delhi on the spur of the moment to attend a cricket match.

This writer expects Imran Khan to similarly appear in India for his ultimate diplomatic test match. ■

Pakistan Elections—Maybe Good News for Pakistan, but not for U.S.

By Graham E. Fuller

A BOLD NEW political face has come to power in the recent Pakistani elections, possibly offering the U.S. a new opportunity in that country. Sadly the opportunity will likely be squandered— again. There’s something about Pakistani and U.S. interests that seem doomed to collision course—mainly because Pakistan’s national interests are rarely what the U.S. thinks they should be.

Pakistanis themselves can be pleased the country has just experienced for only the second time in its history a democratic electoral transition from one political party to another. Over long decades democratically elected governments have been routinely dethroned by the all-powerful Pakistani military-dominated intelligence service, ISI. A key problem is that American interests in Pakistan have had little to do with Pakistan itself, but have been the function of other American interests—China, fighting the Soviet Union, al-Qaeda, and trying to win an ongoing—and losing—17-year U.S. war in Afghanistan. Once about eliminating al-Qaeda, Washington today hopes the war in Afghanistan will eliminate the often violent fundamentalist Pashtun movement (Taliban) and enable the U.S. to impose its strategic agenda upon Afghanistan. And over decades

Graham E. Fuller is a former senior CIA official and the author of numerous books on the Muslim world, including the novel Breaking

Faith: An American’s Crisis of Conscience in Pakistan (Amazon, Kindle). His website is <https://grahamefuller.com>. Copyright ©

Graham E. Fuller 2018.

OCTOBER 2018

the U.S. has alternately cajoled, but mostly threatened, Pakistan to do U.S. bidding in Afghanistan. (A former deputy secretary of the Pentagon, in the months after 9/11, threatened to “bomb Pakistan back to the Stone Age” if it didn’t fully get on board and support the new U.S. invasion of Afghanistan.)

In an earlier decade, after the U.S.S.R. invaded Afghanistan in 1979 to prop up a failing Afghan communist regime, the U.S. had recruited the Pakistani government to take the lead in organizing a new anti-Soviet “jihad” through supporting new mujahideen groups in Afghanistan. It was a fateful moment: this anti-Soviet jihad represented the first time that Islamist warriors, recruited from around the world in a joint U.S.-Saudi-Pakistani strategy, became a powerful battle-hardened jihadi force that would later go on to fight new wars in the Middle East—and against U.S. interests. As one of the mujahideen told me at the time, they had “defeated a superpower”—the U.S.S.R.—and driven Soviet troops out of Afghanistan. What would be the implications for the future?

Then, after 9/11, the U.S. invaded Afghanistan in order to overthrow the ruling Taliban—who had taken over the country and restored order after a devastating, nine-year Afghan civil war following the Soviet withdrawal. The Taliban actually represent a home-grown movement—they had no interest in international terrorism. But they made one disastrous mistake: they allowed Osama bin Laden to stay on in Afghanistan after he had played a small role in supporting the Taliban in achieving power in 1996.

The U.S. invasion ensued.

The thing to be remembered is that the Taliban are primarily a Pashtun movement; Pashtuns constitute the single largest ethnic group in multi-ethnic Afghanistan and have traditionally dominated national Afghan politics over several hundred years. While unquestionably following a kind of Wahhabi-style Islamic rule, they also represent a powerful Pashtun ethnic impulse. Many Afghan Pashtuns dislike the Taliban, but they generally also wish to see Pashtuns maintain power in Afghanistan. This same ethnic issue matters a lot when it comes to Pakistan.

The stated U.S. agenda in Afghanistan now is to prevent the Taliban, who are conducting a fairly successful insurgency against the U.S.-backed government in Kabul, from coming to power. Yet there is no way the Taliban can be decisively defeated, while the U.S. may yet opt to move into its third decade of war there in trying to keep them out of power. While Taliban theology and policies are fairly Wahhabi in character, is it worth the longest war in American history to struggle on to keep them out? (There are a few encouraging signs that the U.S. may be actually trying to reach some negotiated back-door deal with the Taliban for future power-sharing, but the Taliban may just decide to wait the U.S. out.) What Washington doesn’t talk about is its long, strategic ambition to maintain military bases in Afghanistan, right in the heart of Central Asia in close proximity to Russia and China—very much out of the U.S. Cold War playbook.

But is it worth this costly and losing game?

Here’s where Pakistan comes in. In the Pak-Afghan border region there are twice as many Pashtuns living in Pakistan as there

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are in Afghanistan. They represent a powerful force in Pakistani politics—and that’s where Imran Khan, Pakistan’s new prime minister from the heart of Pashtun territory, also comes in.

Bottom line: the U.S. has consistently attempted to enlist Pakistan into rescuing America’s losing war in Afghanistan; a key U.S. demand has been for the Pakistanis to sever ties between Pakistani and Afghan Taliban movements and crush all radical Islamist groups in the border region. There is no doubt Pakistan has indeed helped the Afghan Taliban (Pashtuns) to fight on in Afghanistan. Pakistan has a deep interest, domestic and foreign, in keeping close ties with all Pashtuns, Taliban or not. (The Pakistani Taliban movement is more violent than the Afghan one, but cannot be easily crushed—perhaps only tamed—even by the Pakistani government.)

And the power base of Pakistan’s new prime minister, Imran Khan, lies precisely in this Pashtun region of the country. He will not likely agree to any policy pressures from the U.S. to crush Taliban cross-border ties; he favors a strong Pashtun/Taliban presence in any Afghan government.

Imran Khan has also been outspokenly

critical of the U.S. role in Pakistan, and he will guard Pakistani sovereignty more jealously than his predecessors.

And then there are geopolitics with India.

Already greatly outweighed and outgunned by a huge and powerful Indian state on Pakistan’s eastern border, Pakistan’s geopolitics dictate that it can never allow its geographically narrow state to be simultaneously threatened by a pro-Indian government on Pakistan’s western border in Afghanistan.

Yet India has hugely invested—financially, politically and in terms of intelligence presence—in Afghanistan, with U.S. blessing— perceived by Islamabad as a deadly geopolitical threat. Pakistan will do all it can to ensure that Afghanistan does not fall under Indian political domination. That also means deep involvement in Afghan Pashtun politics (that include Taliban).

The U.S. has consistently run roughshod over Pakistani sovereignty throughout its war in Afghanistan, thereby generating strong anti-U.S. feelings in Pakistan. (My first novel, Breaking Faith: An American’s Crisis of Conscience in Pakistan, deals heavily with these issues, including the CIA and American military presence in Pakistan, as well as the complicated range of

In Their Own Words

IMRAN KHAN ON U.S.-PAKISTAN RELATIONS

Imran Khan has long been a critic of U.S. military intervention in Pakistan. Below are excerpts from a 2013 interview he conducted with ABC News on how he would deal with the U.S. as prime minister: “We want to be friends of the U.S., [but] we don’t want to be a client state of the U.S. We don’t want any U.S. aid. The war on terror, we want to fight it our way, not how we’re told…..we don’t want any drone attacks because drone attacks link us to the U.S. war. Drones are killing the same people the Pakistan army is fighting….The way to peace is through our tribal areas. There are about a million armed men in the tribal areas. There are only about 10,000 to 20,000 militants. If we win them over to our side, our tribal people will win the war….

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“Fifty thousand Pakistanis have died.

This country has been radicalized. We are more insecure than ever before. There’s something like $80 billion this country has lost in this war. The U.S. aid is about $20 billion. The country is sinking into poverty, into chaos; the state is getting weaker.

There is a consensus in Pakistan that there is no military solution. So therefore we’ll look for a political solution. We want to be an ally in peace with the U.S., but no longer can this war continue….

“If [drone strikes] were so accurate and vital, we should be winning the war. But the U.S. isn’t winning in Afghanistan, we certainly aren’t winning in Pakistan. So what have these drone strikes achieved?....It’s totally counterproductive.

It’s caused more militancy. All it does is cause collateral damage, caused anti-U.S. [sentiment], and guess who gains? The militants….

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

Pakistani Islamist movements at the human level of a Pakistani family.)

And, finally, we have the ever-growing China factor. Pakistan has long been China’s closest ally and considers Beijing to be an “all-weather friend”—in pointed distinction to perceived U.S. opportunism in Pakistan.

Both Pakistan and Afghanistan are now integral elements in China’s sweeping new economic and infrastructural Eurasian development plan “One Bridge, One Road.” (Iran too, incidentally, is linked into the same Chinese vision.) There is no way Pakistan will ever choose close ties with Washington over ties with China, for a dozen good reasons, including shared mutual distrust of India.

In short, Imran Khan may well bring some fresh air into Pakistani politics, including a declared willingness to clamp down on the country’s rampant corruption.

The powerful Pakistan military also supports him. It is hard to imagine how the U.S. will not continue to lose ever more traction in the Pakistan-Afghan morass short of undertaking a major U.S. shift away from its military-driven foreign policy.

That U.S. policy and style seems to tally ever less with the interests of most states of the region. ■

“The U.S. is stuck in Afghanistan. We’re stuck in our tribal areas. People are ignorant of the history of this area. Never have they ever accepted a foreigner to come and occupy them, either in our tribal areas or in Afghanistan. And so this is going against history. Therefore it’s time to give peace a chance. For both Pakistan and the U.S. We’ve had enough of fighting. We want peace. And if peace means that you’re anti-U.S., then people do not understand. Unfortunately some people in the U.S. feel that unless you do whatever the U.S. tells you to do, you’re anti-U.S. I believe that it’s time for the U.S. to make Pakistan a friend rather than a client state, a hired gun that is paid money to do it’s bidding. I think that time is over. Pakistan is past that stage; the country can no longer take this war anymore.”

OCTOBER 2018

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Turkey’s Economic Crisis

Special Report

By Jonathan Gorvett

CHRIS MCGRATH/GETTY IMAGES

FOR THOSE TURKS old enough to remember the 1990s, when the economy was stalked by triple-digit inflation and Main Street banks traded trash can liners full of Turkish lira in the back streets of Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar, the country’s current economic woes may seem more like a return to the good-old, bad-old days.

Yet, for the generations who have grown up under the increasingly watchful eye of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) government, the events of the last few weeks undoubtedly have come as much more of a shock.

Those used to years of sustained economic growth, single-digit annual inflation and a growing and visible prosperity, were all the more stunned by the sudden plummeting of the country’s currency in A merchant waits for customers outside his Istanbul shop, Aug. 16, 2018. The Turkish lira hit early August. a record low on Aug. 13, trading at 7.2362 to the U.S. dollar, following President Donald In the first half of the month, the Turk- Trump’s imposition of tariffs against a fellow NATO member. After the Turkish finance minister ish lira lost 20 percent of its value; since pledged the next day to fix the currency crisis , the lira rebounded to trade at 6.53 to the dollar.

By mid-August, the lira had lost more than 40 percent of its value against the dollar this year. the start of the year it has fallen 40 percent. Meanwhile, inflation has spiked Indeed, the U.S. leader’s taking up of the cause of Ameriand the cost of borrowing has skyrocketed, as Turkish bonds can pastor Andrew Brunson, imprisoned in Turkey after being have been reclassified as “junk” and international ratings accused of aiding various terrorist groups, and Trump’s impoagencies have issued a salvo of downgrades. sition of economic sanctions on Turkey, have helped Erdogan The crisis—which is some way from over yet—has also cover years of economic mismanagement under some caused shakiness in other emerging markets, as well as for swirling Turkish and Islamic flags.

European banks with significant Turkish exposure.

At a rally in early August, he urged supporters to take their Yet, while all this has been a long time in coming—and the dollars out from under the pillow and “immediately give these subject of repeated warnings by Turkish and international to the banks and convert to Turkish lira.” He also cast this economists and business leaders—the fallout for President highly dubious strategy as “a war of independence and the fuErdogan has been limited to date. ture,” while later adding that attacks on the economy were like In managing so far to dodge this bullet, the president— “attacks on our call to prayer and our flag.” whose rejection of economic orthodoxy likely contributed to While few Turks—other than the least economically savvy of much of the crisis—has demonstrated not only his considerAKP loyalists—will have traded any of their precious hard curable skills as a politician, but also his possession of that other rency as a result of Erdogan’s call, the warning was clear key quality in a successful leader: luck. enough: holding the president responsible for the crisis is unFor, in the middle of all these woes, Erdogan was likely patriotic, anti-Islamic and treasonous. saved from major political damage by the intervention of anInstead, according to the AKP mantra endlessly repeated in other president—Donald Trump. the largely AKP-controlled media, “nothing is fundamentally Jonathan Gorvett is a free-lance writer based in Istanbul. wrong” with the economy. The only problem is this unprovoked OCTOBER 2018

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attack by foreign powers—principally the U.S.—and their local, traitorous allies.

COMPARATIVE CRISES

Yet, “nothing is fundamentally wrong” is clearly not the case in today’s Turkey.

For some years, the country has been fueling growth with major construction schemes, often closely tied to AKP officials’ and supporters’ companies. This boom has been financed largely on cheap credit. It is a recipe that has produced tangible results, in terms of a much-improved infrastructure, jobs and higher incomes—but it has also produced periodic over-heating. This happened most notably in 2011, 2014 and 2016, when the central bank had to intervene to raise interest rates, the classic remedy for such a problem.

Normally, that is what should have happened this time, too. Yet, since Erdogan was re-elected president back in June, under a new constitutional arrangement that gives him sweeping powers, he has had much more direct control over the central bank.

This has enabled him to pursue one of his more controversial beliefs: that raising interest rates raises prices. Indeed, he has long railed against the “interest rate lobby,” a shadowy international grouping who back rate increases to control inflation. His dogwhistle calls to rise up against this ill-defined entity go down well with many of Erdogan’s pro-Islamist supporters, too, who are in no doubt about this group’s identity: a global, Jewish-Christian, Western conspiracy against Islam and Turkey.

This time, then, there was no interest rate medicine—thereby undermining the confidence of many Turkish and international investors in Ankara’s ability to manage both this crisis and future ones.

Given that Turkey is very dependent on a steady inward flow of these people’s hard currency, this is a major problem.

Years of advancing credit to finance growth have also left many of the country’s banks with foreign currency debts— now all the more difficult to pay off as the lira has tumbled and those investors 48

have grown cautious. This has raised fears of default, with the banks facing some $2 billion in monthly repayments up to the end of the year, increasing to $4.5 billion in April/May 2019.

While in the past Turkey has had few options other than to follow a U.S./European Union/IMF prescription for such crises, this time Ankara has been proactive in seeking out assistance from a range of other countries.

These include close ally Qatar, which recently provided a $15 billion backstop, as well as Russia and Iran, which have also been supportive. Although neither has much financial clout to offer, Moscow has accelerated the sale of S-400 missiles to Turkey, while Ankara has also said it will not adhere to re-imposed U.S. sanctions on Iran. The crisis has thus accelerated Turkey’s drift away from its NATO allies in the West and further complicated a range of regional issues, from Syria to Central Asia.

Meanwhile, for many ordinary Turks, this Eid—known as the kurban bayram, or feast of sacrifice—has undoubtedly required some more painful financial sacrifices, too. ■

it seems as if at a distance of a few hundred meters away, there are people who do not belong to our continent, to our world, but actually belong to a different galaxy.” The Jerusalem Post, May, 10, 2001

Yisrael Koenig, author of the April 1976 “The Koenig Memorandum,” a confidential internal Israeli government document. Koenig served as the Northern District Commissioner of the Ministry of the Interior for 26 years:

“We must use terror, assassination, intimidation, land confiscation, and the cutting of all social services to rid the Galilee of its Arab population.”

Avigdor Lieberman, Israeli foreign minister, 2009-2012 and 2013-2015, and currently minister of defense, on Arab Israelis:

“Those who are against us, there's nothing to be done—we need to pick up an axe and cut off his head. Otherwise we won't survive here.” March 2015

Rabbi Yaacov Perrin, in his Feb. 27, 1994 eulogy for American-born Dr. Baruch Goldstein, who massacred 29 Palestinians praying in Hebron’s Ibrahimi Mosque:

Racist Remarks

“One million Arabs are not worth a Jewish fingernail.”

of all create a Jewish majority [by expelling Arabs.]” Expulsion of the Palestinians, p. 29

Miri Regev, (Likud), the former IDF spokeswoman, current minister of culture and sport:

Continued from page 34

Sagi Kaisler, then director of Samaria Residents’ Committee:

“The Sudanese are a cancer in our body.

We will do everything to send them back where they came from.” May 2012

“Wherever there are Arab villages, there is fraud. This is the way they work...it is in their nature…the [Arab] Joint List united in order to pass the electoral threshold, but primarily because they are evil parties that want to overthrow the right-wing government…We are in a battle for the future of our state, against Arabs….” March 2015

Posted on Facebook in the summer of 2014 the text of an article by the late Israeli writer/Netanyahu aide Uri Elitzur that called Palestinian children “little snakes” and argued that it was justified to bomb civilians when they give shelter to “evil.”

Moshe Katsav, Israeli president 20002007:

Eli Yishai, Israeli Interior Minister, Nov. 2012:

“There is a huge gap between us (Jews) and our enemies, not just in ability but in morality, culture, sanctity of life, and conscience. They are our neighbors here, but

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

MK Ayelet Shaked, current justice minister:

“The goal of the operation [Pillar of Defense] is to send Gaza back to the Middle Ages. Only then will Israel be calm for forty years.” ■ OCTOBER 2018

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Special Report

Whither Western Sahara?

By Marvine Howe

RYAD KRAMDI/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

parently to force Morocco and Polisario to reach a compromise. The latest U.N. statement calls on the two parties to resume negotiations “without pre-conditions” on a solution that is “just, durable and mutually acceptable” for the self-determination of Western Sahara. U.N. sources said that new pressure was coming from Washington to conclude the Saharan mission. Indeed, American diplomat Amy Noel Tachco informed the U.N. that putting an end to the 27-year-old status quo in Western Sahara “is an absolute necessity.”

Should the U.N. Security Council decide in the fall to terminate the U.N. Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) there could be a showdown between Morocco, backed by Western governments like France and Spain, and Polisario, with support from Algeria, Russia and the Third World…reminiscent of Cold War days.

Sahrawi refugee children welcome U.N. envoy for the disputed territory of Western Sahara In another significant development, the Horst Kohler to the Aousserd camp for Sahrawi refugees on the outskirts of Tindouf on European Union, with its new Fisheries AcOctober 18, 2017. cord, has implicitly recognized Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara. Earlier this year, on Feb. 27, THERE HAS BEEN perceptible movement of late on one of the the European Court of Justice held that the Moroccan fishing acworld’s most intractable territorial disputes. For more than four cord was not applicable to Saharan waters. But the European decades, Morocco has been engaged in an uncompromising Court reversed its own ruling on July 19 and rejected Polisario’s struggle over the Western Sahara against a determined national earlier appeal on negotiating a fishing agreement that would inliberation movement, called the Polisario Front. Western Sahara clude Saharan waters, on grounds that the organization was “not is in fact a desolate 102,700 square miles of mostly rocks, sand concerned” with trade agreements between the EU and Morocco. and phosphates, nearly the size of Colorado, with a 660-mile AtThe European Commission’s four-year fishing accord, however, lantic coastline, exceptionally rich in fishing resources. Since must be ratified by the European Parliament. At the same time, 1975, Morocco has occupied this former Spanish colony in the the Council of European Foreign Ministers adopted an agricultural name of national sovereignty. The following year, Saharan exiles, accord with Morocco that specifically includes Western Sahara, who fled to neighboring Algeria, established their governmentand likewise must be ratified by the European Parliament. in-exile, known as the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic and In addition, Washington and London gave Rabat strong suprecognized since by some 80 countries. port this summer for its contribution toward resolving the Western More recently, the United Nations, which successfully engineered Sahara question with its proposal for “autonomy within the a cease-fire between the belligerents in 1991, has been losing paframework of Moroccan sovereignty.” U.S. Assistant Secretary tience over the lack of progress on its other mission: to organize a of State John Sullivan praised Morocco’s Autonomy Plan as “sereferendum for the self-determination of the people of Western Sarious, realistic and credible.” Earlier, Britain’s foreign minister said hara. Last spring, the U.N. renewed its Sahara mission for only six as much in London. On the other hand, Russian sources at the months, until the end of October—instead of the usual year—apU.N. reportedly pointed out that any solution to the Saharan problem had to be “mutually acceptable.”

Marvine Howe, former new York times bureau chief in Ankara, is the Predictably, the Moroccan Foreign Ministry was gratified that author of al-andalus rediscovered: iberia’s new Muslims and other Minorities.

Rabat has been recognized by Europeans “as the only interlocuoctober 2018

Washington report on Middle east affairs

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tor” in international negotiations involving Western Sahara. On the other hand, Polisario’s delegate to the EU, Mohammed Sidati, accused the European Commission of “encouraging Moroccan occupation” of the non-self-governing territory. “It is clear these accords were made without the consent of the Sahrawi people,” Polisario’s representative declared, urging the European Parliament not to endorse the fishing and agricultural agreements, “clearly biased in Morocco’s favor.”

Then the African Union, which recognized Polisario’s government–in-exile early on, devoted a special session to the Western Sahara problem last July, at its annual summit in Nouakchott, Mauritania. While both parties were present on an equal footing, no progress was made on the resumption of negotiations. The meeting concluded with the Africans throwing their support behind the United Nations’ efforts to organize a referendum for “a mutually accepted solution based on self-determination for the Saharan people.’’

Morocco’s Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita, who headed his country’s delegation to the Nouakchott talks, expressed satisfaction that the Africans were not prepared to launch a new initiative over the Western Sahara and that the dossier remained with the United Nations. In a rare moment of agreement, Polisario sources welcomed the conclusion that the African Union was united behind the U.N. peace process.

Meanwhile, the U.N.’s new special envoy to Western Sahara, former German President Horst Kohler, made a tour of the area to see the reality on the ground and discuss with the parties concerned “how to move the political process forward.” Besides meeting with Moroccan and Polisario representatives, Kohler talked to proMoroccan Saharan tribal leaders and parliamentarians at Laayoune, and Saharan refugees in the Tindouf camps. The diplomat also visited leaders of neighboring Mauritania and Algeria, and on Aug. 8 submitted his plan to relaunch the Sahara peace talks to the U.N. Security Council.

In fact, there are today three very different Western Saharas. What I call Western Sahara proper faces the Atlantic and com50

prises the bulk of the former Spanish colonies of Sakiat el Hamra in the north and Rio de Oro running south to Mauritania, bound on the east by Morocco’s Defensive Wall built in 1980. The second Sahara is a sliver of land extending from the wall to the Algerian border, which the U.N. describes as a buffer zone and Polisario calls the Liberated Zone. Finally, there are the Saharan refugee camps near Tindouf in southwestern Algeria, each of the five named for a town in Western Sahara proper.

CHANGES WROUGHT BY TIME

The desert territory has seen other changes over time. The former colonial outposts of Laayoune and Dakhla in Western Sahara proper are barely recognizable. Morocco has made substantial investments in Saharan mining and ports and in the development of the urban areas. In his last Throne Speech on July 29, Morocco’s King Mohammed VI announced a new urbanization scheme for Laayoune, including the construction of roads, a slaughterhouse, fish market and auditorium. At the same time, the Moroccan press reported plans by an American firm for major investment in a Wind Park project at Dakhla next year.

For its part, Polisario has plans to relocate its administration to the so-called Liberated Zone, which has stirred strong protests from Rabat. During U.N. envoy Kohler’s visit to the area, Polisario organized military maneuvers at Tifariti in the buffer zone “to celebrate 45 years of armed struggle.” Morocco denounced this incident as “an act of provocation.” The U.N. Security Council also issued a sharp rebuke that any civil or military activities in the buffer zone would be considered a violation of the cease-fire agreement. However, a senior Polisario official recently told the Washington Report that the president of the Sahrawi Arab Republic still planned to move to Bir Lahlou, along with some 30,000 Saharan refugees.

As for the Saharan camps, basic needs in food and health care are provided mainly by the EU, the U.N. and many Saharan solidarity associations worldwide. The refugee families themselves have wrought visible

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

changes to their living conditions. Algerian journalists, who regularly cover the Tindouf region, say the vast tent cities have been reduced as the inhabitants have built modest mud brick, even cement, structures, and acquired electricity and water through pipes and plastic containers.

The main change on the ground, however, is the population explosion. When Spain pulled out of its Saharan colonies in 1975, the number of inhabitants was officially said to be about 75,000. Today the population of Moroccan-controlled Western Sahara stands at 568,675, according to the World Population Review. Polisario, citing U.N. sources, says another 173,000 Saharans live in the camps around Tindouf.

What no one can say for sure is what proportion of the soaring Saharan population is made of Moroccan immigrants, Algerians or nomads. Nor is there any certitude as to how present-day Saharans would vote in a self-determination referendum. While foreign journalists reported at the outset that the large majority of Saharans favored independence, positions on both sides have hardened. Morocco, which once accepted the principle of self-determination, has reverted to its original stance that no solution can jeopardize Moroccan sovereignty over the area. And the Polisario Front, which has firmly supported the U.N. proposal for a selfdetermination referendum, now considers occupying the buffer zone.

“Rabat claims the majority of Sahrawis favor autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty and yet they cannot accept the U.N. referendum for self-determination,” Abdelkader Taleb Omar, Polisario’s ambassador to Algeria, told the Washington Report in a recent interview. “Whereas we accept the U.N.’s proposal for direct negotiations, without pre-conditions, which respect the rights of the Saharans to self-determination.”

Ambassador Taleb Omar, former Polisario prime minister, acknowledged that four decades of stalemate have taken their toll. Asked about recent reports regarding high-level defections from Polisario’s ranks, like that of the former security chief from the Tindouf area, the ambassador conceded there have been a dozen promiContinued on p. 53 OCTOBER 2018

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United Nations Report

Kofi Annan (1938-2018): Diplomacy Backed

By Forceful Intellect

By Ian Williams

JOEL SAGET/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

NO U.N. SECRETARY-GENERAL is ever going to get unanimous praise from everyone, and certainly not in the context of the Middle East. Kofi Annan, who died in Switzerland Aug. 18 at the age of 80, came into power with some eyebrows raised because, not only was he the American candidate, he was also more inclined to make space for Israel in the organization than his predecessors had been.

His original election had come about against the background of the Balkan wars, and it must be remembered that it was the result of a U.S. veto against the reappointment of the Egyptian Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, who suffered from a bipartisan alliance of Madeleine Albright and Republican Sen. Jesse Helms, who were both incensed by the secretary-general’s refusal to bow to Washington.

Former United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan poses during a photo session in Paris on That, of course, made Annan the December 11, 2017.

American candidate, subject to suspicion thousands of Bosnians and Rwandans discovered. from others—and, indeed, his ideas of world governance and Consistency is not common at the U.N. When Boutrospolicy were not too far from the stated principles of the Clinton Ghali, officially the first African secretary-general, was elected, administration. However, as he was well aware, just because some Arabs were lukewarm in their welcome, criticizing his an administration declared lofty ideals did not necessarily role as Egypt’s acting foreign minister in the Camp David mean it would implement them in practice. peace talks—and also from sub-Saharan Africans, who did The Clinton White House wanted to make reassuring liberal not see him as a “real” African. noises about stopping atrocities to one wing of American poliHowever, by the time Albright and Clinton vetoed Boutrostics, while promising the isolationist wing that it would trim Ghali’s reappointment, handing his head on a platter to Helms, spending on the U.N. and not risk American lives even to imArabs had rallied and saw the veto as an anti-Arab move. So, plement policies that the administration officially supported. many were equivocal about Annan, the new “real” African secAt the time of Rwanda, that entailed a presidential directive retary-general. In the end, however, they rallied around him from Clinton that was in essence more isolationist than anyafter his admission that the Iraq war was illegal. thing most of the Republicans could dream up: that the U.S. Conversely, as soon as Annan showed that his tolerance for would veto any peacekeeping operation that did not directly Israel did not extend to overlooking flagrant breaches of interbenefit Washington’s foreign policy objective—which did not at national law, his support in Washington cooled. Helms notorithe time seem to include the prevention of genocide, as untold ously invited him to wake up and smell the coffee. The George W. Bush administration resented Annan’s diplomatic efforts to U.N. correspondent Ian Williams is the author of UNtold: the Real head off the war with Iraq which the president and his advisers Story of the United Nations in Peace and War (available from Middle East Books and More). were so desperately engineering.

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Annan did indeed point out that Israel was excluded from U.N. institutions, which it was, while other offenders against international law were tolerated.

He did not name them but, for example, Indonesia and Morocco also occupied territories in defiance of U.N. resolutions, while being indulged with repeated Security Council seats.

However, taking a non-partisan approach, Annan also condemned the settlements, the response to the intifada, the Lebanon war and even the Israeli-inspired Western refusal to recognize Hamas’ victory in the 2006 Palestinian elections.

Similarly, he risked American obloquy when he slowed the Blair-Bush rush to war by trying to find a diplomatic solution with Saddam Hussain, and tried to mitigate the effect of sanctions on Iraqi civilians. But the final straw for the Washington warmongers was when Annan admitted to a BBC reporter that the American/British invasion of Iraq was illegal. An unholy alliance of neoconservatives, Israel supporters and U.N.-haters jumped on this “thoughtcrime” and, with the amplification power of the Murdoch media, Fox and the Wall Street Journal, invented the U.N. Oil For Food scandal, based on alleged U.N. corruption in the program that delivered food to Iraqi civilians in the face of U.S. insistence on maintaining

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sanctions against the Iraqi regime.

There had indeed been widespread evasion and profiteering from the sanctions, but the entirely selective vituperation ignored tacit U.S. support for wholesale sanctions-busting by countries such as Turkey and Jordan, let alone the complexities of administering.

His detractors knew what they were doing: it was not just an individual they were slandering, it was an institution they were trying to sabotage. Kofi Annan epitomized several outstanding facets of the role of a U.N. secretary-general, but none better than being an inspiring public face for the organization whose manifested dignity and integrity helped embellish the sad reality of a body often hamstrung by the self-seeking sordid squabbles of its member states. The attack was both an attempt to punish him for his temerity in saying that the Iraq war was illegal, and to challenge the prestige of the U.N. and the whole concept of international order.

AN UNLIKELY TARGET

The onslaught was all the heavier because his attackers sought to demolish the reputation of someone whom the world saw as the archetypal nice guy.

Annan’s people skills could have made him a good electoral candidate. He remembered people and their families, greeted everyone of all ranks affably, and almost always kept his cool in the face of provocation. The only time I saw him lose his temper was when he reprimanded the juvenile behavior of a Murdoch press journalist who was baiting him about trivia loosely associated with the Oil For Food scandal. Some correspondents were shocked that this creature fought back when attacked. Others welcomed the well-merited comeuppance.

When he became U.N. secretary-general, observers debated whether Annan’s years of service in the organization were an asset or a disadvantage. It soon became clear how useful they were, however, as he showed that he knew just how the organization worked and was all too aware of the competing pressures on

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

U.N. staff, not least the political pressures. The major dilemma is how to accommodate the U.S., which is essential for the effective functioning of the organization, while preventing the U.N. from becoming just an instrument of Washington’s policies—which are, after all, often opposed by most of the members.

Annan was no mere bureaucrat, he was not after the big desk and the title. He wanted to contribute to the world, and thought the secretary-general’s office was the best place to do so.

Kofi Annan was no mob orator. He was not cut out for the bully pulpit or the soapbox. When he was first elected, his advisers pushed him into being coached for public speaking but gave up—and people realized that his quiet authority was in some ways more effective than soaring rhetoric and content-free demagoguery. People had to strain to listen to him—but they did, because what he had to say was worth listening to.

People sometimes say he was not outspoken or loud enough, but that was actually a strength. When he spoke, it was not just a trite soundbite: he said what had to be said, even if was sometimes unpopular. When he came back from negotiating with Saddam Hussain and said it was a testament to the efficacy of diplomacy, not enough people listened to his corollary—when backed with the threat of force.

His statements were carefully weighed before delivery and designedly nonprovocative. They were definitive and authoritative, and usually soundly based both in ethics and his own pragmatic sense of what was possible. Although Annan was an accomplished tightrope walker, even he was wobbling by the end, since while most of the member states recognized there would be competing imperatives, American administrations of all complexions have a notorious lack of empathy for other agendas beyond the re-election of the president.

Annan’s other breakthrough was teamwork. He had risen through the U.N. ranks without acquiring the pompous self-importance of many promoted above OCTOBER 2018

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their capabilities. As secretary-general he assembled an articulate and confident team who could push the envelope on events and say what needed to be said, without implicating him directly.

One of his landmark changes to U.N. culture was to open up a degree of transparency: Before, only designated spokespeople were allowed to talk to the media, but Annan mandated all staff to respond to journalistsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; enquiries, as long as they did not purport to represent the organizationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s views.

Kofi Annanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s dignity and that astute media footwork allowed him to steer the landmark Responsibility to Protect resolution through the 60th anniversary summit. It is still a landmark, even if many member states that did not have the political courage to oppose him and the concept at the summit have done so much to frustrate it since.

It allowed him to rally support for an ambitious world development agenda backed by a wide spectrum of disparate constituencies. All idols have feet of clay,

but for some the mud goes much higher than others. No one is perfect, since high office demands compromises for practical achievements to win allies and majorities. But in officeâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;on development goals, poverty, human rights, gender equality, Rwanda, Cyprus and many other issuesâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;Annan advanced the U.N. agenda even as he rewrote it.

In 2001 Annan and the institution he headed were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize â&#x20AC;&#x153;for their work for a better organized and more peaceful world.â&#x20AC;? After leaving the U.N. he continued his work, with the Elders and his own foundation.

His legacy will survive for some time, but one must wonder how he would have coped with the current U.S. president who, unlike Clinton, is unable to betray his principles, since he does not seem to have any. But it is perhaps not too late for the present secretary-general to study and emulate Annanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s tradition of quietly but prominently presenting himself on behalf of the organization, and the teamwork that made it possible. â&#x2013; (Advertisement)

Whither Western Sahara?

Continued from page 50

nent Polisario deserters, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Saharans who want a better standard of living.â&#x20AC;?

The Saharan diplomat, who is also a member of Polisarioâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s National Secretariat, appeared more concerned about another problem rising from the prolonged peace talks, asking, â&#x20AC;&#x153;What are we going to do with our young people?â&#x20AC;? He pointed out that young Sahrawis have attended schools in the refugee camps and many have gone on to obtain scholarships at universities in Scandinavia and the EU, as well as Algeria. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We have a diaspora now; some Sahrawis have found work in Spain, Italy, Latin America, even a small number in the U.S.,â&#x20AC;? Taleb Omar said, emphasizing there were no more jobs in Polisarioâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s camps. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Some of the youth have begun to say life was better with the armed struggle,â&#x20AC;? the ambassador said ruefully. â&#x20AC;&#x153;They say: â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Maybe we lost lives, but at least the war obliged Morocco to accept the truce and the referendum for self-determination.â&#x20AC;&#x2122;â&#x20AC;? â&#x2013;

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avnery_54.qxp_In Memoriam 8/30/18 9:53 AM Page 54

In Memoriam

Uri Avnery (1923-2018)

By Sara R. Powell

HUSSEIN HUSSEIN/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

ery firmly believed in a two-state solution, and so was an early and long-time advocate for Israeli recognition of a Palestinian state. Despite our differences, I found much to admire about this man who committed his life to his beliefs.

Views of Avnery among the left, Israeli, Palestinian, and third parties varied. His continued Zionism, whether classical or post, caused some to denigrate him, while others, watching him stand up for Palestinian rights in the press, in the Knesset, and in the streets and olive groves, revered him.

Among Israel’s right-wing, however, he was often despised. Israel’s first Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion’s hatred for him was almost legendary. Whether approvingly or not, however, many across the political spectrum acknowledged his influence. His credentials Uri Avnery (r), head of the Israeli peace group Gush Shalom, and Palestinian leader Yasser within both the Zionist project and the peace Arafat in his battered compound in the West Bank city of Ramallah on May 8, 2002. A group movement made him impossible to ignore. of 17 international peace activists, including five Israelis, moved into the compound to act as From the beginning of his political career human shields to prevent what they feared was Israel’s decision to kill Arafat.

Avnery looked at Zionism from a unique perspective. Avnery fought with the Irgun, yet left it over ideologURI AVNERY, 94, who died Aug. 20 in Tel Aviv, was a German ical differences regarding the treatment of the native Arab popuemigré to Palestine as a child; a teenaged member of the notorilation and the Irgun’s use of terrorism. In 1945 he published an ous Jewish terrorist militia Irgun; an Israeli commando wounded in anti-terrorism pamphlet, and by 1946 had formed a group and 1948, when Israel declared its “independence”; an alternative jourstarted a publication advocating Zionist alliance with the Arabs, nalist and bestselling author; a member of the Knesset; one of Iswanting the new Jewish nation for which he was fighting to emrael’s foremost peace activists; and founder of Gush Shalom, one brace its Semitic heritage and be an integral part of a new Middle of Israel’s largest peace activist groups. Even a quick perusal of his East. This idea, formed while he was still a teen, and before the obituaries will show that, whether loved or loathed, Avnery was uncreation of the state of Israel, was the cornerstone of Avnery’s doubtedly a venerable figure in Israeli-Palestinian politics. Not only policy for the rest of his life. was he very good at talking the talk, Avnery walked the walk.

According to Gush Shalom’s biography of Avnery, it was this I never met Avnery in person, but corresponded with him often idea—essentially the same concept as his later definition of postwhile compiling some of his articles—which frequently appeared Zionism—that Avnery considered his biggest contribution to Israeli in the Washington Report—into a book (Israel’s Vicious Circle: thought. While Avnery deemed the idea of a Semitic alliance the Ten Years of Writings on Israel and Palestine, Pluto Press, 2008, most important part of his legacy, many Israelis consider his main available from Middle East Books & More). contribution to be the push to societal and intellectual skepticism Avnery didn’t like all I had to say in my introduction to the book. fostered by Avnery’s 1950s alternative publication Haolam Hazeh, I called him a Zionist, while he claimed to be a post-Zionist, a term according to Israeli historian and journalist Tom Segev. he used to describe his own position supporting the self-proI find it interesting that these two views of Avnery’s legacy—his claimed Jewish state as part of a regional Semitic alliance. We own and that of two generations of Israelis, in Segev’s words— also disagreed about a one-state versus a two-state solution. Avnboth stem from Israel’s early days. Much has happened since, and Avnery continued to write about and act on all of it. His last column Sara R. Powell is a former Washington Report staff member and a frequent volunteer.

Continued on p. 72 54

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OCTOBER 2018

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Islam and the Near East in the Far East

Deepening Ties Between China and Israel

By John Gee

LINTAO ZHANGI/GETTY IMAGES

WHILE THE BDS MOVEMENT gains ground in much of the world, occasioning frantic efforts by Israel’s supporters to suppress it, some countries are cheerfully expanding their trade and business links with Israel, with no regard for the fact that they thereby reinforce Israel in its denial of Palestinian rights. Notable among those countries are the Asian giants India and China, both of which were supportive of the Palestinians into the 1980s.

A recent BBC News report from Tel Aviv highlighted the growth in Chinese investments in Israel, as well as that of Israeli investments in China.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (l) and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu view an honor guard during “In 2016 China’s direct in- a welcoming ceremony inside Beijing’s Great Hall of the People, March 20, 2017. vestment in Israel almost date. Tnuva was taken over by Bright Foods, a Chinese statetripled to $16bn (£12bn),” according to a report in the South China owned company, in 2014, a few years after the cooperative had Morning Post newspaper. become a limited company. Tnuva supplies 70 percent of Israel’s “Meanwhile, the Jerusalem Post predicts that China will overdairy products. take the U.S. as the number one source of overseas investment In acquiring interests in foreign companies, Chinese firms have in Israel. Over the past two decades the Israeli economy has essometimes gained access to technologies that they were able to tablished itself as a leading hub of technological development. use in their own products. One concern that the BBC article men“Commentators say that Chinese firms want to get their hands tioned was that Israeli technology with military applications could on that technology, at the same time as Israeli companies want eventually end up being used to produce weaponry and equipbetter access to the giant Chinese marketplace.” ment for the Chinese military. As is well known, some of this techThe report notes that there are annual events held to bring tonology was developed in Israel in cooperation with U.S. firms and gether companies from each state, including Silicon Dragon Israel with the benefit, directly or indirectly, of U.S. aid. and the China-Israel Innovation Summit.

No wonder that Lee Branstetter, professor of economics and Among Israeli enterprises that have been bought by Chinese public policy at Heinz College, Carnegie Mellon University, sugcompanies is Tnuva, a dairy company that was originally estabgests that the Pentagon’s worries about the artificial intelligence lished as a cooperative owned by the kibbutzim and moshavim— capabilities acquired by Chinese firms, and the possibility of China agricultural settlements that played a major colonizing role as part gaining access to U.S. military technology via Israel that it could of the Zionist labor movement in Palestine under the British Mannot obtain directly, may place limits on the growth in the IsraelChina relationship. “If an American pilot were ever shot down by John Gee is a free-lance journalist based in Singapore, and the a Chinese missile powered by Israeli technology, it would be a real author of Unequal Conflict: The Palestinians and Israel.

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problem for the Israeli government,” he told the BBC’s Dave Gordon.

The major growth in Chinese investment in Israel has taken place since 2010.

China has also supplied labor to Israel.

Six thousand Chinese workers were selected to work in Israel’s construction sector in 2017. According to an Aug. 2 report

by JNi Media, the Israeli Ministry of Finance expected the Chinese workers “to double the construction capacity of the housing market, which will lead to stability in the sector, increasing the supply of apartments and reducing the cost of living.”

Construction used to be a sector where Palestinians found employment: about 45 percent of the construction workforce in Israel before the first intifada consisted of Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In 2017, construction remained the main Israeli economic sector where some Palestinian migrant workers from the 1967 (Advertisement)

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occupied territories could find legal employment.

ISRAEL AND MYANMAR: CONTROLLING THE PAST

Israel and Myanmar have signed an education agreement that entitles each state to edit the other’s textbooks’ coverage of their history. A copy of the agreement obtained by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz provides that the two states “through their competent authorities, endeavor to mutually verify school textbooks, particularly concerning the passages referring to the history of the other state and, where needed, introduce corrections to these textbooks.”

Commenting on this move, James M. Dorsey (see p. 58), senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore and author of China and the Middle East: Venturing into the Maelstrom, says in his blog: “[B]oth countries are subjecting education to the partisan political views of a government at the expense of an independent scholarly approach that ensures that students are exposed to the perspectives of all stakeholders or parties to a conflict.”

This is not simply a matter of pushing a certain version of history, but of trying to shape the future. As the ruling party put it in George Orwell’s 1984: “Who controls the past, controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.”

Dorsey writes: “The agreement calls for the joint development of ‘programs for the teaching of the Holocaust and its lessons of the negative consequences of intolerance, racism, antiSemitism and xenophobia as a part of the school curriculum in the Republic of the Union of Myanmar.’

“It encourages the development of an Israeli and Jewish studies program in Myanmar and a Myanmar studies program in Israel as well as contacts and cooperation between educational institutions and participation in conferences, training courses, and educational and professional study tours.”

Though couched in these seemingly positive terms, the context of the agreement gives good reason to think that the

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

agreement will indeed be more about suppressing inconvenient truths than enlightening the public in Israel and Myanmar: You suppress inconvenient facts and opinions about the Palestinians and we’ll do the same to ensure that your view of the Rohingya question is what our young citizens read.

Commenting on the background to the agreement, Dorsey writes: “Both Israel and Myanmar have justified their actions as combating terrorism, defending historical rights and correcting historical injustices, a version of events that in both cases has been rejected by a majority of the international community but that both countries would want to see reflected in what students are taught about their histories.

“Israel raised eyebrows last summer because of reports that it was selling arms to Myanmar, including tanks and Super Dvora III patrol boats used to police the country’s border despite the Myanmar military’s campaign against the Rohingya.

“Images initially posted on the website of Israeli military training and sales company Tar Ideal showed its staff training Myanmar special forces who were involved in the anti-Rohingya campaign in Rakhine state in combat tactics and the use of various weapons. The images have since been deleted.”

In November 2017, Israel’s Foreign Ministry claimed that arms sales had been halted, although that statement left open whether other forms of military services, such as training or the supply of surveillance technology, had continued.

Burma (now called Myanmar) was the first Asian state to recognize Israel in 1948. Israel enjoyed friendly relations with the military regime in Myanmar that took power in 1989 and is reported to have supplied it with arms and ammunition at times when it was shunned by Western states for its suppression of democracy and national minority groups. Israel’s role was also political. In April 2000, the Myanmar ambassador to Tel Aviv described Israel as an “open door to Western countries” for his isolated state. ■ OCTOBER 2018

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Two Views

Gazans on Edge

Four Years After Israel’s 2014 War on Gaza, a New One May Be on the Horizon

By Mohammed Omer

PHOTO CREDIT MAHMUD HAMS/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

“FE HARB?” asks Ahamad Abdelaziz. No one knows why the 46-year-old Gazan keeps asking “will there be war?”—but Abdelaziz saw his home destroyed during Israel’s 51-day assault on Gaza in 2014. His was but one of the thousands of homes ruined.

“I fear it is happening again,” he explains.

“I feel a new war could erupt any moment.”

Pausing, the father of six says with a sigh, “We have had enough of it all.”

Even though a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas is holding, following the worst escalation of violence since 2014, residents Pupils are transported to a school run by the United Nations Agency for Palestinian Refugees of the Palestinian enclave remain fearful. (UNRWA) in Gaza City on Aug. 29, 2018, the first day of school. UNRWA warned that schools They are, after all, familiar with the signs in- may have to close due to funding cuts of $300 million in U.S. aid. dicating the onset of yet another war. a year ago, Gaza used to be somehow livable—but not anymore.

Israel reopened the Kerem Shalom crossing, its commercial He was forced to lay off most of the employees at his construction goods entry to the besieged Gaza Strip on Aug. 15, and the Erez company because he could no longer afford to pay them. crossing for the movement of people on Aug. 27, as the cease-fire “Everyone is grim,” Abu Salamah said. “There is no business, held. But Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu nevertheless merchants are in jail for unpaid debts, and the economy is collapsinsists that the Israeli military is prepared for more intense strikes ing daily.” if Gaza border protests continue.

Electricity in Gaza is available only four hours a day, and few can During the weekly Gaza protest marches, Palestinian demonafford back-up generators or simple battery-operated fans. No one strators gather on the border with Israel to demand an opening of will drink the salty and often-contaminated tap water, forcing some Gaza borders and an end to the Israeli blockade. families to spend nearly half of their modest income on drinking During a meeting with Israel’s military leaders, Defense Minister water from roaming trucks which will pump water up to water-tanks Avigdor Lieberman said the next war on Gaza is just a matter of on rooftops. Less fortunate Gazans can’t afford to buy water at all, time, according to Israeli media reports. Meanwhile, Gaza’s ongobut instead must rely on whatever they can find, whether it’s coning humanitarian crisis continues to worsen. taminated or not.

United Nations officials are warning that serious fuel shortages “We were slaughtered like animals and we didn’t hear a word of are affecting hospitals, water and sanitation facilities serving outrage from outside governments,” says Wael Al Namlah, a douGaza’s more than 2 million residents. ble amputee following the August 2014 war on Gaza. “Each time Amir Abu Salamah, a 45-year-old businessman, said that, until I use my crutches I recall what happened that day,” he adds. “I no longer go down the street where I lost many family members in the Award-winning journalist Mohammed Omer reports regularly on bombing.” the Gaza Strip. Follow him on Twitter: @MoGaza.

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He and his family fled the Israeli rockets falling from the sky— but were unable to escape the missiles fired from the many Israeli tanks on the ground.

His younger brother was the first to be injured, by shrapnel to his head. Moments later, Al Namlah recalled, there were “flashes of white light. Then all I saw was dust and black smoke. I looked down and my legs were far away. I was carrying my son and he lost his leg, too. My wife, sister and brother all lost body parts while running away.”

This past August, Israeli warplanes destroyed Al-Meshal Cultural Center, a hub long considered one of Gaza’s premier cultural institutions, home to cutting-edge music, plays and art. Gaza’s artists came together to remember what used to be their creative home that now lies in ruins. [See “Other Voices” supplement, p. 2.]

U.N. officials also warned that the UNRWA schools that educate hundreds of thousands of Palestinian children may not be able to operate for the full school year because of the funding shortfall caused by Washington freezing tens of millions of dollars in dues to the relief agency and pressing for changes to its mandate.

In mid-August, the agency said it will reopen schools on time for the new academic year, but has only enough funds to keep them open until the end of September.

“We need a further $217 million to ensure that our schools not only open, but can be run until the end of the year,” said Pierre Krähenbühl, commissioner-general of UNRWA’s advisory commission.

That does not bring much comfort to Al Namlah and his young children, however. The ones who were only babies in 2014 may not remember the details of the war, but their parents remember it all—as if it were yesterday. ■

Regional Players Maneuver to Reengineer the Israeli-Palestinian Landscape

By James Dorsey A POSSIBLE CEASE-FIRE between Israel and Hamas, the Islamist group that controls the Gaza Strip, is proving to be much more than an effort to end escalating violence that threatens to spark yet another Middle Eastern war.

United Arab Emirates-backed Egyptian and United Nations efforts to mediate an agreement, with the two countries’ nemesis, Qatar, in the background, are about not only preventing monthslong weekly protests along the line that divides Gaza and Israel, and repeated rocket and kite-mounted incendiary device attacks on Israel that provoke Israeli military strikes in response, from spinning out of control.

They constitute yet another round in an Israeli-supported effort

James Dorsey is an award-winning foreign correspondent and the author of the book and blog The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer. Posted Aug. 24, 2018 on Lobe Log. Reprinted with permission.

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to politically, economically and militarily weaken Hamas and pave the road for a possible return to Palestine of Abu Dhabi-based former Palestinian security chief Mohammed Dahlan as a future successor to ailing Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

Ironically, Israeli discussions with representatives of Qatar, which has long supported Gaza, constitute recognition of the utility of Qatar’s long-standing relations with Islamists and militants that the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Bahrain cited as the reason for their 15-month-old diplomatic and economic boycott of the Gulf state.

Israel and Egypt have agreed that Qatar would pay the salaries of tens of thousands of government employees in Gaza. Abbas has refused to pay the salaries as part of an Israeli-UAE-Saudibacked effort to undermine Hamas’ control of Gaza and give the Palestinian Authority a key role in its administration. In response to a request by Abbas, Israel, moreover, reduced electricity supplies, leaving Gazans with only 3-4 hours of power a day.

Qatar has also been negotiating the return by Hamas of two Israeli nationals held captive as well as the remains of two Israeli soldiers killed in 2014 in Gaza.

Abbas’ economic warfare was the latest tightening of the noose in more than a decade-long Israeli-Egyptian effort to strangle Gaza economically. Included in the moves to negotiate a long-term Israeli-Hamas cease-fire are proposals for significant steps to ease the blockade.

In a statement on Facebook, Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Israel’s goal was to “remove the Hamas terror group from power, or force it to change its approach, i.e., recognize Israel’s right to exist and accept the principle of rebuilding in exchange for demilitarization.”

Lieberman said he wanted to achieve that by “creating conditions in which the average resident of Gaza will take steps to replace the Hamas regime with a more pragmatic government” rather than through military force.

Ironically, involving Qatar in the efforts to prevent Gaza from escalating out of hand gives it a foot in the door as the UAE seeks to put a Palestinian leader in place more attuned to Emirati and Saudi willingness to accommodate the Trump administration’s controversial efforts to negotiate an overall Israeli-Palestinian peace.

Speaking in a series of interviews, Qatari Ambassador to the Palestinian territories Mohammed al-Emadi, insisted that “it is very difficult to fund the reconstruction of Gaza in an event of yet another destructive war.” He said he had “discussed a maximum of 5- to 10-year cease-fire with Hamas.”

Abbas, like Hamas, has rejected U.S. mediation following President Donald J. Trump’s recognition earlier this year of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

Trump startled Israelis and Palestinians on Aug. 21 by saying that Israel would pay a “higher price” for his recognition of Jerusalem and that Palestinians would “get something very good” in return “because it’s their turn next.” Trump gave no indication of what he meant.

The effort to negotiate a lasting cease-fire is the latest round in a so far failed UAE-Egyptian effort to return Dahlan to Palestine as

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part of a reconciliation between Hamas and Abbasâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; al-Fatah movement. Dahlan frequently does UAE Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayedâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s bidding.

U.S. President George W. Bush described Dahlan during an internecine Palestinian power struggle in 2007 as â&#x20AC;&#x153;our boy.â&#x20AC;?

Dahlan is believed to have close ties to Lieberman.

Hamas has since late March backed weekly mass protests by Gazans demanding the right to return to homes in Israel proper that they lost with the creation of the Jewish state in 1948 and in the 1967 Middle East war in an effort to force an end to the economic stranglehold. Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said, on Aug. 21, that â&#x20AC;&#x153;thanks to these marches and resistanceâ&#x20AC;? an end to Israelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s decade-long blockade of Gaza was â&#x20AC;&#x153;around the corner.â&#x20AC;?

Some 170 Palestinians have been killed

by Israeli forces and 18,000 others wounded in Israelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hard-handed response to the protests designed to prevent Gazans

from breeching the fence that divides Gaza from Israel.

Ironically, Abbas may prove to be the loser as Israel and Hamas inch toward a cease-fire arrangement that could ultimately give Dahlan a role in administering the Gaza Strip. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Gaza has become a de facto state as it comprises a set area with a central body that governs the population, has an army and conducts foreign policy. So, in a way, countries have to be pragmatic and negotiate with Hamas. Israelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s main interest is securityâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;a period of complete calm in Gazaâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; and it is willing to do what is necessary to achieve this,â&#x20AC;? said Giora Eiland, former head of Israelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s National Security Council. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Until recently, Cairo insisted that Abbas re-assume control over Gaza, which Hamas would not accept, specifically the call for it to disarm. Now, Egypt understands that this is not realistic and is only demanding that Hamas prevent (the Islamic Stateâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s affiliate) in the Sinai from smuggling in

weaponry. The only party that is unhappy with this arrangement is Abbas, who has been left behind. But this is his problem,â&#x20AC;? Eiland added.

A Hamas-Israel cease-fire and the possible return of Dahlan are likely to be but the first steps in a UAE-Egyptian-Israeli backed strategy to engineer the emergence of a Palestinian leadership more amenable to negotiating an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in a geo-political environment that favors Israel.

Whether Trumpâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s remark that Israel would have to pay a price for his recognition of Jerusalem was a shot from the hip or part of a broader strategy is hard to discern. The White House has since sought to roll back Trumpâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s remarks.

With the jury still out Israelis, Palestinians and their regional allies have nonetheless been put on alert as they manueuver to ensure their place in whatever emerges from efforts to reengineer the political landscape. â&#x2013;

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WAGING PEACE The Arab Center Washington DC (ACW) provided an update Aug. 23 on the dire humanitarian conditions in Gaza and the besieged enclave’s future amid U.S. funding cuts and political maneuverings in the region.

ACW executive director Khalil Jahshan updated the audience on recent Egyptian and U.N. diplomatic efforts to end the conflict between Israel and Hamas.

“Even some Israeli experts the past few weeks have been admitting that Hamas has achieved a knock-out victory in the PR war regarding Gaza,” Jahshan told the audience. The Israeli military assault on civilians during the March of Return garnered domestic and international outrage, he pointed out, and both sides are “emotionally and physically exhausted” over the situation, “despite the non-symmetrical nature of the confrontation,” he said.

The July mediation efforts in Cairo resulted in a plan which, among other issues, proposed a short-term cease-fire in Gaza between Hamas and Israel, relieving the humanitarian crisis through the re-opening of border crossings, removal of restrictions on what Israel called “prohibited goods” (particularly medical and humanitarian items and fuel) and re-extending the fishing zone for Gazans, he explained.

Jahshan lamented, however, that while the Palestinians and Israelis were talking via the Egyptians, they still were not communicating directly with each other.

Among the difficulties, he said, is that each side has conditions. For example, “Hamas refuses for appearance’s sake to link a potential cease-fire agreement with promised economic assistance to Gaza,” he noted. “They want to treat both of these separately because in the eyes of their constituents they feel as if they are violating their political platform.”

The Egyptians, Jahshan noted, want to retain control not only of the process, but also the outcome, particularly with respect to the revitalization of Gaza’s economy. Israel’s conditions include an enforced cease60

STAFF PHOTO PHIL PASQUINI

Does Hamas Now Have the Upper Hand Over Israel and the PA?

Khalil Jahshan (l) and Sean Carroll conduct a briefing at the Arab Center Washington DC on the political and humanitarian situation in Gaza.

fire and return of its prisoners.

“I believe Hamas emerged the last three weeks as the winner of this diplomatic encounter,” Jahshan asserted. The organization has managed to send the message that political gains can be achieved through military resistance, he noted—the opposite message of the Palestinian Authority leadership in Ramallah.

“Hamas succeeded in focusing world attention, including Arab attention, on Gaza's miserable economic conditions that have been ignored,” Jahshan stated. “Now funds are being earmarked for them.” Some $650 million, mostly from Qatar, has been pledged to help Gaza’s economy.

“Hamas succeeded in shifting the balance of power from Ramallah to Gaza,” he concluded. “Fatah and [Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud] Abbas are totally marginalized.” According to Jahshan, even the White House would welcome an agreement between Hamas and Israel through Egyptian mediation, further marginalizing Ramallah in the inevitable future peace talks.

Sean Carroll, president and CEO of American Near East Refugee Aid (ANERA), provided an update on the humanitarian situation in Gaza, based on his summer trip to the besieged Strip. He found the two million residents of the beleaguered 140-square-mile enclave in critical need of basic services, including fuel and medical supplies, which are

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rapidly decreasing. Unemployment is at an estimated 57 to 60 percent, and even higher for the large youth population.

“Gaza is on the brink of real catastrophe,” Carroll reported. Under Israel’s strict blockade for the past 11 years, residents have electricity only four hours a day. Drinkable water—which is expensive—is contaminated, while 102 million liters of untreated sewage water flow into the sea each day, he said. Frustrated Gazans in need of medical treatment in Israel have all but given up applying for permits to cross the Israeli-controlled border crossing.

Carroll lamented the deaths of 172 Gazans by Israeli soldiers during the Great March of Return that began March 30.

More than 8,000 demonstraters were hospitalized this year, with about half having been shot with live ammunition.

Carroll considers ANERA’s ongoing projects as still a bright spot amid the suffering.

He described the group’s $100 million Palestinian community infrastructure development project from USAID, which is now threatened by a funding freeze. “We have connected over 100,000 households to accessable water,” he stated. “We’ve benefited 340,000 people in the course of this project over the last five years.”

In addition to responding to the humanitarian crisis, ANERA is striving to build sustainable schools and clinics, working in the OCTOBER 2018

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agricultural sector and in childhood development. Gazans are not only resilient, he noted enthusiastically, but also educated and productive, with good English and IT (information technology) proficiency. “When I look at our projects I see the brink of success,” he concluded hopefully.

—Elaine Pasquini

“If you were to ask me what this new Arab League is, I would say that it is the core around which I build these great hopes…It is a pact which others may consider as an ideal, for in its shade we cooperate on the principle that all states are equal in rights.

In our League we recognize neither big nor small states…the biggest of these states, the most expensive, the richest in learning and wealth, is in my view totally equal to her smallest sister…We cooperate to keep the peace among us and to make one another happy, yes, indeed, we cooperate to improve our economies, just as we cooperate to ameliorate our culture and social conditions and to build in time, our united social being.”—Abd al-Rahman Azzam, first secretary-general, League of Arab States, Cairo, Egypt, 1946.

On July 14, the National Council on U.S.Arab Relations (NCUSAR) organized a Model Arab League simulation for summer interns at Georgetown University in Washington, DC. Dr. John Duke Anthony, founder and CEO of NCUSAR, addressed the interns in opening remarks, providing a brief guideline of what to expect, particularly for first-time participants such as this reporter. “The League of Arab States pre-existed the United Nations,” he noted.

Interns were divided into three committees: Palestinian Affairs, Social Affairs and Joint Defense Council. Each committee comprised around seven people, including the chair, a role undertaken by NCUSAR summer interns as well. Intern-delegates represented the following countries: Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Yemen, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Iraq, Bahrain, Kuwait, Djibouti, United Arab Emirates, Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria.

OCTOBER 2018

PHOTO COURTESY NCUSAR

Interns Practice Diplomatic Skills At Model Arab League Event

Model Arab League participants take a break from deliberations.

The Committee on Palestinian Affairs focused on three topics: devising contingency plans and increasing resiliency to protect civilians and infrastructure from military offensives; securing increased water access for Palestinians; and facilitating cooperation between Fatah and Hamas.

The Committee on Social Affairs examined methods to address rising public health concerns in the Arab world, addressed the rising cost of food in the region, and proposed reforms to Arab higher education systems.

The Joint Defense Council committee focused on reassessing inter-Arab defense and security relationships, outlining goals for modernizing the Arab military and examining League emergency preparedness and natural disaster response protocols.

This reporter served as the Saudi Arabian delegate on the Palestinian Affairs Committee. The delegates drafted a resolution calling on Arab League members to promote a peace agreement between Israel and Palestine that stipulates: • Withdrawal of Israeli forces and illegal settlers from the occupied territories, and the declaration of borders based on the 1949 armistice lines.

• Jerusalem as a corpus separatum, or international city, administered by the United Nations.

• Sovereignty of Palestine and Israel as two separate countries, each in full control of their own resources, including water and

infrastructure.

Part of what makes this draft resolution unique is the stipulation, agreed upon by consensus, that applies diplomatic and economic punishments to Israel if it does not comply. For example, the resolution states that members of the Arab League will withhold financial and commercial cooperation with, and investments from, Israel if the conditions of the peace agreement are not honored within the set time frame.

The Model Arab League event teaches participants the significance of cooperation through regional organizations—not only the United Nations—in resolving conflicts, finding common interests and goals, and achieving peace and security.

—Leen Badeeb

Veterans For Peace Coalition Marches in Iowa State Fair Parade

Members of Veterans For Peace (VFP) Chapter 163 Des Moines and the Des Moines Catholic Worker community marched in the Iowa State Fair Veterans’ Day Parade on Aug. 13 in coalition with supporters from Dorothy’s House, a local organization that serves survivors of human trafficking.

“We're the only peace and social justice veterans' group marching today out of about 160 groups,” said Gilbert Landolt, VFP chapter president. “We try to bring a message of peace to the parade every year. We're against these wars and

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against drone warfare. This year we are also supporting a group that helps young women who have been victimized by human trafficking.”

“I am marching today because the Veterans For Peace have partnered with us in our benefit for Dorothy's House,” said Misty Craig. “They invited us to march with them, and we are happy to be here today.”

According to its website, Dorothy's House offers “girls an opportunity to recover their bodies, hearts, souls and voices by providing basic needs, beginning with security in a home environment.

To this we add a healthy diet, specialized care, education and training, and the ability to recognize their potential and dream of a positive future.”

“All the warfare that is going on is a waste. Usually it is for the wrong purposes. I'm here giving my support to all the veterans, Veterans For Peace,” said Dan Hughes. “If we want peace, we have to stand up for it. That's what everyone should be doing.”

“I live in the Catholic Worker community and so do some of the veterans. From them I have been learning what war means. A lot of these guys were drafted, you know. They didn't go to war by choice,” said Jake Fee. “They saw death, they participated in death, participated in a war that rich men decided and poor kids had to make up the difference.”

“The war machine, as it becomes more industrialized, mechanized, digitalized, robot-ized, and drone-ized, it becomes easier to kill people without really thinking about it,” he added. “I really want to support these guys, because they have been through hell.”

—Michael Gillespie

VFP members and supporters gather to march for peace and human dignity at the Iowa State Fair Veterans’ Day Parade.

arrangements.

Many people waited patiently for calligrapher Sam Mousavi to write their names in exquisite Arabic script. Afterwards, youngsters proudly displayed their names in the flowing handwriting.

Bhavna Naik created delicate henna designs on the hands of ladies of all ages.

Possessing natural cooling properties, the art of henna has been practiced in the Middle East for more than 5,000 years by peo-

STAFF PHOTO M. GILLESPIE

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ple of all economic strata.

In the center’s basement, children discovered leather crafts and experienced Bedouin weaving, in addition to learning about the environment with a sea turtle activity.

The Sultan Qaboos Center is open to the public Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Visit <www.sqcc.org> for information about upcoming Arabic classes and future events.

—Elaine Pasquini

The Sultan Qaboos Cultural Center in Washington, DC opened its doors to the public July 18 for an evening of traditional Omani hospitality, offering guests an array of activities, along with delicious Omani cuisine, including special desserts and coffee.

Setting the mood of a desert oasis, oud player Laith Al-Attar entertained the crowd with a selection of traditional and contemporary Arabic and Middle Eastern musical 62

STAFF PHOTO PHIL PASQUINI

Celebrating Omani Culture

Bhavna Naik creates a beautiful henna design on the hand of a visitor to the Sultan Qaboos Cultural Center in Washington, DC.

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MUSIC & ARTS

OCTOBER 2018

PHOTO COURTESY ANA-MATION PHOTOGRAPHY

“When I embroider, I feel that I am close to my homeland.”—Feryal Abbasi-Ghnaim, Palestinian embroiderer.

On July 28, Middle East Books and More in Washington, DC hosted Wafa Ghnaim, celebrated Brooklyn-based Palestinian author and artist, for the long-awaited debut of her book, Tatreez & Tea: Embroidery and Storytelling in the Palestinian Diaspora.

The afternoon began with an embroidery workshop in which Ghnaim walked the more than dozen attendees through the basics of the centuries-old art of tatreez. A session of learning proper technique blended together with an exploration into the significance of the folk embroidery style as a form not only of artistry, but narration and inter-generational bonding.

Students used waste canvas to crossstitch variants of the “Tree of Life” design, traditionally represented by the cypress tree.

Oft-employed as a motif throughout Levantine culture, the “tree of life” (Arabic: shajarat al-hayat) features prominently in traditional Palestinian embroidery. As Ghnaim’s mother once told her, “they give until they die, and this is how we should be ourselves...”

Later in the afternoon, Ghnaim spoke to a packed house about the inspiration and purpose behind her book, and tatreez’s role in shaping her sense of self. She spoke of her mother, Feryal Abbasi-Ghnaim, an award-winning artist in her own right and life-long teacher of Palestinian embroidery.

Ghnaim recalled accompanying her mother as she toured the country teaching and lecturing on the craft, and learning tatreez along with her sisters at their mother’s hands, starting at the age of just two.

As she described her own journey, Ghnaim made clear that tatreez is far more than mere folk handiwork or sartorial aesthetic. In a period of Palestinian history so dominated and defined by dislocation and dispossession, tatreez represents a powerful means of connection—to homeland, to ancestors, and to a sacred past.

PHOTO COURTESY ANA-MATION PHOTOGRAPHY

Author, Artist Wafa Ghnaim Shares Centuries-Old Art of Tatreez

Wafa Ghnaim leads a workshop on tatreez, a Palestinian folk embroidery style.

A workshop participant practices the “Tree of Life” design.

Although physically separated from their homeland, Ghnaim and her mother found in tatreez a meditative, powerfully rooted source of identity. As Ghnaim expressed it: “It’s hard to connect as a Palestinian to who I am supposed to be…I’m tired of going to protests all the time. I’m tired of posting online about some horrible atrocious crime that’s happening in Palestine or otherwise against the Palestinians…I want to express who I am, and who I am isn’t about destruction, and it’s not about violence, it’s not about occupation…who I am is a creator. Of life. Of something beautiful. And that’s what I feel tatreez gives to me, and I know that’s what tatreez gives to my mother.”

Following her presentation, and after reading selections from Tatreez & Tea, guests had the opportunity to meet and speak with Ghnaim and purchase signed copies of her work.

Wafa Ghnaim will return to AET’s Middle East Books and More for a second embroidery workshop on Wednesday, Sept. 26 from 12:00-2:00 p.m., this time focusing on bird motifs found in traditional Palestinian embroidery.

Tickets can be purchased online via Eventbrite by searching for “Palestinian Embroidery 101: Birds of Palestine.” A limited supply of signed copies of Tatreez & Tea will also be available for purchase.

—Amin Gharad

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(L-r) Yae Aihara, Naqibullah Noorzad and Traci Ishigo.

Iraqi refugee Dr. Baher Butti submitted a family photograph for the traveling “What We Carried” exhibition.

The Magnificat Institute: Playing The Correct Note

At a time when much dissonance surrounds the Holy City of Jerusalem, one can hear harmony at the Magnificat Institute— the Music School of the Custody of the Holy Land. Countless hours of practice bore fruit when students and teachers shared their heavenly sounds from July 12 to 16 in Washington, DC, at the Shrine of St. John Paul II, the Museum of the Bible and the Franciscan Monastery of the Holy Land in America, and in Baltimore at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

The Magnificat, inspired by Fr. Armando Pierucci, OFM, has operated in the Old City of Jerusalem for more than two

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decades. It is “a laboratory of coexistence,” as the Magnificat’s website states, where students bring their diverse cultures and experiences in order to enrich each other and those who attend their performances.

Directed by Fr. Alberto J. Pari, OFM, the Magnificat provides high academic education in music for the local children of Jerusalem, irrespective of gender, language, race or religion. The long roster of Magnificat courses includes: violin, viola, cello, piano, guitar, voice, flute, trumpet, bassoon, music theory and history of music. These courses enhance the students’ knowledge and performance practice in classical and contemporary music.

According to Fr. Alberto, the Magnificat “creates an active academic environment OCTOBER 2018

PHOTO COURTESY WHAT WE CARRIED

On July 28, the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles held an event to celebrate the arrival of a traveling exhibition called “What We Carried: Fragments and Memories from Iraq and Syria.”

The exhibition seeks to highlight the stories and journeys of some of the roughly 140,000 Syrian and Iraqi refugees who have arrived in the U.S. in recent years.

Free-lance photographer Jim Lommasson, the mastermind behind the project, asked refugees to share a significant item they brought with them on their journey to the U.S. He then photographed each item and asked the refugees to write why they chose that particular item.

The event’s panel discussion included Yae Aihara, a Japanese-American woman interned by the U.S. government during World War II, and Naqibullah Noorzad, an Afghan refugee who settled in the U.S. Moderating the discussion was Traci Ishigo, cochair of Vigilant Love (<vigilantlove.org>).

“On Feb. 19, 1942, the Japanese-American community lost everything. My family was sent to an internment camp in Idaho.

After the war, the government gave each person $25 to start his or her life over," recalled Aihara. She was only 15 years old when her father was arrested and imprisoned for two-and-a-half years at Terminal Island prison in Long Beach, CA. Noorzad described his experience as an Afghan refugee. He had to wait for twoand-a-half years before he received his visa to the U.S., he said, while his friends died before they received their visas. When he arrived in the U.S., he had to stay with other immigrants, and was one of eight people living in a room. “Coming to the U.S. was difficult, but we made it,” he said.

“I came to the U.S. with one backpack.

Now, I have two cars, and a house with two bedrooms, and a good-paying job in a bridal-wedding company doing photography. I’m married and have two young children.”

For more information on the exhibit, visit <whatwecarried.com>.

—Samir Twair

STAFF PHOTO S. TWAIR

Exhibit Highlights Journeys of Iraqi And Syrian Refugees in the U.S.

that is conducive to cooperation and harmony among the teachers, students, staff, and the larger society.”

The five concerts of instrumentals and vocals in DC and Baltimore, organized by the Franciscan Monastery of the Holy Land in America, were most inspiring. The performers—Fr. Alberto, Jamil Freij, Eleonora Lué, Giuliana Mettini, Tareq Wahba (voice); Tania Beltser, Rani Ibrahim, Majd Nasrawi, Habib Sabbara and Rita Taweel (violin); Lucia D’Anna and Yasmeen Sabbara (cello); Fadi Sabat and Rafi Sabat (piano); and William Obeid (guitar)—brought to life J.S. Bach (French Suite n. 3 in Si Minor); N. Paganini (Cantabile); C. Loewe (Schaffe in mir Gott, Psalm 51; Psalm 42); G.F. Handel (Comfort Ye, My People, from the Messiah); F. Liszt (Liebestraum-Love Dream n.

3); S. Prokofiev (Romeo and Juliet n .13, Dance of the Knights); and F. Mendelssohn (Venetian Gondola song), among others.

As St. John Paul II stated in his April 4, 1999 Letter to Artists, “Those who perceive in themselves this kind of divine spark which is the artistic vocation—as poet, writer, sculptor, architect, musician, actor, and so on—feel at the same time the obligation not to waste this talent but to develop it, in order to put it at the service of their neighbor and of humanity as a whole.”

The passion for music and the arts unquestionably breaks ethnic, national and religious barriers. The Magnificat Institute is playing the correct note, and deserves our support as it actualizes the dream of peaceful coexistence through creativity and music. Bravo!

—Saliba Sarsar

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The Magnificat Institute performers at the Shrine of St. John Paul II in Washington, DC. Following the rally, many of Abdulhadi's supporters accompanied her into the courtroom for a hearing in the case Mandel vs.

San Francisco State University, in which the Palestinian-American professor is a defendant. The Israel-aligned Lawfare Project filed the lawsuit June 19, 2017, but the court dismissed it on March 9, 2018 due to insufficient evidence against the defendants. Plaintiffs then re-filed an amended complaint, which attorneys for Abdulhadi are again asking the court to dismiss.

Abdulhadi and the other defendants argue that the lawsuit is an attempt to use

the legal system to silence Palestinian activism and thwart academic freedom.

“Students at San Francisco State have a right to an education that teaches them about what America is funding in the Middle East,” Zahra Billoo, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations San Francisco Bay Area, told the crowd. “All of us should be free to call Zionism what it is— racism, settler colonialism, the theft of land that deprives people of their internationally recognized rights.”

Prior to the hearing, Abdulhadi expressed confidence that “justice is always going to

HUMAN RIGHTS

Human rights activists, including members of the General Union of Palestine Students at San Francisco State University (SFSU), rallied outside San Francisco’s Phillip Burton Federal Building on Aug. 8 in support of Dr. Rabab Abdulhadi, senior scholar of the Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas Initiative at SFSU. OCTOBER 2018

STAFF PHOTO PHIL PASQUINI

Rally for Prof. Rabab Abdulhadi Outside San Francisco Federal Court

Dr. Rabab Abdulhadi speaks at a rally on her behalf prior to a court appearance in San Francisco.

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prevail for Palestine, and for everyone.”

—Elaine Pasquini

On July 24, supporters of Uyghurs and 2017-2018 S Turkic peoples Office District Candidate Party Status Contributions Career Committees other in East Turkestan ralPACs/Individuals PAC Total lied outside the White House, calling attention to the Chinese government’s inhumane H 2 Taylor, Scott W. R I 1,000/ 1,000 A (HS) H 5 Garrett, Thomas A., Jr. R N 750/ 750 FR, HS treatment of the estimated half-million pre8 Beyer, Donald S., Jr. D I 500/ 9,610 H dominantly Muslim Uyghurs, and Gerald E. 11 Kazakhs Connolly, D I 1,000/ 32,510 FR (NE) H D I 8,500/ 19,844 C W who are interned in barbed wire Cantwell, Kyrgyz en- Maria* Murray, Patty D I -/ 225,523 A (D, HS), B S closed camps to undergo what de-Suzan 12,010 B, W 1 Beijing DelBene, D I -/ H H 5 McMorris R I 2,500/ 33,850 C scribes as “transformation through educa- Rodgers, Cathy 6 Kilmer, Derek D I -/ 14,000 A H tion.” The prisoners H are forbidden to prac-Pramila 7 Jayapal, D I -/ 0 B 10 Dennis (Denny) D I 2,000 5,500 I H tice their religion, including praying,Heck, fasting W S Manchin, Joe, III* D I 49,900/ 86,400 A (HS), I and the reading of Islamic religious texts.

H 2 Mooney, Alexander X. R I 6,000/ 20,250 Located on the ancient Silk Road, EastTammy* D I 15,030/ 44,160 A (D, HS), C W Baldwin, 49,450 H 1 Ryan, Paul D. R N 1,000/ Turkestan, the Uyghurs’ ancient homeland H 2 Pocan, Mark D I -/ 12,500 A in China’s western district of3 Xinjiang, H Kind,has Ronald J. D I -/ 11,000 W 4 1949.

Moore, Gwendolynne S. D I 2,000/ 7,000 H been occupied by China since CulH 6 Grothman, Glenn S. R I 3,500/ 3,500 B turally, linguistically and Uyghurs House to call attention 6 Kohl, Dan A supporter protests D outside C the White15,350 15,350 to the inhumane treatment of H religiously, H Turks7 than the Duffy, Sean P.Uyghurs in China.R I -/ 15,500 are more aligned with ChiH 8 Gallagher, Michael J. R I 3,200/ 5,200 AS, HS nese.

In many communities in East S Barrasso, John A.* R I 14,500/ 41,991 FR W Turkestan, however, local authorities re- organizer, passed out informational flyers to criminatory treatment of the Uyghurs and quire the ethnic minorities to pledge loyalty passersby and urged them to contact con- other ethnic minorities by Chinese authori2017-2018 Total PAC Contributions: $ 1,216,090 to the Chinese Communist Party. gressional representatives and political, so- ties. The ETNAM is an international organi$ 4,906,211 Total PAC Contributions (1978-2018): Members of the East Turkistan National cial, and religious organizations$61,310,922 and urge zation seeking to restore the independence Total No. of Recipients (1978-2018): 2,584 Awakening Movement (ETNAM), the rally them to speak out against the brutal, dis- of the Uyghur people. —Elaine Pasquini

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OCTOBER 2018

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Rally for Uyghurs Held Outside White House

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cartoons_67.qxp_October 2018 Cartoons 8/30/18 12:56 PM Page 67

THE WORLD LOOKS AT THE MIDDLE EAST

Lianhe Zaobao, Singapore

www.OtherWords.org

Oncevatan, Istanbul

Ad-Dustour, Amman

Ad-Dustour, Amman

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opm_68-69.qxp_Other Peoples Mail 8/29/18 4:38 PM Page 68

that, from the United States to the Middle East, are pushing discrimination over equal rights and freedom.

Michael Brown, Asheville, NC

INTENT OF THE NATION-STATE LAW IS CLEAR

To the Los Angeles Times, July 22, 2018 Israel’s new nation-state law makes continued United States full-bore support problematic.

The new law rejects democracy and the concept of equal rights for citizens—both bedrock principles of the U.S. government.

With Israel’s new law violating those principles, how can the U.S. continue to shield Israel from accountability at the United Nations, or give Israel about $4 billion in military aid each year?

There is no reason for this law except to bolster Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s status with right-wing voters and to make it clear to the 20 percent of Israeli citizens who are not Jewish that they will remain second-class citizens.

Jeff Warner, Los Angeles, CA

THE NATION-STATE LAW AND A PALESTINIAN POET

AMERICAN “DIPLOMACY” WITH ISRAEL AND PALESTINE

To The Washington Post, July 21, 2018 Jared Kushner, Jason Greenblatt and David Friedman are playing a cruel game of misdirection when they put the onus solely on Hamas for the difficulties faced by Palestinians.

Mr. Kushner and Mr. Friedman have personally funded illegal settlement activity.

They offer economic advancement for Palestinians but say nothing of political freedom from Israeli occupation.

The writers noted in their July 20 Friday Opinion essay, “Hamas is the Palestinians’ enemy,” that Palestinians in Gaza have received international aid, but nowhere did they acknowledge that 70 percent of the Palestinians are refugees whose families were forced out of homes and lands just across the Gaza boundary. The three writers are doing nothing to uphold Palestinians’ right of return but obscure it and reduce those Palestinians killed demonstrating for it to rioters.

They laid blame solely on Hamas in a week when Israel passed discriminatory anti-Palestinian legislation denounced by numerous human rights leaders. These aren’t diplomats to cheer; they are ideologues advancing White House policies 68

To The Register-Guard, Aug. 3, 2018 Once again, Israel has proved that it is a democratic state for Jewish citizens and a Jewish undemocratic state for Palestinian citizens. The recent passage of the nation-state law has enshrined the apartheid nature of Israeli society.

A recent example of this two-tiered system was the sentencing by an Israeli court on July 31 of Palestinian poet, Dareen Tatour, to five months in prison for her poem, “Resist, My People, Resist Them.”

Her crime, according to the Israeli state, was to express resistance to its oppression and occupation through poetry— through the non-violence of words. Paradoxically, by jailing poets, Israel is diminishing the cultural richness of its entire society.

Tatour, who has lived all of her 36 years under occupation, is a veteran of Israeli harassment. She follows a long line of Palestinian writers jailed for their literary expression of resistance. From October 2015 to July 2016, roughly 400 Palestinians were arrested for their social media posts, proving that they have no civil rights.

The myth of Israel’s democracy has been effectively challenged through the poetry of Tatour, who wrote: “...Shred the disgraceful constitution which imposed degradation and humiliation, and deterred

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

us from restoring justice...”

M. Reza Behnam, Eugene, OR

THE U.S. ALSO INTERFERES IN OTHER COUNTRIES, JUST ASK IRAN

To the Idaho Statesman, Aug. 23, 2018 It is puzzling that as we rightly denounce Russian interferences in our internal affairs, we miss the irony of our own meddling in the internal affairs of other countries.

Recently, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo launched a campaign to “erode support for Iranian leaders” and foment unrest in Iran. National Security Adviser John Bolton and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi have declared their support for the Iranian opposition group Mojahedin-eKhalq (MEK). MEK has no legitimacy inside Iran. Its members have committed numerous terrorist acts, and until 2012, this group was on the State Department’s list of terrorist organizations.

The blowback from the last regime change in Iran orchestrated by the CIA in 1953 continues to reverberate to this day.

Iranians are keenly aware of this history.

They are also witnesses to the devastation caused by war and political turmoil in their neighboring countries. Sanctions are war in slow motion. A new round of sanctions on Iran, if anything, will likely make Iranians rally behind their government.

Iranians have the same right of self-determination as any sovereign nation. We would garner more cooperation in international relations if we grant the same respect for other nations’ independence as we do for our own.

Azam Houle, Boise, ID

THE WRONG APPROACH ON IRAN

To The New York Times, Aug. 7, 2018 Re “U.S. Brings Back Iran Sanctions, Defying Europe” (front page, Aug. 7): Sanctions will only lead to lose-lose outcomes for both sides. Sanctions have not worked with Cuba, North Korea and Russia, and sanctions will not work with Iran.

If anything, sanctions inflicting hardship on 80 million Iranians will unite the country behind the autocratic government; sanctions inhibit the people’s longing for freedom, equality and justice.

Sanctions will also penalize American and Western companies; the vacuum will be filled by other competitors worldwide.

The more desirable option is to reinstate the Iran nuclear deal and to negotiate all other concerns multilaterally.

Davood N. Rahni, Pleasantville, NY OCTOBER 2018

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CONGRESS AND U.S. SUPPORT FOR THE WAR IN YEMEN

To The Des Moines Register, Aug. 13, 2018 Recently a Saudi-led coalition bombed a market in rebel-held Yemen hitting a school bus, killing scores of children and women and wounding over 50 civilians. The United States is actively involved in this invisible war that few talk and report on.

We must take responsibility for much of the death and destruction that has transpired in the rebel area. We are supplying weapons and ammunition to the Saudis.

Thousands of civilians, mostly women and children, have been killed and wounded in the rebel area and many thousands more are sick and dying from starvation and disease due to the blockade, which prevents needed food and medical supplies from reaching them.

This is a humanitarian crisis of catastrophic proportions. Where is the oversight by Congress of our involvement in this war that is causing such misery and suffering? Why are we not actively trying to broker a ceasefire and making a concerted effort to get humanitarian aid to these people?

James Marcovis, West Des Moines, IA

NO RATIONALE FOR STAYING IN AFGHANISTAN

To The Washington Post, Aug. 27, 2018 In his Aug. 24 Friday Opinion commentary, “The Taliban doesn’t need peace. It’s winning,” Max Boot lamented how U.S. foreign policy leaders often do the same thing over and over while expecting different results. But he did precisely that by arguing for an indefinite U.S. military force presence in Afghanistan as the “least bad option.”

Mr. Boot is deluding himself if he believes that extending the war for another 10, 20 or 30 years is in the U.S. national security interest. While concerns about a Taliban takeover of Afghanistan are understandable, they are far outweighed by the considerable manpower, time, taxpayer money and opportunity costs the United States would need to expend to prevent it.

To believe the Taliban wouldn’t think twice before again hosting transnational terrorists is far-fetched: The group lost its control of Afghanistan because of it. Indeed, in the OCTOBER 2018

years since, Taliban officials have openly regretted their past association with alQaeda.

The United States was morally and legally justified to intervene in Afghanistan after 9/11. Al-Qaeda deserved nothing less than destruction. But the United States accomplished that objective in the opening months of the war. It has the intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance capacity to monitor and combat the threat of transnational terrorism without distracting itself with another decade of nation-building and deploying yet another generation of Americans into a decades-long Afghan civil war.

Daniel R. DePetris, Washington, DC

NEW REPORT DETAILS THE DEPTH OF U.S. WASTE IN AFGHANISTAN

To the LNP [of Lancaster, PA], Aug. 7, 2018 The U.S. has wasted $15.5 billion in Afghanistan since 2008, according to the Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction, which he estimated is probably only a portion of the waste, fraud, abuse and failed efforts of the U.S. in Afghanistan.

How sad that that money wasn’t used for urban renewal projects in the U.S. Imagine what $15.5 billion could do for the City of Philadelphia if spent wisely.

Daniel Riehl, Manheim Township, PA

WE MUST TALK ABOUT OUR HUGE DEFENSE BUDGET

To the Chico Enterprise-Record, July 22, 2018 George Orwell famously said, “The biggest lie is the lie of omission.” That is the case in the E-R’s July 16 editorial, “Congress must end foolhardy federal spending.”

The 500-word editorial cites interest on the national debt, Social Security and Medicare as the main drivers of the na-

tional debt. There is no mention of the obscene amount of money spent and unaccounted for by the Pentagon. The Defense Department’s inspector general has reported several times about trillions of dollars spent that are unaccounted for.

Plus there is no mention of the events that exploded our national debt: Tax cuts, by Ronald Reagan, George Bush and now Donald Trump coupled with huge increases in defense spending. The debt tripled under Reagan, doubled under Bush.

Deficits continued under Barack Obama because he continued the same outrageous and unaccountable spending by the Pentagon.

The editorial blames two programs, Social Security and Medicare, which both have dedicated funding through payroll taxes, for our massive debt. Increases in defense spending are done on borrowed money which, along with tax cuts and the interest from borrowing, have increased our debt.

Don’t be fooled by this propaganda.

The truth is Social Security has almost $3 trillion in excess funds collected and placed in the general fund to hide the deficit increases created by increased defense spending to fight the mythical enemies of Communism (Vietnam) and now terrorism (Middle East).

We can cut our debt by cutting the wasteful and unaccounted for money spent by the Pentagon.

Paul Ellcessor, Durham, CA

THE MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX AND “SPACE FORCE”

To the Los Angeles Times, Aug. 22, 2018 When I first read about this “great idea” Trump claims to have had [to create a “space force” as the sixth branch of the U.S. military], I thought, “Oh, good, a new place for a war.” Then I remembered President Eisenhower’s warning about a “military industrial complex.”

Now we find out that Trump’s idea for a “space force” came from, who else, a group of government officials with deep financial ties to the aerospace industry.

This is another “great” way for the swamp dwellers in Washington to make a buck.

Carol Giandalia, Torrance, CA ■

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B •O •O •K •S Finding Jesus Among Muslims

By Jordan Denari Duffner, Liturgical Press, 2017, paperback, 162 pp. MEB: $18.

At a time of ever sharpening divisions, heightened xenophobia, and the thorough mainstreaming of an antagonistic obsession with Islam and Muslims in many parts of the Western world, a young Catholic from Indiana issues this clarion call for deep engagement and dialogue with Islam and Muslims.

Guiding her readers through her own personal journey of faith and her encounters with Muslims in the United States and abroad, Jordan Denari Duffner makes a passionate case to her spiritual brethren to view interreligious dialogue with Muslims as not merely a feel-good gesture of neighborliness, but as a fulfilment of spiritual mandate. Duffner does not belittle interfaith dialogue with the objective of collaborating for justice, resolving conflict, deepening mutual understanding between religious communities, or even seeking converts, but she as-

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Reviewed by Amin Gharad serts that these ought not to be the ultimate goals motivating her fellow Christians to engage. At its core, she writes, such engagement should be fundamentally animated by a desire to draw closer to God. Duffner first introduces us to some of the Muslims she’s come to know, and Islam as reflected through their character lived experiences. She underscores her belief—citing Pope Francis—that Christians cannot truly be in relationship with God while being out of relationship with Muslims.

She then moves on to discuss the experiences of animus and prejudice endured by many Muslims living in Western countries. Drawing parallels between the treatment of Catholics and Muslims in the United States, she demonstrates how today’s prejudices and acts of hate against Muslims so resemble antiCatholic sentiments of old. She describes the torching of Catholic churches and mosques, as well as the depiction of these communities as subversive fifth columns set on infiltrating American institutions, changing its culture and way of life, and supplanting U.S. laws.

The latter portion of her work is devoted to exploring her experiences living a life deeply engaged in dialogue with Islam and Muslims. She tells of how her own relationship with faith was deepened by her encountering Muslims, and how her fellow Christians might also experience God and faith with “fresh perspective and eager curiosity” by approaching their religion through a tradition other than

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

their own. She also addresses challenging topics in the arena of interreligious dialogue, and concludes with a practical guide for putting her call for engagement between faith communities into action.

The work is as informative as it is personal. While unfailingly sensitive and gracious, Finding Jesus Among Muslims is not sanitized. Duffner writes honestly and does not merely brush under the rug uncomfortable aspects of her journey over the years. She reveals thoughts and experiences that many would be reluctant to reveal, particularly in settings as emotionally combustible and susceptible to provoking offense as faith and religious differences.

Duffner broaches thorny aspects of theology that threatened her own faith— such as the question of who can be saved—and discusses the ways in which Islam and Christianity are quite different.

She writes also of having to grapple with her own preconceived notions about Muslims. She tells of having witnessed anti-Muslim sentiment from those she knew back in Indiana, on Christian satellite TV channels, and even among her Jordanian Christian hosts and a Catholic priest she met in their home. Most disconcerting for Duffner is that the latter individuals knew and regularly encountered Muslims.

In this is a lesson that speaks to the importance of her project. In her mind, dialogue is not merely surface level interaction and niceties, but a disposition. It is a way, as she writes, of “being in relationship with others” and “an attitude of openness, allowing others to speak for and define themselves, giving them the benefit of the doubt, assuming the best—not the worst—in others, and refusing to let our ignorance be exploited by those who benefit from conflict.”

This is Duffner’s challenge to us all. ■

Amin Gharad is director of Middle East Books and More, a project of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.

OCTOBER 2018

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• EAST • BOOKS • AND • MORE MIDDLE Literature Films Pottery Solidarity Items More *

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FALL 2018 P is for Palestine: A Palestine Alphabet Book, by Golbarg Bashi, Dr. Bashi, 2018, 66 pp. MEB: $30. The second edition of the best-selling P is for Palestine, the world's first-ever English-language ABC story book about Palestine, told in simple rhymes, with stunning illustrations to act as an educational, colorful, empowering reference for children, showcasing the geography, beauty and strength of Palestinian culture.

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 ever-changing threats. But what if its most serious challenge comes from within?

There was once a national consensus in Israeli society: politics was split between left and right, but its people were broadly secular and liberal. Over the past decade, the country has fractured into tribes fighting internecine battles—over religion and state, war and peace, race and identity.

Restating Orientalism: A Critique of Modern Knowledge,

by Wael Hallaq, Columbia University Press, 2018, hardcover, 392 pp. MEB: $44. In this landmark theoretical investigation, Hallaq reevaluates and deepens the critique of Orientalism in order to deploy it for rethinking the foundations of the modern project. Refusing to isolate or scapegoat Orientalism, Hallaq extends the critique to law, philosophy, scientific inquiry, sovereignty and the self and exposes the depth of academia’s lethal complicity in modern forms of capitalism, colonialism and hegemonic power.

Witnesses of the Unseen: Seven Years in Guantanamo,

by Lakhdar Boumediene and Mustafa Ait Idir, Redwood Press, 2018, paperback, 288 pp.

MEB: $15. The authors were living peaceful lives in Bosnia when, in October 2001, they were arrested and accused of participating in a terrorist plot.

They were flown to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and held for the next seven years, enduring torture, force-feedings and beatings. Now living in Europe and rebuilding their lives, they are finally free to share a story that every American ought to know.

Feast: Food of the Islamic World, by Anissa Helou, Ecco, 2018, hardcover, 544 pp. MEB: $45. In Feast, award-winning chef Anissa Helou—an authority on the cooking of North Africa, the Mediterranean, and the Middle East—shares her extraordinary range of beloved, time-tested recipes and stories from cuisines in the Muslim world. Suffused with history, brought to life with stunning photographs, and inflected

by Helou’s humor, charm, and sophistication, Feast is an indispensable addition to the culinary canon featuring some of the world’s most inventive cultures and peoples.

A History of Muslims, Christians, and Jews in the Middle East, by Heather J. Sharkey, Cambridge University Press, 2017, paperback, 394 pp. MEB: $27. Across centuries, the Islamic Middle East hosted large populations of Christians and Jews in addition to Muslims. Sharkey examines the history that Muslims, Christians and Jews once shared against the shifting backdrop of state policies. Focusing on the Ottoman Middle East before World War I, Sharkey offers a vivid and lively analysis of everyday social contacts, dress, music, food, bathing, and more, as they brought people together or pushed them apart.

Yemen: Dancing on the Heads of Snakes, by Victoria Clark, Yale University Press, 2010, paperback, 328 pp.

MEB: $21. Yemen is the dark horse of the Middle East. Every so often it enters the headlines for one alarming reason or another—links with al-Qaeda, kidnapped Westerners, explosive population growth—then sinks into obscurity again.

Clark returns to the country where she was born to discover a perilously fragile state that deserves more of our understanding and attention.

Untangling Yemen’s history before examining the country’s role in both al-Qaeda and the wider jihadist movement today, Clark presents a lively and clear account of a little-known state.

The Falcon's Arrow: The Book of Seljuk, by Oryal Tanir, self-published, 2015, paperback, 328 pp. MEB: $15. In 1020 A.D., a man with a troubled past finds himself in a strange land east of Byzantium. As he tries to come to terms with his life, a nomadic clan of mercenaries adopts him— unraveling a tumultuous sequence of events. The clan is led by Seljuk princes who trace their roots to ancient Oghuz legends and empires.

This is a story of the incredible events that defined the destiny of a man in a foreign land and his adopted family: the Seljuks.

Harlots of the Desert: A Study of Repentance in Early Monastic Sources, by Benedicta Ward, Cistercian Publications, 1987, paperback, 128 pp.

MEB: $12. Beauty consuming itself like incense burnt before God in solitude: these stories of penitent women from the fourth-century Egyptian desert fascinated Christians in antiquity and throughout the Middle Ages.

S H I P P I N G R AT E S Most items are discounted and available on a first-come, first-served basis. Orders accepted by mail, phone (800-368-5788 ext. 2), or Web (www.middleeastbooks.com). All payments in U.S. funds. Visa, MasterCard, Discover and American Express accepted. Please send mail orders to Middle East Books and More, 1902 18th St. NW, Washington, DC 20009, with checks and money orders made out to “AET.” U.S. Shipping Rates: Please add $2.50 for the first item and $2 for each additional item. Canada & Mexico shipping charges: Please add $15 for the first item and $2.50 for each additional item. International shipping charges: Please add $15 for the first item and $3.50 for each additional item.

We ship by USPS Priority unless otherwise requested.

OCTOBER 2018

Library packages (list value over $240) are available for $29 if donated to a library, or free if requested with a library’s paid subscription or renewal. Call Middle East Books and More at 800-368-5788 ext. 2 to order. Our policy is to identify donors unless anonymity is specifically requested.

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

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O• B • I • T • U • A • R • I • E • S Mai Skaf (May Scaff), 49, died in her home on July 23 in Dourdan, southwest of Paris. While a colleague stated that she died of a heart attack, others—including her family and friends—are suspicious about the true cause of her death, deeming it “mysterious” given her showing no signs of illness before her death.

A celebrated Syrian actress born into a mixed Muslim and Christian Damascene household, she gained renown as a revolutionary icon for her role in protests against Syrian President Bashar alAssad in 2011. She was arrested in 2012 for taking part in a protest that came to be known as the “intellectuals’ demonstration,” and was again detained later that year. After receiving numerous death threats, she decided to flee to Jordan, and eventually settled in France where she had lived since 2015. Defiant and hopeful until the end, Skaf’s last Facebook post read, “I will not lose hope, never lose hope. It’s the Great Syria, not Assad’s Syria.”

A woman and artist of principle, Skaf distinguished herself not only for her achievements and popularity on the big screen, but as a beacon of integrity and unwavering courage. She decided early on to become a symbol of the revolution at a time when many other Syrian artists feared saying or doing anything that might invite regime crackdown. Her activism did not end after settling in France.

In 2016, she demonstrated in Berlin against anti-refugee sentiment and policies in Europe, symbolically offering herself as fodder to a group of Libyan lions.

Skaf is survived by her mother and son, Joud.

Yasser al-Masri, 47, died on Aug. 23 after being involved in a car accident in Zarqa, Jordan. Born and raised in Kuwait in 1970, al-Masri would go on to graduate from the Jordanian Music Academy before acting in a number of Arabic-language television series such as “Nimr bin Adwan,” where he starred as the lead actor, and, most recently, “Haroon AlRasheed.”

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He is survived by his wife, journalist Nisreen al-Kurd, and their three children.

Arlene Briem Sayegh, 92, died tragically earlier this summer as a result of a car accident in California. Arlene—a passionate advocate for the Palestinian cause—relentlessly continued the work and mission of her late husband, the celebrated Palestinian American academic and civil servant, Dr. Fayez A. Sayegh (See “In Memoriam” by Ambassador Andrew I. Killgore published on pp. 22-23 in the December 2005 Washington Report.)

A graduate of Brigham Young University, Arlene traveled to New York to take a job at the United Nations where she would eventually meet and marry Dr. Fayez.

A devoted longtime reader and friend of the Washington Report, she is remembered for having carved a legacy of her own in the realm of Palestinian activism, independently noteworthy, yet beautifully intertwined, with the legacy of her late husband. A friend and pen pal of hers, M.J. Ogden, credits her for helping him educate hundreds of students otherwise reflexively apathetic or antagonistic toward the Palestinian cause over the course of his tenure as a professor at Weber State University (see p. 6). She also took on the mantle of meticulously preserving much of her husband’s intellectual legacy, donating hundreds of his written works and recorded speeches and interviews—along with his massive personal library—to the University of Utah at Ogden.

We remember Sayegh here and she will be greatly missed.

Jamal A. Sa’d, 86, died at his home in East Lansing, Michigan on July 10 of complications from Parkinson’s disease.

After fleeing Palestine in 1948 during the Nakba, he and his family settled in Beirut, Lebanon where he would go on to attend the American University with a concentration in political science and law. Eventually Sa’d immigrated to the United States where he would pursue graduate studies at the University of Vir-

WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

Compiled by Amin Gharad ginia and a Ph.D. in international studies from Johns Hopkins University.

Dr. Sa’d enjoyed a vibrant career in diplomacy and business, distinguished by a decade of service at the Lebanese Embassy in Washington, DC, the Arab Information Center of the League of Arab States, and later at the United Nations.

He also directed for a time the American Arab Association for Commerce and Industry.

In his spare time, Dr. Sa’d enjoyed music and the arts with a passion for the harmonica, drawing, and painting. He is remembered for his elegant style, lively intellect, and an effervescent presence that captivated the room.

He is survived by three daughters, Najwa, Rima, and Nadia; and six grandchildren. ■

In Memoriam

Continued from page 54

for Gush Shalom was published just 16 days prior to his death and, according to The New York Times, Avnery was planning to attend a large demonstration when he suffered the stroke that killed him.

As I contemplate Uri Avnery’s legacy it seems to me that his biggest contribution was his effect on those outside of Israel and Palestine—but perhaps that’s because I myself am an outsider, neither Israeli nor Palestinian. As an Israeli, as a soldier, as a member of the Knesset, his writings calling for Palestinian rights—although he always maintained that the return of Palestinians was an impossibility—and faulting Israeli wrongs awakened many who didn’t heed the same calls by Palestinians, readers who couldn’t see the same faults pointed out by non-Israelis. Photographs of Avnery being beaten by other Israelis as he demonstrated with Palestinians opened many eyes. His talk and his walk alerted many to dig deeper into the realities of Israel’s occupation of Palestine. Avnery played a significant role in changing public perception, particularly over the last 20 years. Although I didn’t always agree with him, I know the peace movement has suffered a great loss. ■ OCTOBER 2018

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AET’s 2018 Choir of Angels

Following are individuals, organizations, companies and foundations whose help between Jan. 11, 2018 and Aug. 14, 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 Jeff Abood, Silver Lake, OH Rev. Fahed Abu-Akel, Atlanta, GA Miriam & Stephen Adams, Albuquerque, NM Michael & Jane Adas, Highland Park, NJ James C. Ahlstrom, Stirling, NJ Qamar Ahsan, Flint, MI Saleh Al-Ashkar, Tucson, AZ Dr. Subhi Ali, Waverly, TN Joe & Siham Alfred, Fredericksburg, VA Hamid & Kim Alwan, Milwaukee, WI Nabil & Judy Amarah, Danbury, CT Ruby Amatulla, Dhaka, Bangladesh Edwin Amidon, Charlotte, VT Nazife Amrou, Sylvania, OH Mr. & Mrs. Thomas Are, Stone Mountain, GA Dr. Robert Ashmore, Mequon, WI Salim Bahloul, Blackburn South, Australia Rev. Robert E. Barber, Parrish, FL Elizabeth Barlow, Augusta, MI Allen & Jerrie Bartlett, Philadelphia, PA Helen Bourne, Encinitas, CA John V. Brown, Los Altos, CA James Burkart, Bethesda, MD Patricia Christensen, Poulsbo, WA Carolyn Cicciu, Goffstown, NH James Cobey, Washington, DC John Cornwall, Palm Springs, CA John Dirlik, Pointe Claire, Canada Mr. & Mrs. L. F. Boker Doyle, New York, NY Sarah L. Duncan, Vienna, OH Dr. David Dunning, Lake Oswego, OR Ibrahim Elkarra, San Francisco, CA Ghassan Elkhatib, Belton, MO Albert E. Fairchild, Bethesda, MD Family Practice & Surgery, Eaton ton, GA Bill Freij, Plymouth, MI Michael Gillespie, Maxwell, IA Sherif Gindy, Macomb, MI Doug Greene, Bowling Green, OH Iftekhar Hai, S. San Francisco, CA OCTOBEr 2018

Dixiane Hallaj, Purcellville, VA Erin K. Hankir, Nepean, Canada Delinda C. Hanley, Kensington, MD Shirley Hannah, Queensbury, NY Susan Haragely, Livonia, MI Dr. Walid & Norma Harb, Dearborn Hts., MI Angelica Harter, N. Branford, CT Mr. & Mrs. Sameer Hassan, Quaker Hill, CT Joan & Edward Hazbun, Media, PA Clement Henry, Moorestown, NJ James Hillen, North Vancouver, Canada Mr. & Mrs. Azmi Ideis, Deltona, FL Mary Izett, Walnut Creek, CA Rafeeq Jaber, Palos Hills, IL Bilquis Jaweed, West Chester, OH Ronald Jaye, Watsonville, CA Zagloul & Muntaha Kadah, Los Gatos, CA Mark Kaidy, Westminster, MD Dr. Nadim Kassem, Roseland, NJ Stephen Kaye, New York, NY Brian J. Kelly, Albuquerque, NM Susan Kerin, Rockville, MD Ismath J. Khan, Bloomfield Hills, MI Abdalhakim Khirfan, Flint, MI Dr. Nabil Khoury, Bloomfield, MI Carl Kleinholz, Elyria, OH Loretta Krause, Southport, NC Ronald Kunde, Skokie, IL John Lankenau, Tivoli, NY Mary Ann Laret, Sarasota, FL Marilyn Levin, Ashland, OR Phillip M. Lombard, Whitehall, MI Joseph Louis, Los Gatos, CA Anthony Mabarak, Grosse Pointe Park, MI Marilyn MacConnell, Lancaster, PA Donald Maclay, Springfield, PA Farah Mahmood, Forsyth, IL Richard Makdisi & Lindsay Wheeler, Berkeley, CA Dr. Asad Malik, Bloomfield Hills, MI Ted Marczak, Toms River, NJ Martha Martin, Kahului, HI John Matthews, West Newton, MA Carol Mazzia, Santa Rosa, CA Shirl McArthur, Reston, VA

Alex & Peggy McDonald, Burke, VA Gwendolyn McEwen, Bellingham, WA Raymond L. McGovern, Arlington, VA Bill McGrath, Northfield, MN Tom Mickelson, Neshkoro, WI Dr. Yehia Mishriki, Emmaus, PA John & Ruth Monson, La Crosse, WI Mr. & Mrs. Jan Moreb, Gainesville, FL Ann Murphy, Tacoma, WA Isa & Dalal Musa, Falls Church, VA Joseph Najemy, Worcester, MA John Najemy, Albany, NY Jacob Nammar, San Antonio, TX Mary Neznek, Washington, DC Kamal Obeid, Fremont, CA Rawhi Omar, Crestwood, KY Khaled Othman, Riverside, CA Ruth Persky, Los Angeles, CA Jim Plourd, Monterey, CA John Prugh, Long Beach, CA Cheryl Quigley, Toms River, NJ Doris Rausch, Columbia, MD Mr. & Mrs. Edward Reilly, Rocky Point, NY Paul Richards, Salem, OR Neil Richardson, Randolph, VT Brynhild Rowberg, Northfield, MN Amb. William Rugh, Hingham, MA Dr. Mohammed Sabbagh, Grand Blanc, MI Denis Sabourin, Pattaya, Thailand Walter & Halina Sasak, Northborough, MA Dr. Abid Shah, Sarasota, FL Bernice Shaheen, Hilton Head, SC# Richard J. Shaker, Annapolis, MD Qaiser & Tanseem Shamim, Somerset, NJ Kathy Sheridan, Mill Valley, CA Dr. Mostafa Hashem Sherif, Tinton Falls, NJ Andy Sherman, Ardmore, OK Zac Sidawi, Costa Mesa, CA Sisters of St. Francis, Tiffin, OH David Skerry, Medford, MA Edgar W. Snell, Jr., Schenectady, NY Rev. John J. Sullivan, Maryknoll, NY McDonald Sullivan, Seattle, WA Thomas & Carol Swepston,

WAShIngTOn rEPOrT On MIDDLE EAST AFFAIrS

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Englewood, FL Monica Swift, Los Angeles, CA Sajid Syed, Closter, NJ Doris Taweel, Laurel, MD Charles Thomas, La Conner, WA Edmund & Norma Tomey, Dorset, VT Bob Tripp, Reston, VA Tom Veblen, Washington, DC Paul H. Verduin, Silver Spring, MD V. R. Vitolins, Grosse Pointe Farms, MI James Wall, Elmhurst, IL Rev. Hermann Weinlick, Minneapolis, MN Carol Wells, Venice, CA Willard White, Phoenix, AZ Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, Falls Church, VA Women Against Military Madness, Minneapolis, MN Nabil Yakub, McLean, VA Raymond Younes, Oxnard, CA John Zacharia, Vienna, VA Munir Zacharia, La Mirada, CA Mahmoud Zawawi, Amman, Jordan Fred Zuercher, Spring Grove, PA

ACCOMPANISTS ($250 or more)

Helen Bourne, Encinitas, CA Dr. Ann Bragdon & Karim Al Kadi, Houston, TX Duncan Clark, Rockville, MD Larry Cooper, Plymouth, MI**** Mr. & Mrs. Andrew Curtiss, Herndon VA Tom D’Albani & Dr. Jane Killgore, Bemidji, MN** Catherine Fararjeh, Santa Clara, CA Ken Galal, San Francisco, CA Joseph & Angela Gauci, Whittier, CA Raymond Gordon, Bel Air, MD Dr. Marwan Hujeij, Cincinnati, OH

Fahd Jajeh, Lake Forest, IL Dr. Raymond Jallow Family Foundation, Los Angeles, CA* Dr. Jamil Jreisat, Temple Ter., FL Gloria Keller, Santa Rosa, CA Brian J. Kelly, Albuquerque, NM Nidal Mahayni, Richmond, VA Tom & Tess McAndrew, Oro Valley, AZ Ben Monk, Saint Paul, MN Sara Najjar-Wilson, Reston, VA Phillip Portlock, Washington, DC Clarence Prince, Austin, TX Sam Rahman, Lincoln, CA Ramzy Salem, Monterey Park, CA Yusef & Jennifer Sifri, Wilmington, NC David J. Snider, Bolton, MA Darcy Sreebny, Issaquah, WA Mae Stephen, Palo Alto, CA Cathy & Michel Sultan, Eau Claire, WI Benjamin Wade, Saratoga, CA

TENORS & CONTRALTOS ($500 or more)

Robert Akras, North Bay Village, FL Dr. & Mrs. Roger Bagshaw, Big Sur, CA William G. Coughlin, Brookline, MA Lois Critchfield, Williamsburg, VA Sylvia Anderson De Freitas, Duluth, MN Mervat Eid, Henrietta, NY Dr. Wasif Hafeez, W. Bloomfield, MI Brigitte Jaensch, Carmichael, CA Robert Keith, Brooklyn, NY Dr. Muhammad M. Kudaimi, Munster, IN Tony Litwinko, Los Angeles, CA Jack Love, Kailua Kona, HI Dr. Charles W. McCutchen, Bethesda, MD Gerald & Judith Merrill, Oakland, CA Mary Norton, Austin, TX Herbert & Patricia Pratt, Cambridge, MA Mary H. Regier, El Cerrito, 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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WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

Lisa Schiltz, Barber, Bahrain Yasir Shallal, McLean, VA Norman Tanber, Dana Point, CA Dr. Robert Younes, Potomac, MD 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 Anace & Polly Aossey, Cedar Rapids, IA Lois Aroian, East Jordan, MI Graf Herman Bender, North Palm Beach, FL 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 Joseph Daruty, Newport Beach, CA Dr. & Mrs. Clyde Farris, West Linn, OR**,*** Mr. & Mrs. Majed Faruki, Albuquerque, NM Evan Fotos, Istanbul, Turkey Hind Hamdan, Hagerstown, MD Salman & Kate Hilmy, Silver Spring, MD Helen Holman, Litchfield, ME Judith Howard, Norwood, MA Ghazy Kader, Shoreline, WA William Lightfoot, Vienna, VA Bill & Jean Mansour, McMinnville, OR Ralph Nader, Public Citizen, Washington, DC Jacqueline Rizik, Washington, DC Dr. William Strange, Fort Garland, CO Dr. Imad Tabry, Fort Lauderdale, FL Donn Trautman, Evanston, IL

CHOIRMASTERS ($5,000 or more)

Donna B. Curtiss, Kensington, MD*,** Ronald & Mary Forthofer, Longmont, CO John Gareeb, Atlanta, GA John & Henrietta Goelet, New York, NY John McGillion, Asbury Park, NJ *In Memory of Pat McDonnell Twair **In Memory of Andrew I. Killgore ***In Memory of Richard H. Curtiss ****In Memory of Diane Cooper # In Memory of Dr. Jack Shaheen OCTOBER 2018

UPA_ad_c3.qxp_UPA Ad Cover 3 8/27/18 3:01 PM Page c3

They are the e future of Pale estine.

Shaima (right) is a medicaal student at Al-Azhar University in Gaza.

Laith (lefft) t) is a graphic design major at Dar al-Kalima University College o of Arts & Culture in Bethlehem.

ANNOUNCING THE MAHMOUD A DARWISH SCHOLA ARSHIP FUND

Donate today and help secure a brighter tomorrow ffor or students like Laith and Shaima.

Online: upac p onnect.org g/education Toll-free: 855-659-5007 ext. 202 Toll-fr

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United Pa alestinian Appeal

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

October 2018

Vol. XXXVII, No. 6

A Pakistani family takes a selfie after Eid al-Adha prayers at the Badshahi Mosque in Lahore on Aug. 22, 2018. Muslims across the world celebrated the annual festival of Eid al-Adha, or the Festival of Sacrifice, which marks the end of the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia and commemorates Prophet Abraham's readiness to sacrifice his son to show obedience to God. ARIF ALI/AFP/Getty Images