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United Palestinian Palestinian Appeal
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TELLING THE TRUTH SINCE 1982
On Middle East Affairs
Volume XXXVII, No. 7
November/December 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
8
Oslo and Camp David Agreements: The Aftermath—Two Views — Amira Hass, Paul R. Pillar
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22 23 28
No Dramatic Makeover Can Turn Abu Dis Into the Capital of Palestine — Jonathan Cook
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President Trump’s Vengeful Crackdown on the Palestinians—Two Views — Susan Akram, Rev. Alex Awad
19
For Israel, All Carrots and No Sticks — Mohamed Mohamed
What Happens When Americans Vote for Legislators Who Refuse to Represent Them?— Janet McMahon Pro-Israel PAC Contributions to 2018 Congressional Candidates— Compiled by Hugh Galford
Trump Tries to Silence Palestinians and their Friends. Instead They’re Energized— Delinda C. Hanley
47
30 33 35 38 40 43 44
Goodies for Israel Bills Continue to Move Forward— Shirl McArthur
Why Israel Demolishes: Khan Al-Ahmar as Representation of Greater Genocide— Ramzy Baroud
Killing Gaza’s Men, Women and Children—Two Views — Mohammed Abu Mughaiseeb, Mohammed Omer Netanyahu and Trump’s Magnetic Attraction to the U.N. Podium— Ian Williams
Palestine Declares Legal War on the United States of America— Victor Kattan
Holocaust Memorial Museum Continues to Rake in Americans’ Tax Dollars— Janet McMahon Russia and Israel Relations—Two Views — Gideon Levy, Paul R. Pillar
SPECIAL REPORTS Jamal Khashoggi and the Arab Dark Hole Where Foreign Outrage Refuses to Tread — Rami G. Khouri
49
Turning Off the Taps in Turkish Cyprus — Jonathan Gorvett
51
53
Malaysian Shake-up Touches Middle East Relations — John Gee Hating Muslims in the Age of Trump— Juan Cole
ON THE COVER: Armed Israeli soldiers watch as a Palestinian protester runs with his national flag on the beach near the maritime border with Israel, in the northern Gaza Strip, during a demonstration calling for the lift of the Israeli blockade on the coastal Palestinian enclave, Sept. 10, 2018. SAID KHATIB/AFP/Getty Images
toc_3-4 v3.qxp_November/December 2018 TOC 10/18/18 10:35 PM Page 4
(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
REVEALED: Canary Mission Blacklist Is Secretly Bank-Rolled by Major Jewish Federation, Josh Nathan-Kazis, The Forward OV-1
Britain: The Anti-Semitism Debate, Conn Hallinan, www.counterpunch.org
OV-9
Israel Project President Urged Funders to Anonymously Promote Pro-Israel Messaging, Eli Clifton, www.lobelog.com OV-3
Post Columnist and Trump Administration Team up on Iran Regime Change, Ben Armbruster, https://lobelog.com
OV-11
Pro-Israel Group Secretly Ran Misleading Facebook Ads to Target Palestinian-American Poet, Josh Nathan-Kazis & Justin Elliott, The Forward OV-4
Is the Ahvaz Terror Attack Aimed at Dragging the U.S. Into a Larger War?, Trita Parsi, www.middleeasteye.net
OV-11
79 Percent of Right-Wingers Believe Jews Are the Chosen People. Are You for Real?, Gideon Levy, Haaretz
OV-5
America’s New Game Is Risk Without Rules, Rashmee Roshan Lall, www.rashmee.com OV-12
OV-6
Manafort and Senior Israeli Official Meddled in Ukraine Elections, Obama Foreign Policy, Amir Tibon & Noa Landau, Haaretz
OV-13
OV-7
Freedom Flotilla Missions Will Continue ‘Until Palestine Is Free,’ Elizabeth Murray, Consortium News
OV-14
Don’t Expect Rashida Tlaib to Be A Savior for Palestinians in Congress. It’s Up to Us All, Noura Erakat, www.middleeasteye.net Seventeen Years After 9/11, Muslims Are Still “Presumed Guilty,” Aysha Khan, Religion News Service (RNS)
5 Publishers’ Page
6 letters to the editor
55 the World looks at the Middle east —Cartoons
56 Waging Peace: How Can the arab World Move Beyond Conflict?
61 huMan rights: rep. Betty McCollum: “It’s Called apartheid”
64 Music & arts: Inaugural Fundraiser for Museum of the Palestinian People
65 book talks: Preventing Palestine: Is History repeating Itself?
68 book reVieWs:
to save an Empire: a novel of ottoman History;
Philosophy in the Islamic World: a Very short Introduction
—Reviewed by Amin Gharad 69 latest arriVals FroM Middle east books and More
71 other PeoPle’s Mail
73 2018 aet choir oF angels 48 indeX to adVertisers
Youth organizer Aaron Ibarra urges students to help people register and vote in Nevada. When he was 8, his father was deported and 12 years later he's knocking on doors to say, "hey, it’s time to vote."
PHOTO BY ETHAN MILLER/GETTY IMAGES
DEPARTMENTS
pubsr_5.qxp_Publishers Page 10/19/18 12:13 AM Page 5
American Educational Trust
Vengeful Crackdown on the Palestinians.
PHOTO HAZEM BADER/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
Susan Akram and Rev. Alex Awad explore the many ways
end the injustice we see in or out of sight of the mainstream media. In fact one of our readers suggested we share the words of New England poet and noted abolitionist James Russell Lowell (1819-1891) in his poem “The Present Crisis:” Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide; In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side...Then it is the brave man chooses, while the coward stands aside...
This picture taken on Sept. 9, 2018 shows a view of the Gaza Strip's former Yasser Arafat International Airport in Rafah, bombed by Israel Dec. 4, 2001, after the start of the al-Aqsa Intifada. Bulldozers cut the runway apart Jan. 10, 2002. It was a symbol of the hopes for independence and peace created by the Oslo accords. U.S. President Bill Clinton attended its opening on Nov. 24, 1998. But 25 years after those historic agreements (see p. 8), the airport in Gaza lies in tatters, along with Palestinian hopes for an independent state.
Palestinians react after Israeli soldiers demolished a home in an area south of Yatta in the occupied West Bank on Oct. 17, 2018. (See For Israel, All Carrots and No Sticks on p. 19.)
the Trump administration has turned the Palestinians into the boogeyman of the Middle East, on pp. 16-18 of this issue. We also explore the forced shutdown of the PLO diplomatic mission in October (see p. 28), and how the Palestinian movement is refusing to let this move dampen their resolve.
For More than 35 Years...
The Washington Report has worked to spotlight these stories. With a lot of help from our readers, writers and donors we try to educate our friends, families, fellow voters and the legislators who refuse to represent us (see p. 22). We’ve all been deputized ambassadors who must speak out to NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018
JAAFAR ASHTIYEH/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
Whenever the world is swept up watching a disaster unfold—hurricanes, fires, ghastly murders or political scandals—TV news and newspapers miss many human rights offenses. The mainstream media may not be focusing on Israel right now, but we are! With the cameras directed elsewhere, Israel is prepared to demolish the village of Khan Al-Ahmar (see p. 33), has peddled more destructive lies at the U.N. General Assembly (see p. 38), and continued to kill and maim desperate Gazans (see p. 35). Meanwhile, President Trump has initiated a...
SAID KHATIB/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
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Israeli soldiers gather at the main entrance of a Palestinian school that has been ordered by Israel to be shut down, in the town of asSawiyah, south of Nablus, on Oct. 15, 2018. (See Ramzy Baroud’s article on Israel’s Greater Genocide on p. 33.)
the right answers. Republicans, Democrats and Independents are all fired up. Choose carefully and mindfully. The world is watching and waiting.
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Our second and last annual donation appeal of 2018 will soon be headed your way. Please also do your holiday shopping at Middle East Books and More. It’s more urgent than ever to keep each other’s spirits up and to...
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WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
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lte_6-7.qxp_NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018 Letters to Editor 10/18/18 9:35 PM Page 6
Managing Editor: News Editor: Assistant Editor:
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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. AET’s Foreign Policy Committee has included former U.S. ambassadors, government officials, and members of Congress, including the late Democratic Sen. J. William Fulbright and Republican Sen. Charles Percy, both former chairmen of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Members of AET’s Board of Directors and advisory committees receive no fees for their services. The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs does not take partisan domestic political positions. As a solution to the Palestinian-Israeli dispute, it endorses U.N. Security Council Resolution 242’s landfor-peace formula, supported by nine successive U.S. presidents. In general, it supports Middle East solutions which it judges to be consistent with the charter of the United Nations and traditional American support for human rights, self-determination, and fair play. Material from the Washington Report may be reprinted without charge with attribution to Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. Bylined material must also be attributed to the author. This release does not apply to photographs, cartoons or reprints from other publications. Indexed by ProQuest, Gale, Ebsco Information Services, InfoTrac, LexisNexis, Public Affairs Information Service, Index to Jewish Periodicals, Ethnic News Watch, Periodica Islamica. CONTACT INFORMATION: Washington Report on Middle East Affairs Editorial Office and Bookstore: P.O. Box 53062, Washington, DC 20009-9062 Phone: (202) 939-6050 • (800) 368-5788 Fax: (202) 265-4574 E-mail: wrmea@wrmea.org bookstore@wrmea.org circulation@wrmea.org advertising@wrmea.org Web sites: http://www.wrmea.org http://www.middleeastbooks.com Subscriptions, sample copies and donations: P.O. Box 91056, Long Beach, CA 90809-1056. Phone: (888) 881-5861 • Fax: (714) 226-9733 Printed in the USA
6
DEFUNDING OF UNRWA
LetterstotheEditor
The Trump administration recently decided to cut all U.S. funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the body responsible for assisting Palestinian refugees in the Occupied Territories, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria. This move will have a potentially devastating impact on the 5 million people who rely on its schools, healthcare and social services. It has been suggested that Trump and Netanyahu are attempting to delegitimize the refugee status of Palestinians to weaken their claim to a collective “right of return,” a major negotiating issue in the peace process. Alternatively, Israel offers citizenship to any Jew seeking it, based on a different version of right of return. For those who are unaware, these Palestinian refugees did not voluntarily leave their homes but were driven out by triumphant Israeli forces in 1948 and 1967. Some Palestinians inhabit shrinking West Bank enclaves under harsh martial law, a minority live as Arab Israeli citizens and hundreds of thousands are trapped in the polluted, open air prison called Gaza. Although Gaza’s soil and water is badly polluted by Israeli munitions; it does have the resources to prosper—if Israel and Egypt were to respect its borders, coast and air space. The tiny strip features beautiful beaches, a potential fishery, offshore natural gas resources and residents eager to work and engage with the world. It is extremely cruel and hypocritical for powerful actors to trap people in a hopeless situation for the sole purpose of intimidating them into surrender. Israelis might look to their own European history for perspective on a people’s will to survive. Morgan Duchesney, Ottawa, Canada On pp. 35-37 of this issue, we have two views on the continued devastation in Gaza. The besieged strip is no longer in international headlines, but that does not mean the killing has stopped. Dozens of Palestinians have been killed in recent weeks, and on Oct. 9 Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman announced that Israel was preventing fuel from entering Gaza. The U.S. decision to cripple UNRWA only adds to the pain. How long can the people of Gaza survive?
WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
NETANYAHU YET AGAIN ATTACKS IRAN AT THE U.N.
On Thursday, Sept. 27, 2018, both the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and the Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu addressed the United Nations General Assembly. Every time I listen to speeches like those, I keep hoping against hope that something new or fresh might come up to lift our morale and truly give us reason to look forward to better days. Of course it was necessary for President Abbas to draw the attention of the assembly to the fact that the U.S. has not been an honest broker of the peace, because they turn a blind eye to the violations of Israel. He announced that the Palestinians are not willing to continue committing themselves to agreements that Israel has not kept, including the recognition of Israel, while Israel refuses to recognize Palestine or its right to self-determination. He criticized the recently passed nation-state law, which has also been criticized by many Jews inside and outside the State of Israel. On the other hand, Netanyahu’s main emphasis, before responding to some of the points that Abbas referred to, was Iran. He had a theatrical presentation, showing diagrams and sites of nuclear facilities, which American experts announced immediately was false information. And of course he thanked President Trump for pulling out of the agreement signed with Iran during Obama’s term, and urged other countries to do so. We have seen how previous false threats regarding Iraq led to a war that the whole region is still suffering from. How ironic indeed when Israel itself was the first country in the whole region that had acquired a nuclear reactor. Israel has never signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, nor has it ever allowed any inspectors to the site. So by what right was Netanyahu talking so vehemently about Iran as if it were threatening the very existence of Israel? “I have a message for the tyrants of Tehran—Israel knows what you're doing,” Netanyahu said. He added that Israel will continue to act against Iran in Syria and Iraq. Does Israel has an ulterior motive to wage a war, the outcome of which will be a completely new Middle East, with the Palestinians being its collateral damage?
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018
lte_6-7.qxp_NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018 Letters to Editor 10/18/18 8:49 PM Page 7
Samia Khoury, via e-mail RECONCILING THE PAST IN As Ian Williams notes in his colISRAEL AND THE U.S. KEEP THOSE CARDS AND LETTERS umn on p.38, Prime Minister COMING! Thanks to Dale Sprusansky for his Binyamin Netanyahu and his U.N. insightful article, “This is who we ambassador Danny Danon have Send your letters to the editor to the Washington really are: Americans and Israelis long enjoyed the power of the pulReport, P.O. Box 53062, Washington, DC 20009 must come to terms with Reality” pit at the U.N., while simultaneor e-mail <letters@wrmea.org>. (August/September). Drawing a ously working to undermine the comparison between the U.S. and credibility of the United Nations by Israeli need to acknowledge our racist and continually acting in violation of interna- to move Israel’s capital to Jerusalem. tional law. It’s doubtful many Americans She gained the trust of the president by oppressive realities, past and present, can watched either Netanyahu or Abbas speak lathering him with flattery, making the absurd be painful, but until we both do so neither of at the General Assembly this year, given claim, “the United States is now respected.” us will be free. I have come to this realizathat they spoke on the same day as the No Ms. Haley, nothing could be further from tion only recently myself. I’m particularly grateful after having dramatic Brett Kavanaugh hearings. How- the truth. How quickly she has forgotten the ever, as Williams notes, Netanyahu’s the- derisive laughter at the U.N. when Trump come up with a similar idea in a short letter to the editor of the Eureka, CA Timesatrics were likely intended for his audience boasted about all his accomplishments. at home. After all, he has the Israel lobby Under Trump’s/Haley’s “leadership” we Standard, published July 18, 2018. It foto do his bidding here in Washington. have weakened the NATO alliance, alien- cused on family separation occurring in ated relationships with our northern and Gaza and the U.S. southern border. I GOOD RIDDANCE, NIKKI HALEY southern neighbors, the European Union wrote, in part: “In contrast to the U.S., Nikki Haley’s tenure as U.S. Ambassador and insulted Africa countries with vulgar Gaza parents know where their children to the United Nations was a huge disap- expletives. are; they are dead.” pointment. She was an apologist for PresHowdy Emerson, Trinidad, CA Jagjit Singh, Los Altos, CA ident Trump and eagerly embraced his There is no doubt that both the U.S. Nikki Haley claims she has no intention disastrous polices. Under her leadership of running for president, but her track and Israel committed great atrocities in the United States withdrew from the Paris record at the U.N. suggests otherwise. order to establish their countries. That climate accord, the U.N. Human Rights She spent her two-year tenure in New must not be the final chapter, though. Council, the Iran nuclear deal, UNRWA York building her pro-Israel credentials by Both countries have the ability to acand UNESCO, the U.N. educational and shamelessly denigrating the Palestinian knowledge their pasts and vow to work cultural agency. She supported national people. Her actions may have caused for an inclusive, rather than an exclusive, security adviser John Bolton’s threat to alarm and disapproval around the world, future. ■ impose sanctions on judges on the Inter- but they surely delighted Sheldon Adelnational Criminal Court, terrified that it son and other pro-Israel megadonors who would expose war crimes committed by would likely fund her presidential run in Israel and the U.S. 2020 or 2024. The mainstream media in Haley was also involved with overseeing the U.S. widely praised Haley as a “moda $200 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia erate,” despite her bombastic disregard which has made the U.S. complicit in for the lives of people from Gaza to Saudi Arabia’s war crimes in Yemen. She Yemen. Will the American people reward concurred with Trump’s disastrous decision her for her tenure at the U.N.?
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WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
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Two Views
Oslo and Camp David Agreements: The Aftermath
LEFT: U.S. President Jimmy Carter (c), Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat (l) and Israeli Premier Menachem Begin (r) on March 26, 1979 after signing the Camp David Accords; RIGHT: U.S. President Bill Clinton (c), Israeli Prime Minister Yitzahk Rabin (l) and PLO leader Yasser Arafat (r) shake hands on Sept. 13, 1993 at the White House in Washington, DC, after signing the Israel-PLO Oslo Accords. PHOTO CREDITS: LEFT: AFP/GETTY IMAGES; RIGHT: J. DAVID AKE/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
Camp David and Oslo, 40 and 25 Years On By Paul R. Pillar
SEPTEMBER 2018 MARKS anniversaries of two major agreements signed at the White House that appeared to be major steps toward a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace but never produced such a peace. On Sept. 17, 1978, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat concluded an accord, negotiated at Camp David and mediated by President Jimmy Carter, that established principles for an Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty and for starting a process to lead to Palestinian self-determination. On Sept. 13, 1993, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat shook hands on the Oslo I accord, which had been negotiated under Norwegian auspices and established what became known as the
Paul R. Pillar is a contributing editor at the National Interest and the author of Why America Misunderstands the World. Copyright © 2018 LobeLog. All rights reserved. 8
Palestinian Authority. The key provisions of both agreements were supposed to be temporary, but follow-on agreements for lasting arrangements that would assure both Israeli security and Palestinian self-determination never happened. The stronger side—the side with the land and the guns—was comfortable with the status quo, and the agreements made the Israeli side even more comfortable. What was supposed to be temporary became permanent. Two wars provided the background to the Camp David Accords. The Six-Day War of 1967, which Israel initiated, resulted in sweeping Israeli conquests, including the Egyptian Sinai. The Yom Kippur War of 1973, initiated by Egypt, failed to win back the lost territory by force, but was a respectable enough showing by the Egyptian army to make possible Sadat’s later peace initiative and historic trip to Jerusalem. The second part of the Camp David Accords, which laid out principles for an Egyptian-Israeli treaty, gave Begin what he wanted: a separate peace with the largest Arab state, even while the Palestinian question and all other Arab-Israeli issues remained unresolved. It was a separate peace for which Sadat would pay dearly, first in the ostracism of his country from its Arab brethren and later with his own life.
WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018
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The first part of the accords recognized the “legitimate rights of the Palestinian people” and talked about a transitional arrangement, to last five years, leading to full autonomy for the Palestinians. This part of the agreement was left very vague. Begin did his utmost to keep it as vague as possible, as well as unenforceable. He did want the adjective “full” placed before “autonomy,” but only to imply that an arrangement less than statehood was all the Palestinians would ever get. There is no reason to believe Begin saw this part of the Camp David Accords as anything other than a rhetorical gesture he needed to make to get the peace treaty with Egypt. Despite the unpopularity of the accords in the Arab world for falling so far short of Palestinian self-determination, it did demonstrate that negotiations with Israel were possible, and in so doing made Oslo possible years later.
WHAT OSLO WROUGHT
Oslo was a breakthrough of mutual recognition—of the PLO by Israel and of Israel by the Palestinian leadership—and both sides had to swallow hard to get to that handshake on the White House lawn. (Israeli Haaretz columnist Gideon Levy observes that although Rabin’s anguish was genuine, “There was more Palestinian blood on Rabin’s hands than Jewish blood on Arafat’s hands. If someone had needed to cringe at the Washington ceremony, it was actually the Palestinian leader.”) If there ever were a genuine intent by Israeli leaders to get beyond falsely temporary arrangements and move to a true permanent peace, it was at this moment, under Rabin. But Israeli politics have been going in a different direction ever since, beginning with Rabin’s assassination by a Jewish Israeli extremist two years later. Then-opposition politician (and current prime minister) Binyamin Netanyahu was among those whose rhetoric fostered the environment for that murder—a story that Dan Ephron tells in his book about the assassination. It wasn’t only the larger political tides in Israel that kept the Oslo agreement from producing the peace it was supposed to produce. Just as Camp David made an indefinite occupation of Palestinian territories more comfortable for Israelis—by taking the largest Arab state with the largest army off the battlefield—so too did Oslo’s creation of the Palestinian Authority. The PA was supposed to have been the kind of transitional apparatus envisioned in the Camp David Accords. It should have gone out of business a couple of decades ago. But for Israel, the PA has functioned conveniently as a kind of auxiliary administration and security force that helps to keep the West Bank under control. It relieves Israel of having to perform directly all the functions of an occupying power, including those that international law requires. So, Israeli governments have been happy to keep the PA around indefinitely, no matter how much those governments also use it as a foil and target in rhetoric and no matter how much the PA has understandably become discredited in the eyes of many Palestinians. Nothing was said in the agreements of either Camp David NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018
or Oslo about the construction of Israeli settlements in occupied territory. Levy considers this a “critical mistake” in the Oslo agreements and a “trap” into which the Palestinians fell. The enjoyment of additional living space at the expense of the Palestinians who were already there, backed by the PA’s auxiliary security function helping to keep rejectionist violence under control, has made it all the more comfortable for many Israelis to continue the supposedly temporary arrangements in perpetuity, and never to define their own country’s final boundaries. As enough time goes by, the temporary gets treated more and more as permanent. Last year marked 50 years since the beginning of the Israeli occupation. This past September marked 40 years since Camp David and 25 years since Oslo. Entire generations have grown up in the interim. Not only the passage of time but also the Israeli colonization project in the West Bank have made a viable Palestinian state increasingly unfeasible. Israeli leaders—including ministers in Netanyahu’s government and, when he is talking to Israeli audiences, Netanyahu himself—have become quite open and frank that they will never agree to a Palestinian state.
U.S. INFLUENCE
The Trump administration’s policies that bow totally to Israeli government desires have emboldened that government in both its words and its actions. The administration has given new meaning to the term “take off the table” in international conflicts. As the Trump administration uses it, the term means acceding entirely to one side’s position while getting nothing in return and ignoring the interests of the other side. The administration’s most recent moves regarding Palestinian refugees have highlighted how indefinite perpetuation of a temporary arrangement can be part of an effort to take an issue “off the table” in another way. The administration says that only those Palestinians originally driven from their homes (during Israel’s founding war 70 years ago or the Six-Day War 51 years ago) should count as refugees, and their descendants should not. Contrary to Israeli claims, counting descendants as refugees is standard practice in defining other refugee populations around the world [see p. 17]. But if you don’t count them, then just let enough years go by and—bingo—no more refugees, no more refugee issue, and no need to discuss something like “right of return.” Of course, in the real world, neither people nor whole nationalities vanish that way, and neither do their national aspirations and the trouble that ensues when those aspirations are suppressed. The Trump administration claims that its collective punishment of Palestinians, including its termination of funding for humanitarian assistance and closing of the PLO office in Washington, is intended to induce Palestinians to negotiate. But Palestinian leaders are not refusing to negotiate. They are refusing to do so on terms dictated by the Trump administra-
WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
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tion—which has so clearly forfeited any claim to be an honest broker—or that are based on their side preemptively conceding on major issues such as the status of Jerusalem. Amid the years of claims and counterclaims about which side in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is most responsible for the ostensible goal of Camp David and Oslo never being realized, the question of who most wants to negotiate is rather simple. Look for the side that, in addition to having the power to change things on the ground by itself, has grown comfortable with indefinite perpetuation of a supposedly temporary status quo. That’s the side that doesn’t want to negotiate. The side that is suffering most under that status quo and that is powerless to change it by itself is the side that does.
With Oslo, Israel’s Intention Was Never Peace or Palestinian Statehood By Amira Hass THE REALITY of the Palestinian Bantustans, reservations or enclaves is a fact on the ground. Their creation is the most outstanding geopolitical occurrence of the past quarter-century. It is, of course, possible to say that its seeds were sown with the occupation in 1967, but the process accelerated, consolidated, matured and deepened, paradoxically, in parallel with the negotiation process between Israel and the Palestinians—first with the Madrid/Washington talks starting at the end of 1991 and then with the Oslo process. Those who give credence to lofty verbal declarations about peace and a new Middle East will continue to believe that only chance, regrettable human errors, bad luck and technical hitches led to the formation of the Palestinian reservations buried in a contiguous Israeli space between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River—contrary to any logic of a fair settlement between the Palestinians and the Israelis, and negating the former’s right to self-determination. Others will continue to argue that it all happened only as a reaction to the attacks carried out by Palestinian opponents of the Oslo agreements and Palestinian opponents of Yasser Arafat. However, I wish to give, have given and am giving, credit to the planning skills of the Israeli security and diplomatic establishment and the calculated sophistication behind the ability to speak softly in words the world wants to hear (“peace”), and in actual fact to do the opposite (continuing the occupation through outsourcing while dropping the burden of economic and legal responsibility for the population that is under occupation). The following were the warning signals that started flashing right at the moment of the signing of the Declaration of Principles and very early on taught me to cast doubt on Israel’s intentions vis à vis the negotiations:
Amira Hass is the Haaretz correspondent for the occupied territories. Copyright © Haaretz Daily Newspaper Ltd. All rights reserved. 10
• While it was decided to take gradual steps toward the realization of the interim agreement, the aim of the negotiations was not explicitly stipulated. That is, nowhere was it stated that the goal was the establishment of a Palestinian state in the territory occupied in 1967, contrary to what the Palestinians, many people in the Israeli peace camp at that time, and the European countries had concluded. What logic is there in gradually moving forward toward a vague goal that only the Palestinians and their supporters understand as realization of the right to self-determination, while the strong side, Israel, reserves the right to impose its interpretations? • The word “occupation” does not appear in the Declaration of Principles. In his letter to Yitzhak Rabin, however, Yasser Arafat explicitly promises that the Palestine Liberation Organization will relinquish terror. The avoidance of any mention of “the occupation” as a given situation and as the source of the violence was an expression of the diplomatic-propaganda inversion that Israel succeeded in pulling off: The real power relations—of occupier and occupied—were translated into relations of the persecuted (the Israeli) and the persecutor (the Palestinian). The burden of proof was imposed on the Palestinians (a fight against terror) and not on Israel (an end to the occupation). • Delegating the Civil Administration to conduct the negotiations regarding the transfer of civil responsibilities to the Palestinian Authority was another warning signal. In the less than 15 years of its existence, the Civil Administration had developed into a tool for implementing the colonization policy and military control of the Palestinians, in the guise of a civilian affairs institution. Contrary to the declarations about “changing the disk,” the bureaucrats/officers who conducted the civil negotiations had no alternative but to preserve the purpose of their organization and to perpetuate the imperious attitude toward the Palestinians. • The Declaration of Principles signed on Sept. 13, 1993 stated: “The two sides view the West Bank and the Gaza Strip as a single territorial unit, whose integrity will be preserved during the interim period.” This did not happen. Instead, Israel did everything it could to detach the population of Gaza from the West Bank by means of the regime of movement restrictions. Though the number of Palestinians who exited and entered Gaza in the 1990s was relatively large as compared to the minuscule number of those exiting and entering today, that number was small relative to the situation before Jan. 15, 1991 when Israel first implemented the regime of sweeping prohibitions on Palestinians’ freedom of movement and the requirement that they apply for personal entry permits into Israel (and that, three years before the suicide attacks inside Israel). Thus, Israel controlled the economic, institutional, social and familial relations between the population of Gaza and the West Bank and restricted them however it pleased. In that way, Israel was able to interfere with the proper functioning and development of the PA institutions.
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• In accordance with Israel’s demand, it was stipulated in the negotiations that it would continue to control the Palestinian population registry, which meant that Israel alone had the power to decide whether to grant Palestinian residency, to whom, when and to how many. In the Interim Agreement there is a provision that empowers the Palestinian Authority to carry out a few changes in the population registry, such as changes of address and personal status, but they are required to inform the Israeli side of the change. At the end of 1996 it became clear to the Palestinians that Israel was refusing to recognize changes of address as listed on identity cards from towns in Gaza to towns in the West Bank (mainly for thousands of people who were born in Gaza but had been residing in the West Bank for many years), while it was approving changes of address within the West Bank or within the Gaza Strip. This seemingly minor bureaucratic measure has tremendous significance: It proves that Israel continued to relate to the Gaza Strip as an entity separate from the West Bank. For Israel, Gaza is a separate enclave. • Also in 1997, Israel prohibited inhabitants of the Gaza Strip from entering the West Bank from Jordan via the Allenby Bridge border crossing. Since the regime of individual travel permits was imposed in January of 1991, Palestinians who did not receive a permit to transit through Israel on their way to the West Bank discovered that they could do a big detour: They left through the Rafah crossing point into Egypt, and from there they traveled to Jordan and entered the West Bank via the Allenby crossing. These were mainly students enrolled at the universities in the West Bank, members of split families, businesspeople, PA officials and others whose applications for permits to transit through Israel had been denied. Ever since 1997, inhabitants of the Gaza Strip are also required to apply for a permit to enter via Allenby (and these permits are granted only in rare cases)—yet more proof that Israel relates to the two parts of Palestinian territory as separate entities, in contravention of the Declaration of Principles. • The provision concerning water in the Interim Agreement is an especially cynical reflection of Israel’s attitude toward Gaza as a separate enclave. Apart from a few million cubic NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018
meters of water that flowed into the Gaza Strip from Israel (as compensation for the highquality sweet water pumped within its territory for the benefit of the Israeli settlements), the Gaza Strip was required then, and is required now, to make do with the aquifer within its boundaries. The same aquifer that supplied water to the approximately 80,000 original Palestinians who lived there before 1948 continued to supply water to the refugee population that was added (about 200,000 people) in 1949, and to the population that had grown to about 900,000 by 1994 and stands at about 2 million people today. Since the end of the 1980s, Gaza has been suffering from seepage of sea water into its ground water because of overpumping. Instead of the simple solution of piping in water from Israeli territory into Gaza (which would have compensated somewhat for the vast amounts of water Israel pumps from sources in the West Bank for the benefit of Israelis inside Israel and in the settlements), Israel has forced the Gaza Strip to maintain an autarkic water economy. Thus the Gaza Strip reached the catastrophic situation it is in today, with 97 percent of its water unfit for drinking. • The Goldstein massacre: Not only were the violent Hebron settlers not evacuated from the city, they were also given a reward. The Rabin government punished the Palestinians for the massacre that a Jewish American-Israeli citizen committed there and put them under a prolonged curfew. Then a series of restrictions on movement were imposed on the Palestinians in order to implement the principle of separation between them and the settlers, while giving preference to the convenience and welfare of the few Jews at the expense of the Palestinian majority. • Despite the impression of “reciprocity” and “symmetry” between the Palestinians and the Israelis that the Declaration of Principles tried to create, throughout the negotiation process the status of the Palestinian prisoners was not made equivalent to that of the Israeli soldiers, despite the fact that their commanders —who at the time were meeting and negotiating with the other side—had similarly sent them to fight and kill. The Palestinian prisoners were depicted as criminals whose names and places of residence were common knowledge,
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and the Israelis as heroes. Release of prisoners was not even mentioned in the Declaration of Principles. The partial releases later on were always accompanied by humiliations and procrastination, and did not include Palestinians who had killed Israelis prior to the signing of the Oslo agreements. • In the 1990s Israel continued to demolish Palestinian structures in the West Bank, on the grounds of lack of a permit, when everyone knew that ever since the 1970s Israel had been very stingy about granting building permits to Palestinians and developing master plans for them. • In July of 1994, during the Oslo days and under a Labor-Meretz government, eviction orders were issued to Bedouin of the Jahalin tribe for the sake of the expansion of the settlement of Ma’ale Adumim. In May of 1995 the High Court of Justice rejected petitions against the eviction. Similar eviction orders were issued to other small communities of herders and farmers—people who traditionally, and in order to earn a living, spend a considerable portion of their time on lands that are outside their villages of origin, for example along what was to become Highway 443 (from Jerusalem to Modi’in) and in the Etzion Bloc. • The Interim Agreement established a blatantly unequal division of the water sources in the West Bank and determined a quota on the amount of water Palestinians are permitted to consume (no such quota was imposed on the settlers). The water drilling in the Jordan Valley supplied and continues to supply the approximately 6,000 settlers there with an amount of water equivalent to about one-quarter of the amount allotted to approximately 1.5 million to 2 million Palestinians. At meetings of the joint water committee, it very quickly became clear to the Palestinians that it was better for them to request approval of water pipes with a diameter smaller than the diameter they had initially planned—otherwise the Israeli side would not approve the proposed project. • Even though in the agreement there is a provision to the effect that the two 12
sides will not carry out any changes that could affect the results of the permanent status agreement, at the end of 1995 the Interior Ministry, headed by Haim Ramon, began to revoke the residency status of thousands of Jerusalem Palestinians, on the grounds that their center of life was no longer in the city. This gave the signal for what has been called the silent transfer, expulsion of people from the city, the divestment of their legal status and identity papers, and the development of a regime of surveillance and spying on tens of thousands of Palestinians by the Interior Ministry and the National Insurance Institute. The restrictions on building in Jerusalem also remained in force, and the regime of travel permits cut off the natural connection Palestinians had with this economic, religious, social and cultural center. • Another signal was the division of the West Bank into areas of control A, B and C that would be adapted to the principle of the gradual redeployment of the Israel Defense Forces (which was mistakenly called a withdrawal)—first from the towns, then from the villages, and finally from the less inhabited areas that are the future reserves of land and space for the Palestinian entity. Even if we ignore the fact that Israel determined the pace of the redeployment and when and where it would stop, the agreement does not establish the size of the area that Israel would ultimately leave. Each side interpreted this in accordance with its own wishes, and the vagueness once again worked to the benefit of the stronger side, Israel. Twenty-five years later, Area C under full Israeli control covers more than 60 percent of the area of the West Bank. There was security logic to the gradual redeployment of the army, but the retention by Israel of the civil and administrative responsibilities in Area C gave it time to grab more land. Israel has kept and is keeping most of the West Bank for itself as an area where it is limiting Palestinian construction and development to a bare minimum, and as a reserve of land for the endless spread of the settlements.
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• The bypass roads were built so that the settlers would not have to travel to their homes via the Palestinian towns. They butchered the area of the West Bank with no consideration for the relationships between the Palestinian urban centers and their hinterlands of surrounding towns and villages, and cut off historic routes. The bypass roads were a tool for perpetuating an agreement that was supposed to have been temporary. The organization of the geographical space and construction were tailored to the needs of the settlers in the present, which are also the needs of the settlement project in the future: Thus, for example, the “tunnels road” paved the way to the Etzion Bloc practically becoming a prestigious southern suburb of Jerusalem. The guarantees given to the settlers in the Interim Agreement obviate the need for a permanent status agreement that would have necessitated their evacuation, and thus more Israelis have been lured into coming to live in the settlements and to demand that they remain in place. • Israel did not see fit to pursue “confidence-building measures” related to issues of land and territory. The Israeli side could have compensated the Palestinians for confiscating land for bypass roads, for example, by means of returning hundreds of thousands of dunams of land that were declared “state lands” in the 1980s, in a sly process that contravened international law. That didn’t happen, because from the outset Israel did not give up its mantra of “as much territory as possible, with as few Arabs as possible.” Thus, the control of Area C, the retention of bans on building and access for the Palestinians, the construction of the settlements and the network of bypass roads—all of these have together led to the creation of numerous disconnected Palestinian enclaves that are swallowed up in the Israeli expanse, in a process that has replicated in the West Bank the same reality that characterizes the Gaza enclave. In the course of the Oslo process, much thought was invested—not toward advancing peace, but toward the establishment of Palestinian enclaves. ■ NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018
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The Nakba Continues
No Dramatic Makeover Can Turn Abu Dis Into the Capital of Palestine THE ENTRANCE TO ABU DIS could not be more disconcerting, given reports that the Trump administration intends to designate it as the capital of a future Palestinian state, in place of Jerusalem. Any visitor venturing to this small West Bank town is confronted by a vast expanse of 26-feet-high concrete slabs— Israel’s so-called separation wall. Sections are charred black by fires residents set years ago in the hope of weakening the structure and bringing it down. Before the wall was erected more than a decade ago, Abu Dis had a spectacular view across the valley to Jerusalem’s Old City and the iconic golden-topped Dome of the Rock, little more than half a mile away. It was a few minutes’ drive— or an hour’s hike—to al-Aqsa, the third holiest mosque in Islam, or the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the reputed site of Jesus’ crucifixion. Now for many of the 13,000 inhabitants, Jerusalem might as well be on another planet. They can no longer reach its holy places, shops, schools or hospitals. Abu Dis, say its residents, is hemmed in on all sides—by Israel’s oppressive wall; by illegal Jewish settlements encroaching relentlessly on what is left of its lands; and by a large, Israeli-run landfill site that, according to experts, is a threat to human health. The Palestinian authorities do not even control Abu Dis. The Israeli security cameras watch over it and armored jeeps full of Israeli soldiers make forays at will into its crowded streets.
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). NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018
PHOTO J. COOK
By Jonathan Cook
The entrance to Abu Dis. Perhaps fittingly, given the Palestinians’ current plight, Abu Dis feels more like it is being gradually turned into one wing of a dystopian open-air prison than a capital-in-waiting. Nonetheless, the town has been thrust into the spotlight. As the United Nations General Assembly met in late September, U.S. President Donald Trump promised his long-awaited peace plan— what he terms the “deal of the century”— would be unveiled by the end of the year. Back in January Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian leader, confirmed for the first time that the White House was leaning on him to accept Abu Dis as his capital. The issue has become highly charged for Palestinians since May, when Trump overturned decades of diplomatic con-
sensus by moving the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. That scuppered a once widely shared assumption that Israel would be required to withdraw from East Jerusalem, which it occupied in 1967, and allow the Palestinians to declare it their capital. Instead Washington appears to believe it can repackage Abu Dis, just outside the city limits, as a substitute capital. How plausible is it that the Palestinians can accept a ghettoized, anonymous community like Abu Dis for such a pivotal role in their nation-building project? Ghassan Khatib, a former Palestinian cabinet minister, said Trump would find no takers among the Palestinian leadership. “A Palestinian state without Jerusalem as its capital simply won’t work. It’s not credi-
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The house in which the Anati family lives has had the two top floors destroyed by the Jerusalem municipality. ble,” he said. “It’s not just Jerusalem’s religious and historic significance. It also has strategic, economic and geographic importance to Palestinians.” The people of Abu Dis appear to feel the same way, with many pointing to Jerusalem’s enormous symbolic power, as well as the potential role of international tourism in developing the Palestinian economy. Abu Dis, however, is unlikely ever to attract visitors, even should it get a dramatic makeover. The approach road, skirting the massive settlement of Ma’ale Adumim, home to 40,000 Jews, is adorned with red signs warning that it is dangerous for Israelis to enter the area. The section of wall at the entrance to Abu Dis alludes to the residents’ growing anger and frustration—not only with Israel but some of their own leaders. Artists have spray-painted a giant image of Marwan Barghouti, a Palestinian resistance leader imprisoned by Israel for the past 16 years. It shows him lifting his handcuffed hands to make a V-for-victory sign. 14
But noticeably, next to him is a much smaller image of Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, whose face has been painted out. He has come under mounting domestic criticism for maintaining Palestinian “security cooperation” with Israel’s occupation forces. Resentment at such cooperation is felt especially keenly in Abu Dis. Large iron gates in the wall give the Israeli army ready access in and out of the town. In early October, the army made a high-profile raid to shut down local schools and prevent thousands of students from attending classes at the local campus of Al-Quds University—the most significant public institution in Abu Dis. Under the Oslo accords signed in the mid-1990s, all of Abu Dis was placed temporarily under Israeli military control, and most of it under Israel’s civil control also. That temporary status appears to have become permanent, leaving residents at the whim of hostile Israeli authorities who deny building permits and readily issue demolition orders.
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The restrictions mean Abu Dis lacks most of the infrastructure one would associate with a city, let alone a capital. Abdulwahab Sabbah, a local community activist, said: “We are now a small island of territory controlled by the Israeli army.” Referring to the way the wall has severed Abu Dis from Jerusalem, he added: “Not only have we lost our schools, the hospitals we once used, our holy places, the job opportunities that the city offered. Families have been split apart too, unable to visit their relatives in Jerusalem. We have been orphaned. We have lost Jerusalem, our mother.” A short drive into Abu Dis and the shell of a huge building comes into view, a reminder that the idea of an Abu Dis upgrade is not the Trump administration’s alone. In fact, noted Khatib, Israel began rebranding Abu Dis as a second “AlQuds”—the Holy City, the Arabic name for Jerusalem—in the late 1990s, after the Oslo agreement allowed Palestinian leaders to return to Gaza and limited parts of the West Bank. The Palestinian leadership, desperate to get a foothold closer to the densely populated neighborhoods of East Jerusalem, played along. They expected that Israel would eventually relinquish Abu Dis to full Palestinian control, allowing it to be annexed to East Jerusalem in a future peace deal. In 1996 the Palestinians began building a $4 million parliament on the side of Abu Dis closest to Jerusalem. The location was selected so that the office of the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat would have a view of al-Aqsa. Reports from that time talk of Abu Dis becoming a gateway, or “safe corridor,” for West Bank Palestinians to reach the mosque. One proposal was to build a tunnel between Abu Dis and the Old City. However, with the outbreak of a Palestinian uprising, or intifada, in 2000, work on the parliament came to a halt. The interior was never finished, and there is now no view of al-Aqsa. The parliament too is sealed off from Jerusalem by the wall. Since then Israel has barred the Palestinian Authority from having any NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018
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role in East Jerusalem. Khalil Erekat, a caretaker, holds the key to the unused parliament. Now, he said, only pigeons and the odd stray dog or snake venture inside. “No one comes any more,” he added. “The place has been forgotten.” And that, it seems, is the way Palestinian officials would prefer it. With the Trump administration mooting the town as a substitute capital, the parliament is now an embarrassing white elephant. Evidence of how quickly Israel has transformed Abu Dis from a rural suburb of Jerusalem into an eyesore ghetto is apparent in the homes around the parliament. A once-palatial four-story home next door would be more in place in warravaged Gaza than an impending capital. Its collapsed top floors sit precariously above the rest of the structure. Mohammed Anati, a retired carpenter aged 64, is a tenant occupying the bottom floor with his wife and three sons. He said the destruction was carried out by the Jerusalem municipality several years ago, apparently because the upper floors were built in violation of planning rules Israeli military authorities imposed after 1967. Neighbors speculate that, in fact, Israel was more concerned that the top of the building provided views over the wall. Anati said that, paradoxically, the Jerusalem municipality treated this small neighborhood next to the wall as within its jurisdiction. “We have to pay council taxes to Jerusalem even though we are cut off from the city and receive no services,” he said. Asked whether he thought Abu Dis could be a Palestinian capital, he scoffed. “Trump will offer us the worst deal of the century,” he said. “Jerusalem has to be the capital. There is nothing of Jerusalem here since Israel built the wall.” Nearby, Ghassan Abu Hillel’s two-story home presses up against the gray slabs of concrete. He said cameras on top of the wall monitor his and his neighbors’ activities around the clock. His family moved to this house in 1967, when he was 14 years old, and NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018
shortly before Israel occupied Abu Dis, along with the rest of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Until the wall was constructed, he spent his time herding sheep and goats on the surrounding hills. Now he has to corral them into a corner of the wall. Their improvised pen is daubed with graffiti: “Take an axe to the prison wall. Escape.” His herd of what was once more than 200 sheep is down to barely a dozen. The animals can no longer graze out on the hills, and he cannot afford the cost of feeding them straw. Unlike Abu Hillel and the sheep, his pigeons still enjoy their freedom. “They can fly over the wall and reach Jerusalem whenever they want,” he said.
“Take an axe to the prison wall. Escape.” His family owned much of the land surrounding Abu Dis before 1967, he added, but almost all of it has been taken by Israel—originally on the pretext that it was needed for military purposes. Since then, Israel has built a series of Jewish settlements on the surrounding land, including Ma’ale Adumim, Kfar Adumim and Kedar. In the early 1980s it also opened a landfill site to cope with the region’s waste. In 2009 the United Nations warned that toxic fumes from waste-burning and leakage into the groundwater posed a threat to local inhabitants’ health. Some residents are actively finding ways to break out of the isolation imposed on Abu Dis by Israel. Sabbah is a founder of the Friendship Association, which encourages exchange programs with European students, teachers and youth clubs. His most successful project is the twinning of Abu Dis with the London borough of Camden. Sabbah’s prominent political activities may be one reason why his home— along with the local mayor’s—was one of 10 invaded in the middle of the night in September. The operation had the
hallmarks of what former Israeli soldiers from the whistleblowing group Breaking the Silence have termed “establishing presence”—military training exercises designed to disrupt the lives of Palestinian communities and spread fear. He is skeptical that the Abu Dis proposal by the Trump administration has been made in good faith. “It’s a bluff,” Sabbah said. “Israel has shown through all its actions that it does not want any Palestinian state—and that means no capital, even in Abu Dis. It is being offered only because Israel knows no Palestinian leader could ever accept it as a capital. And that way Israel can again blame us for being the ones to reject their version of ‘peace.’” Amid its confinement, however, Abu Dis does include the campus of Al-Quds University, which attracts thousands of young Palestinians, adding to the overcrowding. It has been operating in Abu Dis since the 1980s. Sitting on the crossroads between the Palestinian cities of Bethlehem and Nablus to the south, Jericho to the east, and Ramallah to the north, the Abu Dis campus has grown rapidly. It has profited from the fact that West Bank Palestinians cannot access another campus of Al-Quds University in East Jerusalem. The university is enclosed and security is tight. Inside, students enjoy spacious grounds with shaded gardens, a small oasis of normality where it is possible briefly to forget the situation outside. Nonetheless, the university is not immune from regular Israeli military raids, shutting it down. Omar Mahmoud, aged 23, a medical student from Nablus, raised his eyebrows at the suggestion that Abu Dis could serve as the Palestinians’ capital. “It’s fully under Israeli control,” he said. “One side there is the wall and on the other side there are Israeli settlements. There are no services and it just gets more crowded by the year.” He has shared an apartment with other students in Abu Dis for five years. He said: “To be honest, I can’t wait to get out of here.” ■
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Palestinian pupils protest in front of their UNRWA-administered school in the Balata refugee camp near Nablus in the occupied West Bank on Sept. 25, 2018. The U.S., by far the biggest contributor to the agency, announced it was halting its funding to UNRWA, which it labeled “irredeemably flawed.”
Trump’s War Against the Palestinians By Rev. Alex Awad
IT IS AN ACCEPTED fact that U.S. policy in Israel/Palestinehas been pro-Israel from the days of Harry Truman’s presidency all the way to Barack Obama’s. Even so, from time to time the United States could be critical of Israeli policies and have threatened to punish Israel for violating international law. Several U.S. presidents followed through on threats, including Republicans George H.W. Bush, who opposed loan guarantees and new Israeli settlements, and Ronald Reagan, who suspended a strategic cooperation agreement after Israel illegally annexed the Golan Heights in 1981. However, with Donald Trump occupying the White House, a shift has taken place in U.S. policy toward the Is-
Rev. Dr. Alex Awad is a retired United Methodist Missionary. He and his wife, Brenda, served in Jerusalem and in Bethlehem for more than 25 years. Rev. Awad served as pastor of East Jerusalem Baptist Church, dean of students at Bethlehem Bible College, and director of the Shepherd Society. Awad has written two books, Through the Eyes of the Victims and Palestinian Memories. Rev. Awad is a member of Palestinian Christian Alliance for Peace (PCAP). 16
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President Trump’s Vengeful Crackdown on the Palestinians
rael-Palestine dispute. Now, U.S. policy is no longer merely pro-Israel, but rather fully rightwing Israeli. Whatever Binyamin Netanyahu and his far-right government ask the United States to do for them, Trump complies and hands it to them on a silver platter. Here is the Israeli wish list that other U.S. administrations refused to grant and Trump’s administration has handed over, asking nothing in return: 1. Recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel; 2. Move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem; 3. Declare that the future of Jerusalem is off the negotiating table; 4. Call for the dismantlement of United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and an end to all U.S. contributions to the U.N. agency. The U.S. was paying more than a quarter of the agency’s $1.2 billion
annual budget. 5. Call for removal of the refugee issue (the right of return of Palestinian refugees) from future negotiations; 6. Support the redefinition of the term “Palestinian refugee” so that children of Palestinian refugees do not retain refugee status (which is contrary to UNHCR guidelines that refugee dependents “are normally granted refugee status according to the principle of family unity”); 7. Reduce significantly U.S. annual support to the Palestinian Authority; 8. Cut $25 million in U.S. aid to Palestinian hospitals, including those in East Jerusalem; 9. Consistently withhold criticism of Israel’s human rights violations and brutality against Palestinians, especially in international forums like the U.N. Security Council; 10. Close the Palestine Liberation Organization’s mission in Washington, DC, leaving the Palestinians without a formal presence in the U.S. capital. What is behind this shift in U.S. policy toward the Palestinians? While there are many reasons for the U.S. policy shift, I will highlight the following:
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1. The Evangelical voting bloc. While running for the presidency, Trump—who is everything but an Evangelical—was able to court Evangelicals. He promised them that after he won the election, he would return the favors. Evangelicals voted for him in masses; without their vote, he wouldn’t be in the White House. Among other things, their leaders wanted a pro-Israel policy, recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Israel, a move of the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, and a halt to the critique of the settlement movement in the West Bank. Their demands have now become current U.S. policy toward Israel and the Palestinians. 2. Sheldon Adelson’s billions. Adelson, the American Jewish billionaire who is a close ally and supporter of Netanyahu and a staunch advocate of far-right Israeli policies, became a strong supporter of Trump during the 2016 race for the White House. Adelson has enough money and power to tell both Netanyahu and Trump what to do, and they will comply, even though some of his demands—in the long run—may not be good for either country and could certainly be detrimental to peace and stability in the world. Adelson’s support of congressional representatives who are in office or running for office corresponds with the level of their support of Israel’s far-right policies. The desire to keep Adelson’s checks flowing into their campaign coffers is what keeps many U.S. elected officials from protesting this administration’s new leaning to Israel’s right-wing agenda. 3. Trump’s appointments to create the “deal of the century.” Trump promised the American people that he had in his quiver what he called “the deal of the century” to forge peace between Israelis and Palestinians. When Trump formed the team of experts who would translate his vision into reality, international observers realized that “the deal” would be better called the disappointment of the century. He picked men and women who are well-known for their bias to Israel’s agenda. For U.S. ambassador to Israel, he appointed David Friedman, an ardent right-wing supporter of the settlement movement in the West Bank and East Jerusalem and of the U.S. Embassy move to Jerusalem. For launching peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians, Trump appointed his special adviser on the Middle East, son-in-law Jared Kushner, who is a close friend of Netanyahu and a big donor to the settlement movement. For the position of chief negotiator, he appointed Jason Greenblatt, another supporter of the right-wing Israeli agenda. All three are either Zionist millionaires or billionaires. For U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, he appointed Nikki Haley, whose statements at the U.N. staunchly mirror the policies of her boss—who echoes the positions of Netanyahu and Adelson. Haley sees no good in Palestinians and no evil in Israelis. With such appointments, who could imagine that negotiations would lead anywhere but to disaster?
INTENDED CONSEQUENCES
The cumulative effect of these forces against Palestine and the Palestinians is to push the peace process further into oblivion. In January 2017 I wrote: NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018
If Trump does announce such a move [of the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem]—God forbid—he may as well simultaneously announce the death of the ailing peace process and the end of the role of the U.S. as a broker in Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations. The U.S. can’t deliver Jerusalem to Israel with one hand and summon Palestinians to peace talks with the other hand. Christians who pray for “the peace of Jerusalem” and for “peace on earth” need to discern that this move would not promote peace but rather hate, violence, bloodshed and perhaps wars. The Palestinians, whose political muscle is no match for the U.S. president and whose finances pale in comparison with the wealth of extreme Zionist billionaires, did the only thing they could do: withdraw from any future peace talks that would be sponsored by Washington, DC. This decision frustrated Trump and now he is looking for ways to discipline the Palestinians and force them back into U.S.-controlled negotiations. During the Obama era, Israelis resisted all efforts to sit with Palestinians and negotiate peace, even under U.S. sponsorship. Secretary of State John Kerry openly criticized Israel for frustrating the path to peace. With President Trump and his chosen team of right-wing advisers in power, the Israelis are euphoric, knowing they could never again have a U.S. administration that would provide more favorable terms leading to a better deal for the State of Israel. Recently, Washington has been inflicting all kinds of punishments against the Palestinians—in particular, economic ones— hoping to weaken their resolve and beat them into submission. Will the Palestinians declare defeat, crawl on their knees, and submit to U.S. and Israeli dictates, or will they patiently endure until a friendlier administration controls the White House? Speaking to Ma’an News Agency, member of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Dr. Hanan Ashrawi responded with, “Palestinians will not surrender and…no amount of coercion or unwarranted collective punitive measures will bring the Palestinian leadership or people to their knees.” Haaretz columnist Gideon Levy minced no words when he wrote in his article “Shame on you, America”: “America has declared a war on the Palestinians.” He concluded the article with, “But the new America has lost its shame, too; it no longer even wants to pretend to be the honest broker, or take care of the world’s needy, as its position obliges it to do. Let us say, then, shame on you, America.” ■
The Trump Administration Is Trying to Reduce the Number of Palestinian Refugees; Here’s Why It Won’t Work By Susan Akram
THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION’S decision in August to cut $360 million to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) is a purely political decision that has no relevance to the definition of Palestinians as
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“refugees,” nor to their legal rights. Although highly significant, since the U.S. makes the largest single donation to UNRWA of any country, the claim that defunding UNRWA will somehow terminate the Palestinian refugee problem and lead to peace is absurd. UNRWA has nothing to do with defining or perpetuating “refugee status.” The definition and status of Palestinian refugees is determined by the U.N. General Assembly (UNGA) which first defined Palestine refugees for purposes of the establishment of international protection and assistance agencies—the U.N. Conciliation Commission on Palestine (UNCCP) and UNRWA—in December 1948, on the heels of the massive expulsion of refugees from Palestine. The General Assembly passed Resolution 194 on Dec. 11, 1948, establishing the UNCCP to provide international protection to the over 700,000 Palestinians who were forced to flee, and defining the refugees who were to receive protection by the international community. A year later, the U.N. established UNRWA to provide international assistance to the refugees, as defined for purposes of UNGA Resolution 194, until the right of return and related rights that were incorporated in that resolution were implemented. The General Assembly has reaffirmed Resolution 194 every year since then by overwhelming majority, established the scope of UNRWA’s mandate toward them since 1949, and repeatedly commended and expanded UNRWA’s services. If UNRWA’s funding were terminated tomorrow, that would have a massive negative effect on the lives of Palestinian refugees, but would do nothing to change their legal status under international law.
Susan Akram is clinical professor at Boston University Law School, where she directs the International Human Rights clinic and teaches international human rights, comparative refugee law and immigration law. She is a past Fulbright Senior Scholar in Palestine, and has taught at Al-Quds University/Palestine School of Law in East Jerusalem, the American University in Cairo, and regularly teaches at the Oxford Refugee Studies Centre in the U.K. Copyright © 2018 Mondoweiss. 18
It is important to note that the legal definition of Palestinian refugee relates to the status of Palestinians as former nationals of Palestine, a nationality which was recognized in 1924-25 as a matter of the Treaty of Lausanne that terminated World War I and dismantled the Ottoman Empire. The British passed Palestine citizenship legislation that conformed to the Treaty during the British mandate. All Palestinians who had Palestinian nationality/citizenship under treaty and mandate law, and their descendants through today, are defined as Palestinian refugees if they were forced to flee during the conflicts of 1947 onwards, and remain as such until their rights embodied in Resolution 194 are realized.
11 million refugees are entitled to the right of return, property restitution and compensation
In this way, Palestinian refugees’ rights have an even more robust basis than other refugees, because their rights are recognized both in general international law as well as in the body of law confirmed in decades of U.N. resolutions specifically passed for their protection. Today, Palestinians who would be defined by this Palestinian nationality law number approximately 11 million persons. Only 5 million of them are defined as “needy” for purposes of UNRWA humanitarian services, but it is the 11 million who are entitled to the right of return, property restitution and compensation guaranteed by the General Assembly in its resolutions. A second misconception is that UNRWA is responsible for extending refugee status to multiple generations of Palestinians. The fact that subsequent generations of Palestinians since the first refugees expelled by Zionist militias and the Israeli army in the 1947-49 conflict remain defined as refugees is also entirely a matter of international law. This, too, is a matter for the international community to decide by consensus at the U.N., and is outside the power of any single country, let alone UNRWA, to
WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
change. (See, for example, UNGA Resolution 2252, which recognizes Palestinians displaced by the 1967 conflict as “Palestinian refugees”). Moreover, that Palestinians can legally be multi-generational refugees is perfectly consistent with refugee law in general, which recognizes that subsequent generations of refugees remain refugees until a durable solution is found for their plight. The United States can’t will away 11 million people by stopping funds, though it can bring misery to many of them. The consequences of the U.S. cuts are devastating and far-reaching unless UNRWA can find other states to fill the gap. UNRWA stated that its schools could barely operate on current funds through September, which would affect half a million Palestinian children currently studying in UNRWA schools. UNRWA has had to cut staff in services other than the most essential—around 500 staff have already been let go— which has life-threatening consequences, particularly in Gaza, where unemployment is at 44 percent. Funding cuts affect health care delivery, infant mortality, and food subsistence for the most needy. It would seem obvious that as more and more Palestinians lose these services and cannot meet their basic survival needs, they will turn to violence. Radicalism is generated by desperation as an inevitable consequence of the short-sighted decision by the U.S. to cut UNRWA funding. It’s also important to note that the decision to reduce UNRWA funds has nothing to do with an inability to pay—contrast the $360 million that the U.S. sends to UNRWA each year with the $3.8 billion that the U.S. provides yearly to Israel. It’s evident which recipient is the most deserving, and that the decision is nothing but pure politics played out on the backs of desperately needy Palestinian refugees. Making 5 million people more desperate, denying them funds for medicine and education, only foments anger and greater incentive to armed struggle. This is hardly a recipe for peace, and changes nothing to affect the rights and interests of Palestinian refugees. ■ NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018
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Special Report
For Israel, All Carrots and No Sticks
By Mohamed Mohamed
PHOTO BY JOE RAEDLE/GETTY IMAGES
FROM PRESIDENTS TRUMAN to Trump, U.S. administrations have never actually been an “honest broker” of peace between Palestinians and Israelis, regardless of all the rhetoric and official positions. On the contrary, the U.S. has provided tremendous diplomatic, economic and military support to Israel ever since its creation in 1948. Actions speak louder than words, and even former negotiator Aaron David Miller admitted himself that American officials have acted as Israel’s attorney at the expense of successful peace negotiations. And despite the American pre-Trump position on Jerusalem (that Israeli settlements in Jerusalem are illegal, and that the city’s status should be decided in final status negotiations between Palestinians and Israelis), Israel has always been rewarded with generous military and finan- Lisa Patrick is overcome with emotion on Oct. 15, as she visits the remains of her home in Mexico Beach, FL, destroyed by Hurricane Michael. The storm will probably end up causing cial aid even though it continues to violate at least $25 billion in economic losses for Americans. international law. year to a state like Israel. Putting aside the ethics of supporting Such rewards include a record 10-year, $38 billion deal under such a discriminatory state that is occupying and oppressing milPresident Obama, despite Israel’s continued expansion of setlions of people, it makes little economic sense. tlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. In a speech to According to USAID’s classification, Israel is a “high income” AIPAC in 2008, Obama even said that “Jerusalem will remain the country. In fact, its Gross National Income (GNI) per capita of capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided.” Ironically, Presi$37,270 is more than three times the minimum amount needed dent Trump’s official recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital to be classified as a high-income country. On the other hand, has simply made the U.S. position more consistent with its acIraq has a GNI of $4,770 per capita, and Afghanistan only $570. tions (or inactions). Israel also does not hesitate to highlight its position as one of the Again, no matter how much Israel represses the rights of top 25 richest countries in the world, and it is quick to brag about Palestinians and violates international law, it is still guaranteed how innovative and technologically advanced it is. to receive many bunches of American carrots. For example, a Many Americans probably know that France is an advanced graphic from USAID shows the 2016 amount of U.S. foreign aid and wealthy country, and with a GNI almost the same as Israel’s given to Israel ($3.1 billion) and is depicted relative to other coun($37,970), it seems reasonable that France would receive only tries. It only takes an instant to notice that Israel’s aid circle is $104,483 of U.S. aid in 2016. There is simply no reason to give one of the largest on the map. In fact, it is the third largest, with away massive amounts of U.S. taxpayer money to a state that only Iraq ($5.2 billion) and Afghanistan ($5 billion) ahead. has the capability to pay for its own activities, especially when American taxpayers should seriously ask why their governsuch activities are hostile. ment gives away so much of their hard-earned money every So why are Americans giving almost $4 billion each year to a prosperous state such as Israel? Why has the U.S. handed Israel more than $134 billion dollars since 1948? Why is most of Mohamed Mohamed is the executive director of the Palestine Center. This this in the form of military assistance? Why have Americans proarticle was first posted on <www.thejerusalemfund.org>, Sept. 28, 2018. NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018
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vided an additional $705 million to Israel to finance its missile defense program? Why was it the first foreign country to receive the latest F-35 fighter jets, which were “paid” for with the same U.S. military aid that it receives? Why did Israel have the first-ever free trade agreement with the U.S., which makes Israeli exports duty free? Why does the U.S. not hesitate to provide so much money to Israel, despite a massive budget deficit, while it cuts funds to major programs such as food assistance? If it is so developed and wealthy, why does Israel need so much American money? These are obviously reasonable questions. Meanwhile, the U.S. has decided to punish Palestinians by cutting hundreds of millions of dollars in aid projects, including $25 million to assist East Jerusalem hospitals. This does not include the hundreds of millions of dollars that have already been withheld from UNRWA, which is the U.N. agency that provides food, education, healthcare and other basic services to Palestinian refugees in need.
20
It is mind-boggling that the Trump administration has vindictively and inhumanely targeted Palestinians, who are the weaker and oppressed side, while Israel continues to be rewarded despite its illegal military occupation and human rights violations against Palestinians. No matter what Israel does, the U.S. gives it nothing but carrots, while the Palestinians get all the sticks. According to a 2014 study, more than 1.2 million U.S. military veterans lacked health insurance coverage. Democrats and Republicans are both willing to block Veterans Affairs funding, citing budget concerns and other excuses, yet they show almost no hesitation in approving massive “aid”—or more accurately, gifts— to Israel. When it comes to Israel, divisive politics disappear. Also in 2014, the city of Flint, Michigan saw the beginning of a major crisis when it was discovered that there was significant lead contamination in its water supply. Only months ago, the water was finally declared safe to drink again (although many resi(Advertisement)
WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
dents remain skeptical). In 2016, Michigan’s governor asked President Obama to declare a major disaster in Flint, estimating that it would cost $55 million to replace the lead pipes. Obama declined to declare a disaster, and he authorized just $5 million in aid. Yet at the end of the year before his departure, the president did not hesitate to authorize $3.8 billion per year in military aid to Israel for the next 10 years. This is in fact as ridiculous as it sounds. The domestic crises mentioned above are just two examples of issues that require severe government attention and funding. From poverty to poor infrastructure, there are many problems that need to be solved in the U.S. Americans must ask their government why their money is so swiftly handed to the wealthy, apartheid state of Israel, when there is so much work to be done at home. The average person may not be aware of the extent of aid to Israel, but if given a choice, it is unlikely that many would choose to assist an aggressive foreign military over their fellow Americans. ■
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018
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Election Watch
What Happens When Americans Vote for Legislators Who Refuse to Represent Them?
By Janet McMahon
THE WEEKS leading up to the Oct. 6 confirmation of OP EN AND AREER ECIPIENTS OF Judge Brett Kavanaugh as the U.S. Supreme Court’s newest RO SRAEL UNDS associate justice were Compiled by Hugh Galford fraught—to put it mildly—here HOUSE: CURRENT RACES SENATE: CURRENT RACES in Washington, DC. Demonstrators who opposed the conRoyce, Edward R. (R-CA) $33,250 Casey, Robert P., Jr. (D-PA) $51,500 firmation of Kavanaugh, espeCurbelo, Carlos (R-FL) 28,500 Manchin, Joe, III (D-WV) 49,900 cially after he was accused of Lamborn, Douglas (R-CO) 25,000 Fischer, Debra S. (R-NE) 45,700 Zeldin, Lee M. (R-NY) 25,000 Menendez, Robert (D-NJ) 35,512 sexually assaulting Dr. ChrisRoskam, Peter (R-IL) 20,500 Sinema, Kyrsten (D-AZ) 33,750 tine Blasey Ford when they Deutch, Theodore E. (D-FL) 19,000 Mandel, Joshua A. (R-OH) 28,500 were teenagers, insisted that Schneider, Bradley S. (D-IL) 16,250 O’Rourke, Robert (Beto) (D-TX) 25,410 their voices be heard and Schiff, Adam (D-CA) 16,000 Wicker, Roger F. (R-MS) 23,400 Gottheimer, Josh (D-NJ) 16,000 Cardin, Benjamin L. (D-MD) 22,000 vowed to make them heard in Kohl, Dan (D-WI) 15,350 Tester, Jon (D-MT) 22,000 November. As Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer HOUSE: CAREER SENATE: CAREER (D-NY) said: “So to AmeriEngel, Eliot L. (D-NY) $409,418 McConnell, Mitch (R-KY) $592,392 cans, to so many millions who Ros-Lehtinen, Ileana (R-FL) 353,240 Durbin, Richard J. (D-IL) 403,421 are outraged by what hapHoyer, Steny (D-MD) 317,525 Wyden, Ronald L. (D-OR) 366,962 pened here, there’s one anLowey, Nita M. (D-NY) 256,123 Menendez, Robert (D-NJ) 250,830 swer: vote.” Royce, Edward R. (R-CA) 164,157 Murray, Patty (D-WA) 225,523 Pelosi, Nancy (D-CA) 149,150 Nelson, Bill (D-FL) 204,871 But on May 14 of this year, Levin, Sander M. (D-MI) 136,827 Shelby, Richard C. (R-AL) 201,825 he also said the following: “In Deutch, Theodore E. (D-FL) 136,050 Grassley, Charles E. (R-IA) 193,523 a long overdue move, we Hastings, Alcee L. (D-FL) 125,550 Stabenow, Debbie (D-MI) 184,206 have moved our embassy to Sherman, Brad (D-CA) 124,630 Cardin, Benjamin L. (D-MD) 170,695 Jerusalem.…I sponsored legislation to do this two decades ago, and I applaud President Trump for doing it.” Schumer— have the option of choosing a candidate who does not pay who has received a career total of $138,285 in pro-Israel PAC obeisance to the self-proclaimed Jewish state. contributions—has also said, “My name as you know comes But the lobby is not invincible—Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), from…the [Hebrew] word shomer, which means guardian. My whom the lobby did everything in its power to defeat, being ancestors were guardians of the ghetto wall in Chortkov and I the current serving example. Schumer himself may soon be believe Hashem, actually, gave me the name as one of my serving alongside fellow New Yorker Alexandria Ocasioroles that is very important in the United States Senate, to be a Cortez, the young Democratic Socialist who defeated Democshomer for Israel, and I will continue to be that with every bone ratic stalwart Joseph Crowley in New York’s June 26 congresin my body.” sional primary. “What will Chuck Schumer do if he has to In the opinion of this writer, the core issue facing those who choose between the Democrats and Israel?” asked columnist object to U.S. policies, foreign or domestic, is the question of Seth Lipsky in the July 18 New York Post. Lipsky went on to whether their elected representatives actually represent them. describe Ocasio-Cortez as “a nightmare for the Jewish state.” (Being a resident of the nation’s capital, and thus having no A more pertinent question might be: What will Chuck voting representation in Congress, the writer is not confronted Schumer—or Ben Cardin (D-MD), Mitch McConnell (R-KY) with this particular dilemma.) And, as the Washington Report’s and their pro-Israel fellow travelers—do if they have to choose decades of pro-Israel PAC compilations have demonstrated, between their constituents and Israel? Polls conducted by the the Israel lobby works very hard to ensure that voters do not Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy, for example, show that a majority of Americans would limit aid to Israel. A final question: Once they have the answer to the above Janet McMahon is managing editor of the Washington Report on question, what are Americans going to do about it? ■ Middle East Affairs.
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NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018
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PRO-ISRAEL PAC CONTRIBUTIONS TO 2018 CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATES State Alabama
Arizona
Arkansas California
Colorado
Connecticut Delaware
Office District S S S H H H S S S S H H H H S H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H S H H H H H S H S H
1 5 6
1 3 8 4
2 3 5 7 9 11 13 14 15 17 18 19 23 24 26 27 28 29 30 31 33 33 36 37 38 39 41 47 51 52 53
1 2 5 6 7
5
At-L.
Candidate Jones, Doug† Moore, Roy† Strange, Luther J., III† Byrne, Bradley R. Brooks, Mo Palmer, Gary Flake, Jeff* McSally, Martha*# Sinema, Kyrsten*# Ward, Kelli* O'Halleran, Tom Grijalva, Raul M. Franks, Trent Westerman, Bruce E. Feinstein, Dianne* Huffman, Jared Garamendi, John Thompson, Mike Bera, Amerish McNerney, Jerry DeSaulnier, Mark Lee, Barbara Speier, Jackie Swalwell, Eric M. Khanna, Ro Eshoo, Anna G. Lofgren, Zoe McCarthy, Kevin Carbajal, Salud O. Brownley, Julia Chu, Judy Schiff, Adam Cardenas, Tony Sherman, Brad Augilar, Pete Lieu, Ted Waxman, Henry A. Ruiz, Raul Bass, Karen Sanchez, Linda Royce, Edward R. Takano, Mark Lowenthal, Alan Vargas, Juan Peters, Scott Davis, Susan A. Bennet, Michael F. DeGette, Diana L. Polis, Jared Lamborn, Douglas Coffman, Mike Perlmutter, Edwin G. Murphy, Christopher S.* Esty, Elizabeth Carper, Thomas R.* Blunt Rochester, Lisa
Party
Status
2017-2018 Contributions
Career Total
D R R R R R R R D R D D R R D D D D D D D D D D D D D R D D D D D D D D D D D D R D D D D D D D D R R D D D D D
I N P I I I N O O O I I N I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I N I I I N I I I I I I I N I I I I N I I
2,500 2,000 17,500 0 1,500 1,000 10,000 0 33,750 500 0 1,000 2,000 0 2,000 2,000 1,000 2,000 50 1,000 2,000 100 2,000 0 0 1,000 1,000 0 0 2,000 1,000 16,000 2,500 2,000 350 0 3,248 1,000 0 2,000 33,250 500 2,000 0 0 2,000 1,500 1,000 0 25,000 0 1,000 17,375 1,000 2,500 0
2,500 2,000 17,500 5,000 4,000 4,500 33,250 7,000 48,750 500 0 18,550 12,100 0 159,342 13,500 21,500 16,500 23,160 34,600 7,010 11,400 13,000 30,000 13,750 13,760 13,750 32,500 1,660 25,570 5,500 118,917 16,100 124,630 13,685 16,100 87,395 20,550 9,060 36,950 164,157 9,180 23,200 15,100 13,750 23,173 55,930 11,510 1,000 47,000 7,750 14,224 32,375 3,560 62,900 0
Committees HS AS AS, FR B FR AS, HS AS B A (D), I
AS W FR C
A (FO), B AS, I I AS, B C
Maj. Leader AS, B
W I C FR A FR
C FR W FR
AS
C
AS AS
A (FO), FR (NE) HS
KEY: The Career Total column represents the total amount of pro-Israel PAC money received from Jan. 1, 2009 through March 31, 2018. S=Senate, H=House of Representatives. Party affiliation: D=Democrat, R=Republican, Ref=Reform, DFL=Democratic Farmer Labor, Ind=Independent, Lib=Libertarian, WFP=Working Families Party. Status: C=Challenger, I=Incumbent, N=Not Running, O=Open Seat (no incumbent), P=Defeated in primary election. *=Senate election year, #=House member running for Senate seat, †=Special Election. Committees (at time of election): A=Appropriations (D=Defense subcommittee, FO=Foreign Operations subcommittee, HS=Homeland Security, NS=National Security subcommittee), AS=Armed Services, B=Budget, C=Commerce, FR=Foreign Relations (NE=Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs subcommittee), HS=Homeland Security, I=Intelligence, IR=International Relations, NS=National Security, W=Ways and Means. ( ) indicates money returned by candidate, 0 that all money received was returned.
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018
WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
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pacchartsr1_22-27.qxp_PAC Charts 10/18/18 10:39 PM Page 24
State Florida
Georgia
Hawaii Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Kansas Kentucky
Louisiana
Maine
24
Office District S S H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H S S S S H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H S S S H H H H H S S H H H H H H H S S
1 6 7 8 9 10 12 13 18 20 21 22 26 27 1 2 4 5 6 6 8 10 11 12
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 14 16 17 18 2 7 1 2 4 3 6 1 2 3 4 6
Candidate Nelson, Bill* Rubio, Marco Gaetz, Matt DeSantis, Ronald D. Murphy, Stephanie Posey, Bill Soto, Darren Demings, Valdez (Val) Bilirakis, Gus M. Crist, Charlie J. Mast, Brian Hastings, Alcee L. Frankel, Lois J. Deutch, Theodore E. Curbelo, Carlos Ros-Lehtinen, Ileana Carter, Buddy Bishop, Sanford D. Johnson, Henry C. (Hank) Lewis, John R. Handel, Karen Christine† Ossoff, T. Jonathan† Scott, James A. (Austin) Hice, Jody B. Loudermilk, Barry Allen, Richard W. Hirono, Mazie K.* Schatz, Brian Duckworth, L. Tammy Durbin, Richard J. Kelly, Robin Lipinski, Daniel W. Gutierrez, Luis V. Quigley, Mike Roskam, Peter Davis, Danny K. Krishnamoorthi, S. Raja Schakowsky, Janice D. Schneider, Bradley S. Foster, G. William (Bill) Bost, Michael Hultgren, Randy Kinzinger, Adam Bustos, Cheri LaHood, Darin Donnelly, Joseph S.* Messer, Luke*# Rokita, Todd*# Walorski, Jackie Carson, Andre Blum, Rodney Loebsack, David W. King, Steve Moran, Jerry McConnell, Mitch Yarmuth, John A. Barr, Garland (Andy) Scalise, Steve Richmond, Cedric L. Higgins, Clay Johnson, James M. (Mike) Graves, Garret King, Angus S., Jr.* Collins, Susan M.
Party
Status
2017-2018 Contributions
Career Total
D R R R D R D D R D R D D D R R R D D D R D R R R R D D D D D D D D R D D D D D R R R D R D R R R D R D R R R D R R D R R R Ind R
I I I N I I I I I I I I I I I N I I I I I N I I I I I I I I I I N I I I I I I I I I I I I I P P I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I
19,500 1,000 0 10,000 1,000 0 10,000 1,500 0 5,500 6,000 5,500 5,000 19,000 28,500 13,500 0 2,000 3,000 1,250 5,500 1,491 10,000 0 0 500 2,500 0 -100 2,250 1,000 11,500 1,000 3,000 20,500 2,000 2,000 5,400 16,250 -100 1,500 1,750 1,000 8,250 0 16,000 0 0 10,000 2,000 1,000 0 1,000 1,500 10,000 2,000 7,000 2,700 2,000 1,500 3,700 2,300 21,270 4,000
204,871 55,100 500 13,500 4,000 5,000 22,000 4,500 51,816 5,500 18,000 125,550 37,800 136,050 69,500 353,240 0 9,510 53,200 82,500 5,500 1,491 10,000 0 0 500 14,000 40,270 59,104 403,421 6,950 34,100 42,561 22,400 70,032 23,510 2,500 45,545 73,950 28,950 5,500 12,700 23,000 26,110 2,450 46,000 0 0 23,700 10,110 7,500 21,000 1,000 32,200 592,392 27,020 12,500 50,700 10,500 1,500 3,700 10,300 38,270 152,900
WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
Committees AS, C A (FO), FR (NE), I AS, B FR (NE) AS HS C
FR (NE)
FR (NE) FR (NE) W FR (NE), I C A
W
AS AS AS A (D), C C A (D, FO) FR A, I W W
B, C FR (NE) C, FR (NE)
W AS
B W I
C
A (D, FO), C A (D, FO) B
C HS HS
AS, B, I A (D), I
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018
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State
Office District
H S H H H Massachuestts S H H H H H H H Michigan S H H H H H H H Minnesota S S H H H H Mississippi S Missouri S S H H Montana S S H Nebraska S S H Nevada S S S H New Hampshire H H New Jersey S S H H H H H H H H New Mexico S H H New York S H H H H H H
Maine Maryland
1
5 7 8
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
1 2 5 8 12 13 14 3 4 5 8 1 7 At-L. 2 4 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 10 11 12
1 3
1 4 5 6 7 9
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018
Candidate
Party
Pingree, Chellie M. Cardin, Benjamin L.* Hoyer, Steny Cummings, Elijah E. Raskin, Jamie Warren, Elizabeth* Neal, Richard E. McGovern, James P. Tsongas, Niki Kennedy, Joseph P., III Clark, Katherine Moulton, Seth Capuano, Michael E. Stabenow, Debbie* Bergman, John Huizenga, William P. Kildee, Daniel T. Slotkin, Elissa Dingell, Debbie Conyers, John, Jr. Lawrence, Brenda Lulenar Klobuchar, Amy* Smith, Tina Paulsen, Erik McCollum, Betty Ellison, Keith M. Nolan, Richard M. Wicker, Roger F.* Hawley, Joshua D.* McCaskill, Claire* Clay, William L., Jr. (Lacy) Long, Billy Tester, Jon* Rosendale, Matt* Quist, Robert E. Fischer, Debra S.* Raybould, Jane* Bacon, Donald J. Heller, Dean* Rosen, Jacky*# Masto, Catherine Cortez Kihuen, Ruben Shea-Porter, Carol Kuster, Ann McLane Menendez, Robert* Booker, Cory A. MacArthur, Thomas Smith, Christopher H. Gottheimer, Josh Pallone, Frank, Jr. Lance, Leonard Payne, Donald M., Jr. Sherrill, Rebecca M. (Mikie) Coleman, Bonnie Watson Heinrich, Martin T.* Haaland, Debra Lujan, Ben R. Gillibrand, Kirsten E.* Zeldin, Lee M. Rice, Kathleen Meeks, Gregory Meng, Grace Velazquez, Nydia M. Clarke, Yvette D.
D D D D D D D D D D D D D D R R D D D D D DFL DFL R DFL DFL DFL R R D D R D R D R D R R D D D D D D D R R D D R D D D D D D D R D D D D D
Status
2017-2018 Contributions
Career Total
I I I I I I I I N I I P I I I I I C I N I I I I I N N I C I I I I C N I C I I C I N N I I I I I I I I I O I I O I I I I I I I I
1,000 22,000 13,500 2,182 2,000 2,500 2,000 2,150 0 0 500 1,000 2,000 12,600 0 0 1,000 1,000 3,000 2,000 2,000 17,500 0 0 1,000 1,000 100 23,400 5,000 0 2,000 1,400 22,000 0 0 45,700 0 1,000 10,000 9,000 500 1,000 0 2,750 35,512 1,000 500 5,000 16,000 3,500 2,000 2,000 1,000 500 17,782 250 2,000 2,500 25,000 0 0 2,675 6,750 2,000
16,676 170,695 317,525 31,192 5,550 10,000 23,750 20,225 14,000 6,600 4,615 3,850 16,010 184,206 2,500 1,000 35,675 1,000 8,010 17,010 7,000 99,835 0 20,500 18,750 12,110 17,768 89,800 5,000 71,835 29,010 18,900 65,224 0 0 65,200 0 3,500 33,000 24,500 45,605 7,473 25,019 16,210 250,830 38,327 7,500 82,750 19,500 112,550 13,000 43,250 1,000 23,535 52,537 250 14,000 84,950 62,000 5,500 2,000 12,100 8,250 5,510
WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
Committees A FR (NE) Min. Whip AS W
AS C A AS, B
B B C C
W A (D) AS, C
AS, HS
C A (D, HS), C AS, C
AS, HS C AS C AS
FR (NE) FR (NE)
FR
C C HS
HS HS
C AS FR (NE) HS FR A (FO) C
25
pacchartsr1_22-27.qxp_PAC Charts 10/18/18 10:39 PM Page 26
State
Office District
H H H H H H H H North Carolina H H H H H North Dakota S Ohio S S H H H H Oklahoma S Oregon S H H Pennsylvania S S S H H H H H H H H H Rhode Island S H South Carolina H H H Tennessee S H H Texas S S S H H H H H H H H H H Utah S H H Vermont H Virginia S S H
New York
26
12 14 15 16 17 20 22 25 1 4 9 11 12 4 6 9 14 3 4 2 4 5 6 8 11 17 17 18 2 2 5 6 8 9
1 7 9 10 12 20 28 29 30 35
3 4 At-L.
Candidate Maloney, Carolyn B. Crowley, Joseph Serrano, Jose E. Engel, Eliot L. Lowey, Nita M. Tonko, Paul D. Tenney, Claudia Slaughter, Louise Butterfield, George K. Price, David E. Pittenger, Robert M. Meadows, Mark R. Adams, Alma Shealey Heitkamp, Heidi* Brown, Sherrod* Mandel, Joshua A.* Jordan, James D. Johnson, Bill Kaptur, Marcy Joyce, David P. Inhofe, James M. Merkley, Jeffrey A. Blumenauer, Earl DeFazio, Peter A. Bartos, Jeffrey A.* Casey, Robert P., Jr.* Barletta, Lou*# Boyle, Brendan F. Perry, Scott Muroff, Daniel Costello, Ryan A. Cartwright, Matt Smucker, Lloyd Lamb, Conor Rothfus, Keith Doyle, Michael Whitehouse, Sheldon, II* Langevin, Jim Wilson, Joe Connelly, Chad† Clyburn, James E. Corker, Robert P., Jr.* Kustoff, David Cohen, Stephen I. Cruz, Ted* O'Rourke, Robert (Beto)*# Cornyn, John Gohmert, Louis B., Jr. Culberson, John Green, Alexander McCaul, Michael Granger, Kay Castro, Joaquin Cuellar, Henry R. Green, Raymond E. (Gene) Johnson, Eddie Bernice Doggett, Lloyd Hatch, Orrin G.* Herrod, Christopher N.† Love, Mia Welch, Peter Cantor, Eric* Kaine, Timothy M.* Warner, Mark R.
Party
Status
2017-2018 Contributions
Career Total
D D D D D D R D D D R R D D D R R R D R R D D D R D R D R D R D R D R D D D R R D R R D R D R R R D R R D D D D D R R R D R D D
I P I I I I I N I I P I I I I N I I I I I I I I N I C I I N N I O O O I I I I P I N I I I C I I I I I I I I N I I N P I I N I I
0 0 0 5,000 9,000 2,000 10,000 1,010 2,000 1,000 2,500 3,000 500 7,000 9,060 28,500 2,000 1,500 2,000 2,500 1,000 1,075 11,350 2,100 5,000 51,500 0 12,500 0 1,600 0 0 0 4,500 1,000 1,000 15,500 0 10,000 5,000 1,000 2,500 1,000 1,000 0 25,410 3,000 1,000 5,000 2,000 5,000 2,500 1,000 2,000 5,000 1,000 1,000 5,000 3,500 12,000 1,000 2,000 10,370 0
40,970 109,457 9,250 409,418 256,123 16,000 10,500 71,240 9,000 72,327 2,500 11,000 3,510 16,000 108,565 42,500 2,500 2,500 9,300 17,000 138,800 40,725 28,860 23,710 5,000 130,400 0 30,000 2,000 1,600 9,000 9,510 0 4,500 2,500 10,510 131,000 50,500 15,250 5,000 36,610 38,000 6,000 36,510 18,500 26,410 92,580 5,000 17,500 11,000 18,000 51,000 1,000 5,500 21,800 14,000 14,310 80,200 3,500 18,000 17,500 239,605 31,071 65,500
WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
Committees W A C, FR A (FO) C C A (FO, HS)
FR (NE) HS
B, C A (D) A AS, C A (FO), B, FR W HS B, FR (NE) FR, HS C A
C B AS, HS AS, FR B, FR (NE) AS, C I
A (HS)
FR, HS A (D, FO) FR, I A (D, HS) C
W C
AS,B,FR(NE) B, I
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018
pacchartsr1_22-27.qxp_PAC Charts 10/18/18 10:39 PM Page 27
State Virginia
Washington
West Virginia Wisconsin
Wyoming
Office District H H H H S S H H H H H S H S H H H H H H H H S
2 5 8 11 1 5 6 7 10 2 1 2 3 4 6 6 7 8
Candidate Taylor, Scott W. Garrett, Thomas A. Beyer, Donald S. Connolly, Gerald E. Cantwell, Maria* Murray, Patty DelBene, Suzan McMorris Rodgers, Cathy Kilmer, Derek Jayapal, Pramila Heck, Dennis (Denny) Manchin, Joe, III* Mooney, Alexander X. Baldwin, Tammy* Ryan, Paul Pocan, Mark Kind, Ronald J. Moore, Gwendolynne S. Grothman, Glenn S. Kohl, Dan Duffy, Sean P. Gallagher, Michael J. Barrasso, John A.*
2017-2018 Total PAC Contributions: Total PAC Contributions (1978-2018): Total No. of Recipients (1978-2018):
Party
Status
2017-2018 Contributions
Career Total
R R D D D D D R D D D D R D R D D D R D R R R
I N I I I I I I I I I I I I N I I I I C I I I
2,000 1,500 500 1,000 8,500 0 0 2,500 0 0 2,000 49,900 7,000 15,030 1,000 0 0 2,000 4,500 15,350 0 1,500 17,500
2,000 1,500 9,610 32,510 19,844 225,523 12,010 33,850 14,000 0 5,500 86,400 21,250 44,160 49,450 12,500 11,000 7,000 4,500 15,350 15,500 3,500 44,991
Committees A (HS) FR, HS
FR (NE) C A (D, HS), B B, W C A B I A (HS), I A (D, HS), C
A W B
AS, HS FR
$1,250,610 $4,940,731 2,584
Help make sure that the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs will be here for the next generation. By remembering the Washington Report in your will, you can: • Make a significant gift without affecting your current cash flow; • Direct your bequest to a vital purpose— educating readers about U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East; • Receive a charitable estate tax deduction; • Leave a legacy for future generations. Bequests of any size are honored with membership in the American Educational Trust’s “Choirmasters,” named for angels whose foresight and dedication ensured the future of the Washington Report and Middle East Books and More. For more information visit www.wrmea.org/donate/bequests.pdf, contact us at circulation@wrmea.org, write: American Educational Trust, PO Box 91056 • Long Beach, CA 90809-1056, or telephone our new toll-free circulation number 888-881-5861 • Fax: 714-226-9733 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018
WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
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Special Report
Trump Tries to Silence Palestinians and their Friends. Instead They’re Energized By Delinda C. Hanley
STAFF PHOTO D. HANLEY
were there because they were passionate about defending the Palestinian cause, promoting our culture and taking care of our people. They were inspired by their belief in the work that we did to foster better relations between Palestine and the United States... “The closure is devastating to the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who live in America,” Zomlot wrote. “Like any other non-American in the United States, they could feel safer knowing that, far from home, they could have a resource to help them in a crisis...We assisted people with tasks that ranged from helping navigate paperwork, like divorce, marriage and school certificates for use in Palestine, to assisting them with funeral arrangements and helping U.S. citizens navigate inheritance issues with their assets in Palestine.” Next on Sept. 17, the Trump administraThe PLO Mission’s Consul Hakam Takash tells listeners they are all ambassadors who will tion revoked U.S. residency permits for carry the Palestinian message forward. Husam Zomlot, his wife Suzan and children, Alma, 5, and Saeed, 7, whose visas PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP marked the 25th anniversary were valid until 2020, and closed the family’s bank accounts. of the Oslo accords by giving the Palestine Liberation OrganiSupporters and press gathered outside the red-brick building zation’s mission in Washington, DC one month to close its on Wisconsin Avenue in Northwest Washington on Oct. 10. doors and to end all contact with the United States. PalestiniHanna Hanania, head of the American Federation of Ramallah, ans never had an embassy in this nation’s capital because, vowed that the Palestinian presence in the U.S. will continue deunlike 135 other countries, the U.S. does not recognize Palesspite the closure of the PLO office. He and others will work to retine as a sovereign state. Nevertheless, the mission has operopen the mission. ated like an embassy, officially representing the country and Arab American Institute founder and president James Zogby its people since 1994. noted that since the 1993 Oslo Accords, “One party to Oslo has Ambassador Husam Zomlot gave the shocking news to his violated every single condition of that peace accord and has DC staff via video conference on Sept. 10 from Ramallah, where never been sanctioned. It has received increasingly more aid he has been since he was recalled in May by Palestinian Authorand more acceptance of all their illegal policies. The other party, ity President Mahmoud Abbas to protest Trump’s decision to rethe weakest party, was always expected to do the heaviest lifting, locate the American Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to and has been repeatedly sanctioned,” Zogby charged. He deJerusalem. In a Washington Post op-ed published Sept. 13, scribed the treatment of Palestinians as “the wound in the heart Zomlot wrote, “Ours was a close-knit office of 20 people; we conof the Arab world that never healed.” sidered one another family. When I told them the news, I could Zogby concluded, “What we’re here to say quite simply is, you see over the screen that some of them had started to cry. Workcan close the office and you can silence the voice, but the Palesing at the diplomatic mission was not only a job for them. They tinian people will not go away. They remain. They remain on their land, they remain in their camps waiting to return, and we here, as a community, remain as their voice, the voice of the PalestinDelinda C. Hanley is news editor of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. ian people.” 28
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For 40 years Palestinians have given and given while Israel has taken and taken, said American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee’s national president Samer Khalaf. “What Donald Trump has done has sort of laid bare the truth of the matter. The truth is that the Americans were never really a neutral mediator. Trump has given into every single Israeli demand and left nothing for Palestinians,” Khalaf said. Palestinians who have kept their keys and their papers all these years will wait for a just and lasting peace, he concluded. Rabbi Joseph Berman from Jewish Voice for Peace called for Americans to organize, take to the streets, and elect leaders who will stand up for justice. Kyle Cristofalo from Churches for Middle East Peace asked the administration to listen. “Christians are in support of a Palestinian
state, and justice and equality for all.” Wa'el Alzayat, who worked at the Department of State for 10 years and is now CEO of Emgage, which educates, engages and empowerss Muslim American communities, called for an end of bigoted politics. Ghassan Tarazi, a founding member of the Palestinian Christian Alliance for Peace, said there cannot be peace without justice and when one side is diminished there can’t be justice. Dr. Osama Abuirshaid, director of American Muslims for Palestine, said this administration’s attempt to isolate Palestinians will fail because they have lots of friends in Washington, DC and the rest of the world. When the consular staff left their building, consular affairs officer Shahinaz Wafi said, this “unusually hostile decision” officially strips the Palestinians of its only representative office in the U.S., “thus sever-
ing diplomatic and political ties between the two governments.” “This is an attempt to shut down your voice. This is an act of censorship,” said Hakam Takash, who has worked in consular affairs at the mission for 18 years. "This is a new beginning, not just in Palestinian-American relations but in the work of this community,” he told the crowd as he removed the plaque on the Washington building. “You'll leave here all as ambassadors today and you will carry this message forward. You will show the world that the Palestinian voice will not be silenced.” The Palestinian flag will remain since it is a private building owned by Palestinian haircare billionaire Farouk Shami, a former longtime business associate of Donald Trump who appeared on the president’s show, “The Apprentice.” ■
whose limousine crashed in Schoharie. This much is known so far: the limousine failed multiple recent New York State safety inspections, including problems with its brakes; the driver was not licensed to drive such a vehicle; and the company has had four other vehicles removed from the road in the last two years. The responsibility for these failures initially rests with the company’s owner, Shahed Hussain, who currently resides in either Pakistan or Dubai. But what about the responsibility of the FBI, for their support of a con man and liar who seemed to destroy everything he touched? Hussain was arrested in December 2001 on 80 counts of fraud involving the procurement of phony driver’s licenses when he worked as a translator for the state Department of Motor Vehicles in Albany. He had routinely accepted bribes of several hundred dollars each to help immigrants pass written exams they couldn't understand. He faced the prospect of a long prison term and eventual deportation to his native Pakistan, which he’d fled in 1993 after he was charged there with murder. To avoid the consequences of his criminal acts, Hussain agreed to become an informant for the FBI to entrap people and destroy their communities. After he pleaded guilty in April 2003 to a single felony count to settle those 80 charges against him, Hussain was then paid by the FBI with taxpayer money to organize, engineer,
and execute the three stings mentioned above, over a period of nine years. Records show he has also been involved in dozens of lawsuits in Albany County since 1997. His businesses regularly failed. He declared bankruptcy. A federal judge in the Newburgh case referred his testimony in the bankruptcy case for possible perjury. Yet the FBI still appeared to support him, an unguided missile of mass destruction aimed at the American public. The limousine company is the latest hit on this road of calamity. Shahed Hussain’s debt to justice has not been paid. The years spent in prison (and the years still to serve) for the phony crimes that Hussain engineered for the FBI cannot be recovered for the men he put away. And the terrible irony of a felon convicted as part of a DMV scam, who is now responsible for the faulty operation of a vehicle that killed 20 innocent people, is not lost on us. Nor should it be lost on the FBI, which did not see fit to imprison and ultimately deport Hussain but instead put him on their payroll in the post-9/11 Muslim “terrorist” hysteria in Albany, in Newburgh, and in Pittsburgh. We request Shahed Hussain’s immediate extradition to the U.S. to face questions about his ownership of Prestige Limousine. The FBI also needs to acknowledge its culpability, through these long years of Hussain’s “service” to them, in the tragedy in Schoharie. We demand justice for all the victims, dead and living, of the carnage wrought by both. ■
Statement By Muslim Support Groups: Tragedy in Schoharie By Joe Lombardo and Jeanne Finley
WE ARE MEMBERS of the Albany-based Muslim Solidarity Committee, the national Project SALAM (Support And Legal Advocacy for Muslims), and the national Coalition for Civil Freedoms. We grieve with the families and friends of the 20 victims of the horrendous limousine crash in Schoharie, NY on Oct. 6, and hold them in our hearts. We grieve also for the communities who have lost these beloved members. Our grief for the victims of the tragedy is mixed with our grief for the many victims of FBI stings involving the owner of the limousine company, Shahed Hussain. We know Shahed Hussain well from his role as an FBI informant in three persecutions of Muslim citizens: the Aref-Hossain sting case in Albany in 2004–2006 (subject of the documentary “Waiting for Mercy”); the Newburgh Four sting case in Newburgh in 2009–2010 (subject of the documentary “The Newburgh Sting”); and as the “closer” in the Khalifa AlAkili sting case in Pittsburgh, PA in 2012–2013 (subject of the Emmy-winning documentary “(T)error”). The FBI rewarded Hussain for his efforts by paying him handsomely, money he then used to start several businesses, including a motel and Prestige Limousine in Wilton,
Jeanne Finley, a writer and editor and Joe Lombardo is a Delmar-based organizer. Both are members of Albany's Muslim Solidarity Committee and Project SALAM. NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018
WASHINgTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
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Congress Watch
Goodies for Israel Bills Continue to Move Forward
By Shirl McArthur
ON JULY 24 Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) introduced S. 3257, the “STOP Using Human Shields” bill. The stated purpose of the bill is to “impose sanctions on foreign persons responsible for serious violations of international law regarding the protection of civilians during armed conflict.” The sanctions described are mostly redundant, however, since the stated targets of the bill are designated foreign terrorist organizations, especially Hamas and Hezbollah, and those organizations are already subject to U.S. sanctions. The bill’s real purpose appears to be to establish that responsibility for Israel’s killing of any civilians in Gaza or Lebanon falls 100 percent on Hamas or Hezbollah. Given that Hamas and Hezbollah operate widely within Gaza and Lebanon, Israel could argue that any Israeli “self-defense” actions against Hamas or Hezbollah involve circumstances where civilian casualties become unavoidable. And among the “findings” in S. 3257 is number (7), saying that “in accordance with the proportionality rule…these terrorist groups bear responsibility for such casualties.” On Sept. 26 the Senate Foreign Relations Committee ordered the bill, which has 51 co-sponsors, including Cruz, to be reported to the full Senate.
pedited process that requires a two-thirds vote for passage). But the bill was also referred to the House Financial Services Committee, which has not yet taken any action on it. S. 720 now has 58 co-sponsors, including Cardin, and H.R. 1697 now has 291, including Roskam. The bills that would encourage states to adopt anti-BDS measures have gained some co-sponsors. S. 170, introduced by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) in January 2017, now has 49 cosponsors, including Rubio, and H.R. 2856, introduced in June by Rep. Patrick McHenry (RNC), now has 140 co-sponsors, including McHenry. The so-called “Anti-Semitism Awareness” bills, S. 2940 in the Senate and H.R. 5924 in the House, which have nothing to do with combatting anti-Semitism, but instead are an attempt to squelch criticism of Israel on U.S. campuses, also have gained support. The bills would endorse an expansive definition of anti-Semitism that would define most anti-Israel speech and actions as being anti-Semitic. S. 2940, introduced May 23 by Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), now has 6 co-sponsors, including Scott, and H.R. 5924, introduced by Roskam also on May 23, now has 47 co-sponsors, including Roskam.
The stated targets of the bill are foreign terrorist organizations already subject to U.S. sanctions.
ANTI-BOYCOTT BILLS SEEM STALLED, FOR NOW
The unconstitutional “Israel Anti-Boycott” bills, strongly promoted by AIPAC and other hard-line pro-Israel groups, have made little progress, but action could happen at any time. Both S. 720, introduced by Sen. Benjamin Cardin (D-MD) in March 2017, and H.R. 1697, introduced by Rep. Peter Roskam (R-IL) the same month, claim that the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) movements penalize firms doing business in Israel—but in fact they are about doing business in Israel’s colonies, not Israel. As reported in previous issues, the ACLU, Amnesty International and others have expressed their opposition to the bills because of their attacks on free speech. Congressional supporters of the bills continue to ignore those objections, however, as well as decades of bipartisan distinction between Israel and its colonies on the West Bank. In June the House Foreign Affairs Committee ordered H.R. 1697 to be reported to the full House, recommending that it be brought up under “suspension of the rules” (an ex-
CONGRESS PASSES BILL MAKING IT EASIER TO SUE PALESTINIANS
Shirl McArthur is a retired foreign service officer. He lives in the Washington, DC metropolitan area.
On Sept. 21, 34 Democratic senators, led by Sens. Chris Coons (D-DE), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Chris Van Hollen (D-MD),
30
On Aug. 22 the Senate passed S. 2946, the “Anti-Terrorism Clarification” bill, introduced May 24 by Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Cruz. The House took it up and passed it without objection on Sept. 13, and it was signed into law by the president on Oct. 3. When passed the bill had 12 co-sponsors, including Grassley and Cruz. Previously, on July 23 the House passed its version of the bill, H.R. 5954, introduced also in May by Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), with eight co-sponsors, including Goodlatte. Cruz said in a press release that the purpose of the bill is “to better ensure that American victims of international terrorism can obtain justice in U.S. courts by holding accountable those who commit, or aid and abet terrorist activity abroad.”
TRUMP IGNORES LETTERS DECRYING CUTS TO PALESTINIAN AID
WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018
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STATUS UPDATES
H.R. 5898 and H.R. 6034, Attacking UNRWA. H.R. 5898, introduced in May by Reps. David Cicilline (D-RI) and Lee Zeldin (RNY), whose purpose is to eliminate or reduce U.S. contributions to UNRWA, now has four co-sponsors, including Cicilline and Zeldin. And H.R. 6034, introduced in June by Rep. David Young (R-IA), which would require the secretary of state to review the educational material used by the Palestinian Authority or UNRWA, now has seven co-sponsors, including Young.
H.J.Res. 135, Israel Defend Itself. Introduced in June by Zeldin, it now has 13 co-sponsors, including Zeldin. The bill would accept the Israeli government’s position that Hamas bears total responsibility for all Palestinian deaths and injuries caused by Israel in Gaza, and that all Israeli actions in Gaza are self-defense. H.Res. 785, U.S.-Israel Cooperation. Introduced in March by Rep. Michael Conaway (R-TX), it now has 131 co-sponsors, including Conaway. In addition to urging unspecified increased U.S.-Israel cooperation, the bill gratuitously supports Trump’s Dec. 6, 2017 declaration recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. signed a letter to President Donald Trump “in strong opposition to your decision to cut some $200 million in FY ’17 Economic Support Fund assistance originally planned for the West Bank and Gaza and to end U.S. contributions to [UNRWA], including more than $300 in assistance this fiscal year.” The letter says the obvious, that Trump’s “strategy of attempting to force the Palestinian Authority to the negotiating table by withholding humanitarian assistance from women and children is misguided and destined to backfire. Your proposed cuts would undermine those who seek a peaceful solution and strengthen the hands of Hamas and other extremists in the Gaza Strip.” Earlier, on Aug. 3, 10 Democratic senators, led by Feinstein, wrote to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and USAID Administrator Mark Green urging them to release the more than $500 million for Gaza that is being withheld. And in the House, on July 11 the full Democratic membership of the House Foreign Affairs Middle East subcommittee, led by Rep. Ted Deutch (D-FL), wrote to Trump urging that he release the funds for Gaza because “the humanitarian crisis inside Gaza is getting worse by the day.” NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018
H.R. 4238, Iran Proxies. Introduced in November by Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX), the “Iranian Proxies Terrorist Sanctions” bill would impose sanctions on two Iraqi paramilitary groups reportedly affiliated with Iran, and now has 20 co-sponsors, including Poe. H.Res. 795, U.S.-Gulf Cooperation. Introduced in March by Reps. Joe Wilson (R-SC) and Donald Norcross (D-NJ), “Recognizing the U.S. role in the evolving energy landscape of the Gulf Cooperation Council countries” now has three co-sponsors. S.J.Res. 59, AUMF. Introduced in April by Sens. Bob Corker (RTN) and Tim Kaine (D-VA) would authorize “the use of military force against the Taliban, al-Qaeda, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, and designated associated forces.” The bill now has three Democratic and three Republican co-sponsors. The measure does not include a sunset clause, but instead would require presidential and congressional review, to “include a proposal to repeal, modify, or leave in place this joint resolution.” —S.M.
These entreaties to Trump have, of course, fallen on deaf ears. Two new bills were introduced regarding UNRWA. On July 19 Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-CO) introduced H.R. 6451, the “UNRWA Reform and Refugee Support” bill. It would reduce, but not eliminate, U.S. contributions to UNRWA for Palestinian refugees. It has 14 co-sponsors, including Lamborn. And on Sept. 6 Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) introduced the relatively positive S. 3425, which would “redirect funding from [UNRWA] to other entities providing assistance to Palestinians living in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.”
NEW LETTER ON ISRAELI DETENTION OF PALESTINIAN CHILDREN
H.R. 4391, introduced in November 2017 by Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN), which would “require the secretary of state to certify that U.S. funds do not support military detention, interrogation, abuse, or illtreatment of Palestinian children,” now has 30 co-sponsors, including McCollum, and a new letter was sent to Pompeo on July 20. The letter, led by Reps. Steve Cohen (D-TN), David Price (D-NC), Jan
Schakowsky (D-IL) and John Yarmuth (DKY) and signed by 35 representatives, urges “the State Department to address the detention of Palestinian children” by Israel. Then the letter’s drafters inexplicably felt the need to add that “we reaffirm our steadfast commitment to providing necessary security assistance to Israel that saves the lives of innocent civilians from terrorism and rocket attacks.”
GOODIES FOR ISRAEL BILL NEARING PASSAGE
The “U.S.-Israel Security Assistance Authorization” bill could be passed at any time. The bill encompasses a full wish list of goodies for Israel, including many security assistance measures, extension of loan guarantees, and enhanced U.S.Israel cooperation programs. The Senate version, S. 2497, introduced in March by Rubio, was taken up by the full Senate and passed by voice vote on Aug. 1. Then on Sept. 12, the full House passed it under “suspension of the rules,” after first replacing its text with the text of the House bill, H.R. 5141, introduced in the House in March by Rep. Ileana RosLehtinen (R-FL), and renaming it the
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â&#x20AC;&#x153;Ileana Ros-Lehtinen U.S.-Israel Security Assistance Authorizationâ&#x20AC;? bill, in recognition of Ros-Lehtinenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s status as the leading Israel-firster in Congress. Notice of the House action has been received in the Senate, but the latter has not taken any action. When the Senate agrees to the House amendment, which it surely will, the measure will be ready for the presidentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s signature. S. 2497 has 73 cosponsors, including Rubio, and H.R. 5141 has 303, including Ros-Lehtinen. On Sept. 6 Reps. Ted Lieu (D-CA) and Elise Stefanik (R-NY) introduced H.R. 6725, the â&#x20AC;&#x153;U.S.x-Israel Directed Energy Cooperationâ&#x20AC;? bill. It would authorize the secretary of defense to carry out research, development, test and evaluation activities jointly with Israel â&#x20AC;&#x153;to establish directed energy capabilities that address threats to the U.S., deployed forces of the U.S., or Israel.â&#x20AC;?
IRAN SANCTIONS BILLS CONTINUE SLOWLY PLUGGING ALONG
Although Trumpâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s withdrawal from the JCPOA stalled action on most Iran sanctions measures, a new one, S. 3243, was introduced July 19 by Sens. Tom Cotton (R-AR) and Cruz. It would impose sanctions on Iranians who engage in â&#x20AC;&#x153;politically motivated harassment, abuse, extortion, or extended detentionâ&#x20AC;? of individuals in Iran. Also, the AIPAC-pushed H.R. 5132, introduced in March by Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA), which would expand sanctions against Iranâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), now has 221 cosponsors, including Royce. On Sept. 26 Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and 8 co-sponsors introduced S. 3516, a new bill to impose sanctions on the IRGC. The House on Sept. 25 suddenly took up and passed, under â&#x20AC;&#x153;suspension of the rules,â&#x20AC;? S. 1595, the â&#x20AC;&#x153;Hezbollah International Financing Amendmentsâ&#x20AC;? bill introduced by Rubio more than a year ago, in July 2017. The Senate passed the bill in October 2017, so it is ready for the presidentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s signature.
NEW MEASURES ON SAUDI ARABIA, U.S. FORCES IN YEMEN
On Aug. 22 Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and seven co-sponsors introduced S.Res. 613 â&#x20AC;&#x153;requesting a report on the observance of and respect for human rights and fundamental freedom in Saudi Arabia.â&#x20AC;? And on Sept. 25 Reps. Bradley Schneider (D-IL) and Mark Meadows (R-NC) introduced H.R. 6894 to â&#x20AC;&#x153;require a report on Saudi Arabia obtaining nuclear fuel enrichment capabilities.â&#x20AC;? While the earlier bills regarding an authorization for use of military force have made little progress (see â&#x20AC;&#x153;Status Updatesâ&#x20AC;? box), a new measure, H.Con.Res. 138, introduced Sept. 26 by Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), would require the president to â&#x20AC;&#x153;remove U.S. Armed Forces from hostilities in Yemen that have not been authorized by Congress.â&#x20AC;? It has 42 cosponsors, including Khanna. â&#x2013;
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WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
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From the Diaspora
Why Israel Demolishes: Khan Al-Ahmar as Representation of Greater Genocide
By Ramzy Baroud
PHOTO ABBAS MOMANI/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
LIKE VULTURES, Israeli soldiers descended on Khan AlAhmar on Sept. 14, recreating a menacing scene with which the residents of this small Palestinian village, located east of Jerusalem, are all too familiar. The strategic location of Khan Al-Ahmar makes the story behind the imminent Israeli demolition of the peaceful village unique amid the ongoing destruction of Palestinian homes and lives throughout besieged Gaza and the occupied West Bank. Throughout the years, Khan Al-Ahmar, once part of an uninterrupted Palestinian physical landscape, has grown increasingly isolated. A Palestinian is arrested protesting the blocking of the road leading to Khan Al-Ahmar on Sept. 14. The Decades of Israeli colonizaIsraeli government ordered more than 35 Palestinian Bedouin families to demolish their own homes in order tion of East Jerusalem and to expand the nearby illegal Israeli settlement of Kfar Adummim. the West Bank left Khan AlAhmar trapped between massive and vastly expanding Israeli Ahmar, or any other Palestinian village, outside the larger concolonial projects: Ma'ale Adumim, Kfar Adumim, among others. text of demolition that has stood at the heart of Israel’s particular The unfortunate village, its adjacent school and 173 residents breed of settler colonialism. are the last obstacle facing the E1 Zone project, an Israeli plan It is true that other colonial powers used destruction of homes that aims to link illegal Jewish colonies in occupied East and properties, and the exile of whole communities, as a tactic Jerusalem with West Jerusalem, thus cutting off East Jerusalem to subdue rebellious populations. The British Mandate governcompletely from its Palestinian environs in the West Bank. ment in Palestine used the demolition of homes as a “deterLike the Naqab (Negev) village of Al-Araqib, which has been rence” tactic against Palestinians who dared rebel against indemolished by Israel and rebuilt by its residents 133 times, Khan justice throughout the 1920s, ’30s and ’40s, until Israel took Al-Ahmar residents are facing armed soldiers and military bullover in 1948. dozers with their bare chests and whatever local and internaYet the Israeli strategy is far more convoluted than a mere “detional solidarity they are able to obtain. terrence.” It is now carved in the Israeli psyche that Palestine Despite the particular circumstances and unique historical must be completely destroyed in order for Israel to exist. Therecontext of Khan Al-Ahmar, however, the story of this village is fore, Israel is engaging in a seemingly endless campaign of erasbut a chapter in a protracted narrative of a tragedy that has exing everything Palestinian, because the latter, from an Israeli tended over the course of 70 years. viewpoint, represents an existential threat to the former. It would be a mistake to discuss the destruction of Khan AlThis is precisely why Israel sees the natural demographic growth among Palestinians as an “existential threat” to Israel’s Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and editor of palestine Chron“Jewish identity.” icle. His latest book is the last earth: a palestinian story (available This can only be justified with an irrational degree of hate and from AET’s Middle East Books and More). Baroud has a Ph.D. in fear that has accumulated throughout generations, to the point Palestine Studies from the University of Exeter and is a non-resident that it now forms a collective Israeli psychosis for which Palesscholar at Orfalea Center for Global and International Studies, tinians continue to pay a heavy price. University of California. His website is <www.ramzybaroud.net>. November/DeCember 2018
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The repeated destruction of Gaza is symptomatic of this Israeli psychosis. Israel is a “country that when you fire on its citizens it responds by going wild—and this is a good thing,” was the official explanation offered by Tzipi Livni, then the Israeli foreign minister, in January 2009 to justify its country’s war on the blockaded Gaza Strip. The Israel “going wild” strategy led to the destruction of 22,000 homes, schools and other facilities during one of Israel’s deadliest wars on the Strip. A few years later, in the summer of 2014, Israel went “wild” again, leading to an even greater destruction and loss of lives. Israel’s mass demolition of Palestinian homes in Gaza, and everywhere else, preceded Hamas by decades. In fact, it has nothing to do with the method of resistance that Palestinians utilize in their struggle against Israel. Israel’s demolishing of Palestine—whether the actual physical structures or the idea, history, narrative, and even street names—is an Israeli decision through and through. (Advertisement)
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ISRAELI RIOT POLICE detained 66-year-old American-French law professor Frank Romano and two Palestinian protesters on Sept. 14 as they tried to block bulldozers during a nonviolent protest against the demolition of the Palestinian Bedouin village of Khan Al-Ahmar, east of Jerusalem. Police issued a 96-hour military arrest warrant in a move rarely used for foreign citizens. Instead of bringing the professor to the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court, his lawyer Gaby Lasky said, “like thieves in the night,” two hours before his scheduled hearing and without informing her or the judge, he was handed over to the immigration police and driven to Ben Gurion Airport for deportation. Romano, who teaches law at the Paris Nanterre University, refused to sign the deportation consent form. The judge called immigration and ordered them to “bring him back.” Romano was kept in handcuffs during his hearing, but the judge ordered his release on Sept. 16 and revoked the A quick scan of historical facts demonstates that Israel demolished Palestinian homes and communities in diverse political and historical contexts, where Israel’s “security” was not in the least a factor. Nearly 600 Palestinian towns, villages and localities were destroyed between 1947 and 1948, and nearly 800,000 Palestinians were exiled to make room for the establishment of Israel. According to the Land Research Center (LRC), Israel has destroyed 5,000 Palestinian homes in Jerusalem alone since it occupied the city in 1967, leading to the permanent exile of nearly 70,000 people. Coupled with the fact that nearly 200,000 Jerusalemites were driven out during the Nakba, the “Catastrophe” of 1948, and the ongoing slow ethnic cleansing, the Holy City has been in a constant state of destruction since the establishment of Israel. In fact, between 2000 and 2017, over 1,700 Palestinian homes were demolished, displacing nearly 10,000 people. This is not a policy of “deterrence” but of erasure—the eradication of the very Palestinian culture. Gaza and Jerusalem are not unique examples, either. According to the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions’ (ICAHD) report last December, since 1967 “nearly 50,000 Palestinian homes and structures have been demolished—displacing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and affecting the livelihoods of thousands of others.” Combined with the destruction of Pales-
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Professor Frank Romano.
deportation order. Romano was allowed to stay in Israel until Sept. 25, the original date of his return flight. For a decade, the professor, author of Love and Terror in the Middle East, has engaged in interfaith grassroots efforts to open up communication between Jews, Muslims and Christians from all corners of the world in support of peace. —DCH tinian villages upon the establishment of Israel, and the demolition of Palestinian homes inside Israel itself, ICAHD puts the total number of homes destroyed since 1948 at more than 100,000. In fact, as the group itself acknowledges, the figure above is quite conservative. Indeed, it is. In Gaza alone, and in the last 10 years, which witnessed three major Israeli wars, nearly 50,000 homes and structures were reportedly destroyed. So why does Israel destroy with consistency, impunity and no remorse? It is for the same reason that it passed laws to change historic street names from Arabic to Hebrew. For the same reason it recently passed the racist nation-state law, elevating everything Jewish and completely ignoring and downgrading the existence of the indigenous Palestinians, their language and their culture that goes back millennia. Israel demolishes, destroys and pulverizes because in the racist mindset of Israeli rulers, there can be no room between the Sea and the River but for Jews; where the Palestinians—oppressed, colonized and dehumanized—don’t factor in the least in Israel’s ruthless calculations. This is not just a question of Khan AlAhmar. It is a question of the very survival of the Palestinian people, threatened by a racist state that has been allowed to “go wild” for 70 years, untamed and without repercussions. ■ NoVeMBeR/deCeMBeR 2018
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Two Views
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Killing Gaza’s Men, Women and Children
the local health authorities recorded a total of 2,271 wounded, including 1,359 people injured by live ammunition. I was on shift that day with the surgical team of al-Aqsa Hospital, one of the main hospitals in Gaza. At 3 p.m. we started receiving the first wounded from the demonstration. More than 300 arrived though the doors in less than four hours. I had never seen so many patients in my life. Hundreds were lining up to get into the operating theater; the corridors were full; everyone was crying, shouting and bleeding. No matter how hard we worked, we could not cope with the huge number of injured. It was too much. Gunshot after gunshot, our team worked for 50 hours straight trying to save lives. It brought back the memories of the 2014 war. But really, nothing could have prepared us for what we saw on May 14. And what we are still seeing today. Each week new trauma cases continue to arrive, the majority of them young men with gunshot wounds to their legs, with high risk of life-changing disabilities. MSF’s cohort of patients continues to A Palestinian protester stands with a crutch on a concrete barricade, while smoke grow, and right now we are treating about 40 perplumes from burning tires in the background, at an Erez border crossing demon- cent of all those wounded by gunshots in Gaza, stration in the northern Gaza Strip on Sept. 26, 2018. who are over 5,000 people. But the more we advance in treating these gunshot injuries, the more we see the complexity of what has to be done. It’s difficult, medically and logistically. The medical structures in Gaza are crumbling under the high demand for health services and ongoing shortages; a large proportion of the paBy Dr. Mohammed Abu Mughaiseeb tients need specialized limb reconstructive surgical intervenAS A DOCTOR living and working in Gaza all my life, I thought tion, which means multiple surgeries. Some of these proceI had seen it all. I felt I knew the limits of what Gaza can endures are not currently possible in Gaza. dure. But the last six months have been the most difficult I What terrifies me the most is the risk of infection. Oshave experienced in my 15 years with Medécins Sans Fronteomyelitis is a deep infection of the bone. If it goes untreated, tières (MSF) in Gaza. And I have lived and worked through it can lead to wounds that do not heal, and increase the risk of three wars: in 2008, 2012 and 2014. amputation. These infections need to be treated urgently, beThe human suffering and devastation I saw over the past few cause they worsen quickly if medication is not introduced. months have reached another height. The shocking volume of But the infection is not easy to diagnose, and there is curwounded has been overwhelming. rently no structure in Gaza for analyzing bone samples to idenI will never forget Monday, May 14. In the span of 24 hours, tify it. MSF is working to set up a microbiology laboratory here, providing supplies and training, in order to be able to test bone samples for osteomyelitis. But once we are able to identify the Dr. Mohammed Abu Mughaiseeb is a Palestinian doctor and an MSF infection, treatment requires a long and complex course of antimedical referent in Gaza. Copyright © 2018 Al Jazeera Media biotics for each patient, and repeated surgical intervention. Network.
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As a doctor, I travel all over the Gaza Strip, and I see more and more young men on crutches with external fixators on their legs, or in wheelchairs. It’s increasingly becoming a normal sight. Many of them try to be hopeful and persevere, but I, as a doctor, know that their future is bleak. One of the most difficult things in my work is having to talk to patients, most of them young men, knowing that they could lose their leg as a result of a bullet that has shattered their bones and future. Many of them ask me, "Will I be able to walk freely again?" Facing this question is very hard for me because I know that, due to the situation we are working in, many of them will not be able to walk normally again. And it is my responsibility to tell them that we are doing our best, but the risk of them losing the injured leg is high. To tell this to a young man with his life ahead of him is really difficult. And it’s a conversation I have had to have many times in recent months. Of course, we continue to try to find a way to treat these people despite the hardships we face: overwhelmed hospitals and, because of the blockade, four hours of electricity a day, fuel shortages, depleted medical supplies, a lack of specialist surgeons and doctors, exhausted nurses and medics who have not been paid their full salaries for months on end, restrictions on patients leaving Gaza to receive medical treatment elsewhere—and the list goes on. This, while the socioeconomic situation around us continues to deteriorate on a daily basis. Now we see children begging in the street—something we never saw a year or two ago. MSF is facing huge challenges and we cannot do it alone. We try. We push. We have to keep going. For me, it’s a question of medical ethics. These injured people must get the treatment they need. Right now in Gaza, looking into the future is like looking into a dark tunnel, and I’m not sure I can see a light at the end of it. ■
Palestinian Refugees in Gaza Hit Hard by Funding Crisis By Mohammed Omer
WHILE TAMAM ABDELAAL, 42 years old, was receiving food rations from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), she could, at least, put some rice, tomato sauce and canned beans in front of her five children. Her situation was recognized as a genuine hardship case, by the UNRWA program supporting Palestinian refugees in five locations, Gaza, West Bank, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria. Now, however, that vital, basic food ration is gone. “It wasn’t much, but at least it was something to rely on. Now we are left facing hunger,” she says. The United Nations, which works toward zero hunger across the region, seems to find it difficult to make ends meet in Gaza. UNRWA is confronted with an increasing demand for nutrition services, resulting from growth in the number of registered Palestine refugees, the extent of their vulnerability and their deepening poverty. In Gaza, everyone understands it’s not UNRWA’s fault—they can only work with what is funded and donated. The agency has a dedicated head, working day and night in Gaza, to mobilize resources. But still, the U.S. government aimed a further blow, below the belt, and ceased humanitarian funding for 2 million residents of Gaza. UNRWA is a United Nations agency established by the General Assembly in 1949 and is mandated to aid and protect approximately 5.4 million Palestine refugees registered with UNRWA across its five fields of operation. UNRWA was confronted with a dramatic financial crisis when, in January 2018, its largest donor, the United States,
Award-winning journalist Mohammed Omer reports regularly on the Gaza Strip. Follow him on Twitter: @MoGaza
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announced a major reduction in contributions, causing an undren. Where will we go?” she asks, as children are crying outprecedented shortfall of $446 million. side, waiting for their vaccinations in the UNRWA clinic. UNRWA funding levels have been outpaced by a serious inA few months after the U.S. stopped funding UNRWA, forcrease in need, especially in Gaza. As a result, the UNRWA eign ministers of Jordan, Sweden, Turkey, Japan and Gerprogram budget, which supports the delivery of core essential many, as well as the high representative and vice president of services, operates with a large shortfall. UNRWA encourages the European Union, hosted a ministerial meeting in New York all U.N. member states to work collectively and exert every efon the last week of September, with the aim of mobilizing finanfort to fully fund the agency’s program budget. UNRWA’s cial and political support for UNRWA. emergency programs and other key projects, also operating The ministerial meeting raised a remarkable $122 million, with large shortfalls, are funded through separate funding porwith Kuwait, the European Union, Germany, Norway, France, tals. Collective efforts are needed to prevent further systemBelgium and Ireland announcing additional funding commitatic collective punishment of Gazans and other Palestinians. ments. This meeting represented a crucial step in the efforts to When UNRWA suffers, so do overcome the agency’s remain(Advertisement) nearly 6 million people in Palesing shortfall of $186 million and tine, including mothers like sustain UNRWA operations. Tamam and her children. Tamam Yet, that does not change is filled with pain and sadness to much on the ground until this hear her children crying with new funding is actually transhunger and not having basic esferred. A feeling of uncertainty sentials to give them. She relies still hangs over Gaza—where on whatever she can get from refugees feel that even if serother people, although her vices return temporarily, the neighbors also have no food. overall drastic budget cuts will For Tamam, UNRWA is the drive Palestine to more sufferonly hope remaining. With 2 miling, desperation and identity exlion people gradually suffocating tinction, as people who have aleconomically in Gaza—sealed ways had an ancestral land find off with only a few exceptions themselves with nothing. able to leave—she sees no opThe World Bank warned in a portunity to improve her quality September 25 report that the of life. Tamam asks the UNRWA Gaza economy is collapsing. clinic in Khan Younes for 30 “The economic and social sittablets of “baby aspirin” but inuation in Gaza has been declinstead the doctor only gives her 4 ing for over a decade but has tablets, saying there is not deteriorated exponentially in reenough medication for everyone. cent months, reaching a critical “I tell my children to dream point. Increased frustration is big—they want to be doctors, enfeeding into the increased tengineers or teachers,” she told the sions which have already Washington Report. “But if there started spilling over into unrest are no UNRWA schools, then this and setting back the human demeans no future for our children.” velopment of the region’s large The crisis will not only affect youth population,” said Marina the people UNRWA keeps alive, Wes, World Bank country direcbut also the tens of thousands t o r f o r t h e We s t B a n k a n d of staff members working for Gaza. UNRWA—from teachers, docThis constant anxiety and tentors, social workers to cleaners. sion are felt by Tamam, who is An UNRWA clinic nurse, who witnessing social problems in preferred to keep her name Gaza—more than ever before. anonymous, as she is not al“Poverty leads to hopelesslowed to talk about the situation, ness—at my level I can’t feed or said she fears further debts, reassure my children when they hunger and even homelessness are hungry.” Dreams don’t fill if this crisis continues. their stomachs, she says, “I don’t know what will happen adding “but, we are not going to us, the elderly, sick and chilanywhere. This is our home.” ■ NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018
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United Nations Report
Netanyahu and Trump’s Magnetic Attraction To the U.N. Podium
By Ian Williams
PHOTO BY JOHN MOORE/GETTY IMAGES
that the laughter was with him rather than at him. Netanyahu’s performance with maps and diagrams was a more eye-widening “can he be serious moment,” as the prime minister with a fairly definite 300 nuclear weapons and a well-known but unacknowledged nuclear weapons facility at Dimona inveighed against an alleged Iranian nuclear program and facility that even his best friends in the U.S. government disclaimed. Since he totally failed to convince the world’s diplomats, it points to his real audience. He had tried, and failed, to swap his speaking slot so his performance would coincide with prime-time TV back in Israel. U.N. officials stopped the swap because Netanyahu is a premier, not a head of state, and there was no way he would let Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu shows a visual aid while addressing the U.N. Israel’s president take such a prominent General Assembly on Sept. 27, 2018 in New York City. spot! Like Trump’s, this was a performance aimed, not at the world, but at the paranoia and xenophobia of their respective domestic audiences. WATCHING BINYAMIN NETANYAHU standing on the podium The magnetic attraction of the U.N. podium for Danon and of the General Assembly is like watching a bumptiously precoNetanyahu are yet another indicator that while the pro-Israel cious schoolboy doing a show-and-tell science project in front lobby often accuses the United Nations of being obsessed with of the class. Except in a real classroom his classmates would Israel, in reality, the opposite is the case. Israel and its allies have laughed him off the stage for his preposterous pseudoare obsessed with the U.N., and for very good reasons. The science. U.N. Charter and the apparatus of global standards it estabSo despite the disdain for the U.N. professed by both Nelished are the main reasons why Israel cannot get clear title to tanyahu and Danny Danon, his U.N. ambassador, they vie to all the territory it seized and has now claimed. perform there. Netanyahu was fortunate this year since his game Mythical tablets of stone from Jehovah, even if notarized by of charades was so outstandingly upstaged by President Donald Moses, are not acceptable as legitimate title deeds for the inTrump, whose performance vied with Libya’s Colonel Muammar ternational community which since 1945 (conveniently after the Qaddafi and Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez as all-time border re-drawings of World War II) has ruled that the acquisigreats. General Assembly delegates are usually polite to a fault: tion of territory by force is inadmissible. When even the superfor example they once nodded through the then Grenadian PM’s power can only dragoon a fistful of tiny atolls and a small call for an investigation into UFOs. But Trump’s performance bunch of banana republics into even the tiniest degree of acwas too much as waves of laughter swept the august hall of the ceptance of Trump’s call on the Jerusalem embassy, it demonworld’s parliament, only to reignite when the president assumed strates that there is still some power in international law, as represented by the United Nations. U.N. correspondent Ian Williams is the author of UNtold: the Real Israel and its leaders know that, which is why they will do Story of the United Nations in Peace and War (available from Middle East Books and More). anything to attain respectability in the world organization—ex38
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cept obey its strictures on the occupied territories. It is a delicious dilemma for them since while they want to erode the organization’s standing on such issues, if they go too far then they are gnawing at the roots of their state’s own legitimacy, founded as it was by a decision of the U.N. General Assembly in violation of accepted principles of self-determination denied to the Palestinian majority at the time! The Palestinians have for decades understood that their trump card in negotiations is the question of legitimacy and title and have pursued a Long March through the institutions to reinforce and reiterate their legal rights, which is why Israel gets so furious at their successes and gets the U.S. to use a sledgehammer rather than a scalpel. So the U.S. does immense collateral damage both to its own international reputation and to the international order it built in 1945 in order to boost Israel’s nugatory claims. The other wing of this attack is the attempt to do an end run around the unpalatable reality of international law. If U.N. member states cannot be bullied into rescinding the resolutions without the consent of the Palestinians, then the Palestinian leadership must be bullied into agreeing to give up their legal rights—whether the Palestinian people agree or not. While President Donald Trump’s craven capitulation to Sheldon Adelson and others has much to answer for, it is worth remembering under whom this policy started. While Republican Secretary of State James Baker famously held up the State Department number in case any member of the Israeli government seriously wanted to discuss a settlement rather than settlements, it was President Bill Clinton who essentially acceded to the Israeli demand for loan guarantees to build those settlements, and who, more to the point, started the policy that peace must be arrived at by direct and unfettered negotiations between the parties— excluding the U.N. from the process. This was not just reflexive prejudice. The Middle East Quartet was set up to give the U.N. the illusion of participation in the NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018
process and suborned the other parties, the U.N., Russia and EU, into giving their blessing to an ineffectual process directed by the U.S. that was guaranteed not to put pressure on Israel. It is symptomatic that during the General Assembly at the end of September the Quartet met, tut-tutted about Gaza and made a piously platitudinous statement about the need for a settlement— without seriously engaging the settlements. And the meeting and its announcement went almost unnoticed. Killing the Quartet would bring unwelcome attention to the failure of its stated purpose, to bring peace, and to its undoubted success in decoupling the U.N. and international law from the process. In place of the application of international law the U.S. called upon both parties to negotiate a mutual agreement, which has a superficial attraction for the fair-minded, until it is put up against hard reality. Israel, itself a powerful military power, backed financially, diplomatically and militarily by the U.S., would negotiate on equal terms with a defenseless bankrupt Palestine, only kept afloat by international drip feeding—and with an Israeli clamp on the drip. The legend of David and Goliath notwithstanding, short of the PLO going nuclear there is no doubt of the intended outcome of the negotiations—the complete abdication of all Palestinian claims to the territories that were the base for the Oslo agreement. It says a lot that the Palestinians, faced with the defection of most of the expedient Cold War allies and stabbed in the back by the Saudi regime, have held out as their “friends” have drawn “lines in the sand” farther and farther back from the Green Line. But of course the Saudis have other fish to fillet. At the U.N. they have assumed the mantle of impunity of Israel and are defying international law in Yemen with the tacit connivance of the rest of the world. The U.N. and its organs, despite some footling protests, have mostly let the starvation and massacres go ahead, assisted by the almost
complete absence of international concern for their plight. The support of Iran for the so-called rebels does not help internationally in marshalling support for a condemnation of Riyadh. However, that reinforces the other aspect of the U.N. As the General Assembly was beginning, Iran went to the International Court of Justice and successfully achieved a ruling ordering the U.S. to suspend many of the sanctions that it had unilaterally imposed. Of course the U.S. believes in imposing international law on others, but balks at being held to account itself, so Secretary of State Mike Pompeo denounced the unanimous ruling and pledged to abrogate the 1955 Treaty of Amity the U.S. signed with the Shah, which was invoked by Iran at the ICJ. But it will certainly weaken the U.S. position when it tries to browbeat other nations into complying with U.S. sanctions. And it will certainly take its dishonorable part in the long list of precedents that other countries will cite when Washington invokes international law at them. Could it be possible that we will see a “coalition of the disgusted” forming in response to the Trump administration? The counterproductive element of U.S. policy can already be seen in how disparate countries are belatedly coalescing in workarounds on, for example, the U.S. sanctions regime on Saudi Arabia, and recently the fundraising to replace the U.S. hold on payments to UNRWA. Countries that might have sat on their hands in times past, when threatened with bullying from soon-to-be-retired Nikki Haley, show signs of doing the opposite—as when Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau intended to vote in support of the U.S. and Israel over Jerusalem but backed down in the face of being shown to be bullied by an ally who was, in any case, planning a trade war. It is easy to laugh at the antics of Trump and Netanyahu, and even the perennial circus side show of Danny Danon, but their choosing to attend the U.N. is an inadvertent reminder of how important the institution is and how important it is to uphold the U.N. Charter. ■
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Special Report
Palestine Declares Legal War on the United States of America
By Victor Kattan
PHOTO BY STEPHANIE KEITH/GETTY IM-
with the State Department that the embassy move violated the Vienna Convention. On July 4, Palestine’s Foreign Ministry formally notified the State Department of the existence of a dispute under Article I of the Optional Protocol to the Vienna Convention—to which both the U.S. and Palestine are contracting parties. On Oct. 3, Bolton announced that the U.S. was withdrawing from the Optional Protocol, and explicitly tied this decision to the looming lawsuit: “This is in connection with a case brought from the so-called State of Palestine naming the United States as a defendant, challenging our move of our embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.” Dramatic though Bolton's declaration Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, National Security Adviser John Bolton and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley brief media during the United Nations General Assembly was, it will make no difference to the case. That is because the U.S. was party to the on Sept. 24, 2018 in New York City. Protocol when Palestine instituted proceedings at the ICJ on Sept. 28. The U.S. is still going to have to fight IT IS GENERALLY NOT a good idea for a small struggling country, this case in court. occupied by a larger, powerful country, to pick a fight with an even In its application, Palestine argues that the U.S. has not estabbigger country, a great power no less, especially when that country lished its embassy to Israel on territory “of the receiving state,” as is the United States of America. provided by the Vienna Convention, but in Jerusalem, that has a But Palestine did just that Sept. 28, when it instituted proceedings special and distinct status in international law dating back to the against the U.S. at the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The move 1947 U.N. Partition Plan that sought to establish a special regime has infuriated John Bolton, the U.S. national security adviser, who for the city. said the U.S. would “not sit idly by as baseless politicized claims are Palestine asks the ICJ to declare that the U.S. is in breach of its brought against us,” not least by the “so-called State of Palestine.” obligations under the Vienna Convention, and asks the Court to As the principal judicial organ of the United Nations, the ICJ is a order the U.S. to withdraw its diplomatic mission from Jerusalem. good place to challenge the policy of a global hegemon, as it is one As there is a U.S. judge presently on the ICJ, Palestine has of the few institutions that recognizes the sovereign equality of states, asked permission from the court to appoint a judge ad hoc, which no matter how large or small, or powerful or weak, they may be. it is entitled to apply for under Article 31 of the Court’s Statute. The case concerns a dispute over the interpretation or applicaIn order to assess whether Palestine can access the ICJ, the tion of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. The dispute, Court will have to decide whether Palestine is a state. This is bein case anyone had doubts, is over President Donald Trump’s decause Article 34(2) of the Court’s Statute provides that “Only states cision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and to relomay be parties in cases before the Court.” [All italics are the aucate the U.S. Embassy to that city. thor's own.] Moreover, Article 35(2) of the Statute upon which the Prior to instituting proceedings against the U.S., Palestine had, whole case rests, provides: on two separate occasions, expressed its view in communications “The conditions under which the Court shall be open to other states Victor Kattan is senior research fellow at the Middle East Institute of shall, subject to the special provisions contained in treaties in force, the National University of Singapore (NUS) and an associate fellow be laid down by the Security Council, but in no case shall such conat NUS Law. Twitter: @VictorKattan. Copyright © Haaretz Daily Newspaper Ltd. All rights reserved. ditions place the parties in a position of inequality before the Court.” 40
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Observe the emphasis on the word “states.” The standing of Palestine at the ICJ is contentious given that it is not a member of the United Nations, but only a non-member observer state recognized in a U.N. General Assembly resolution passed in 2012. Only U.N. member states are ipso facto parties to the ICJ Statute, but Palestine’s application for membership of the U.N. divided the Security Council in November 2011, and Palestine was not admitted. Palestine has, however, been recognized by 139 states, with Colombia the most recent to recognize Palestine. Some states have expressly recognized Palestine on the borders of June 4, 1967—including East Jerusalem. Others have not made their position on borders clear. One of the states that has not recognized Palestine is the U.S. As Bolton told reporters Oct. 3, Palestine “does not meet the customary international law test of statehood. It doesn’t control defined boundaries.” Clearly, there is a dispute between the U.S. and Palestine over the latter’s statehood, and this is precisely what the ICJ is going to have to address. Article 35(2) clarifies that the conditions under which the Court shall be open to other states was to be laid down by the U.N. Security Council. Back in 1946, the Security Council did just that, when it adopted Resolution 9 that referred to Article 35(2) of the Court’s Statute, and provided the conditions that would allow a non-member state like Palestine to have access to the ICJ without becoming party to the Statute by virtue of special provisions contained in treaties in force. Other non-member states that have invoked Article 35(2) and Security Council Resolution 9 in cases before the ICJ include Italy in the Monetary Gold case in 1953, Germany in the North Sea Continental Shelf cases in 1967, and Germany in the Fisheries Jurisdiction case in 1972. Italy only became a member of the U.N. in 1955, and the Federal Republic of Germany in 1973. Article 35(2) and Security Council Resolution 9 were also raised in the case concerning the application of the Convention on the Prosecution and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide brought by Bosnia NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018
against Serbia in 1993. In issuing provisional measures, the ICJ considered “that proceedings may validly be instituted by a State against a State which is a party to such a special provision in a treaty in force, but is not party to the Statute, and independently of the conditions laid down by the Security Council in its Resolution 9 of 1946.”
ICJ JURISDICTION
On July 4, the State of Palestine submitted a declaration recognizing the jurisdiction of the Court under Article 35(2) of the Statute and Security Council Resolution 9. According to paragraph 5 of Resolution 9: “All questions as to the validity or the effect of a declaration made under the terms of this resolution shall be decided by the Court.” A similar provision appears in Article 41 of the Rules of the Court: “If any question of the validity or effect of such declaration arises, the Court shall decide.” Accordingly, as a preliminary matter, the ICJ will have to decide whether Palestine is a state for the purposes of its own Statute, before it considers questions of jurisdiction and admissibility, let alone the merits of the case. It will be difficult for the U.S. to claim that Palestine is not a state for the purposes of customary international law, if the ICJ concludes otherwise. The ICJ’s jurisprudence on Article 35(2) is patchy. In the Legality of Use of Force cases brought against various NATO member states following the bombing of Belgrade in 1999, Yugoslavia alleged violations of the obligation not to use force against another state. Article 35(2) was considered by the ICJ in the case, because of confusion over the status of Yugoslavia during its dissolution in the 1990s and whether it could still be considered a member of the United Nations. Yugoslavia had invoked the Genocide Convention as a basis of jurisdiction, but the ICJ concluded that Article 35(2) only applied to treaties concluded before the Statute of the Court entered into force on Oct. 24, 1945, and the Genocide Convention did not enter into force until after that date. This part of the judgment was, however, subject to much criticism from Judges Ranjeva, Guillaume, Higgins, Kooijmans, Al-Kha-
sawneh, Buergenthal and Elaraby (who also criticized the judgment in a separate opinion), so it is not watertight, and contradicts previous practice. Judge Elaraby expressed his opinion that “the interpretation adopted by the Court—limiting ‘treaties in force’ to treaties in force at the time the Court’s Statute came into force—is unduly restrictive.” The Optional Protocol to the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, which Palestine relies on as a basis of jurisdiction, postdates the entry into force of the Court’s Statute. Accordingly, it is possible that the Court could decide that Palestine is a state for the purposes of Article 35(2), but then also conclude that the provision does not provide an avenue for Palestine to have access to the Court because the phrase “treaties in force” in Article 35(2) only refers to pre-1945 treaties. Were the Court to reach this conclusion, Palestine could still claim victory, however, if, in rendering its decision, the Court were to decide that Palestine is indeed a state. However, given that there is no doctrine of precedent, or stare decisis, in international (Advertisement)
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law, it is also possible that the ICJ could reverse this judgment and rule in Palestine’s favor. We simply have to wait and see what arguments Palestine’s lawyers make.
YET ANOTHER LEGAL HURDLE
There is, however, one other legal hurdle. As Marko Milanovic, professor of international law at the University of Nottingham, has argued, “Palestine’s claim runs headlong into the ICJ’s longstanding Monetary Gold jurisprudence—that it will not adjudicate on claims that involve the legal interests of third parties without the consent of these parties. “When Palestine claims that Jerusalem is not Israel’s territory, this clearly involves the existence (or not) of the rights of Israel vis-à-vis that territory, and Israel will obviously not consent to the ICJ’s determination of these rights.” Presumably, Israel will not consent to have the ICJ address Palestine’s claim against the U.S., because it claims sovereignty over Jerusalem, including over East Jerusalem and the Holy City, as is clear from reading its Basic Law on Jerusalem and, more recently, the Jewish nation-state law. And as the ICJ has clarified in several cases, it can only exercise jurisdiction over a state with its consent, especially when its legal interest would not only be affected by the decision, but would form the very subject-matter of the decision. But—could Palestine argue that Israel has consented to the ICJ’s jurisdiction? In the Monetary Gold case, the ICJ said that such consent could be given “expressly or by implication” (p. 32). In the East Timor case, the ICJ further clarified that it would not necessarily be prevented from adjudicating “when the judgment asked of it might affect the legal interests of a State which is not a party to the case.” It could be argued that Israel consented to the jurisdiction of the ICJ when it accepted the 1947 U.N. Partition Plan—which Moshe Shertok, Israel’s foreign minister, described as having “binding force.” Part C of that Plan stipulated that a declaration was to be made to the United Nations by the provisional government of each state before independence. 42
On May 14, 1948, Shertok made a communication to the U.N. secretary-general in New York. The cablegram explicitly referred to several provisions of the Partition Plan and expressed a willingness to sign the declaration under Part One C and Part One D of that Plan, although according to Shabtai Rosenne, the Foreign Ministry legal adviser, the signed Declaration was never sent. Nonetheless, in his communication to the U.N. secretary-general, Shertok paraphrased from Israel’s Declaration of Independence, which, inter alia, stated that Israel was “prepared to cooperate with the agencies and representatives of the United Nations in implementing the resolution of the General Assembly of the 29th November, 1947.”
Could Palestine argue that Israel has consented to the ICJ’s jurisdiction?
Significantly, Part C of that Resolution contained a dispute resolution clause, which stated that, “Any dispute relating to the application or the interpretation of this declaration shall be referred, at the request of either party, to the International Court of Justice, unless the parties agree to another mode of settlement.” The reference to “either party” in the clause was a reference to the Arab and Jewish states envisaged in the U.N. Partition Plan. In the end, the Arab state was never established by the Partition Plan, but by accepting the Plan, Israel arguably consented to the corpus separatum that was supposed to have been established in Jerusalem pursuant to that Plan, which it communicated to the U.N. secretary-general. Israel also consented to the principle that disputes over the status of Jerusalem were matters that could be referred to the ICJ. Israel recognized that Jerusalem had a special status in international law and that, given this special status, the fate of the city was not exclusively within its domestic jurisdiction. This is why in 1949, after Israel had been admitted to the U.N., the General Assembly adopted Resolution 303, expressing
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its intention that Jerusalem should be placed under a permanent international regime. Israel could, of course, argue that its acceptance of the U.N. Partition Plan in 1947 did not amount to an expression of consent to the jurisdiction of the ICJ. Israel could submit a request to intervene in the case under Article 62 of the Court’s Statute. According to this provision: “Should a state consider that it has an interest of a legal nature which may be affected by the decision in the case, it may submit a request to the Court to be permitted to intervene.” If the ICJ concludes that Palestine is a state, that its Article 35(2) Declaration is valid, and that the Optional Protocol to the Vienna Convention is a valid basis of jurisdiction between Palestine and the U.S., it could proceed to address the merits, in which case the Court could pass judgment on the legality of President Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and move the embassy there. Until President Trump came along, it was consistent U.S. policy not to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. This was because successive U.S. governments acknowledged that the city had a special and distinct status in international law. This is why the U.S. had, until recently, voted in favor of, or abstained from, several U.N. Security Council and General Assembly resolutions stating that all legislative and administrative measures and actions taken by Israel which purported to change the character and status of Jerusalem were invalid. Given the unique status of Jerusalem, the United Nations has, ever since 1947, never acquiesced to Israel’s annexation of Jerusalem. Security Council Resolution 478 (passed in 1980) even called upon those states that had established “diplomatic missions at Jerusalem to withdraw such missions from the Holy City.” The U.S. claimed that this provision of the resolution was not binding in the debate that followed, but the ICJ could conclude otherwise were it to address the merits of the case. This provision of the resolution was framed as a “decision,” which according to the ICJ’s Namibia opinion, is binding on all Continued on page 48 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018
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Special Report
Holocaust Memorial Museum Continues to Rake in Americans’ Tax Dollars
By Janet McMahon
2018 MARKS THE 25th anniversary Fiscal U.S.Tax $ of the United States Holocaust Memo- Year Total Budget Total Income Profit/Loss Received rial Museum in the nation’s capital— 2016 $ 114,626,678 $ 158,920,115 $ 44,293,437 $ 52,377,634 and a successful quarter-century it’s 2015 116,323,574 163,109,258 52,901,158 46,785,684 been. So successful, in fact, that the 2014 104,650,442 163,506,072 58,855,630 50,256,807 museum met its $540 million anniver- 2013 101,709,876 128,690,378 26,980,502 49,134,640 sary fund-raising campaign—called 2012 104,701,404 124,145,507 19,444,103 49,959,460 Never Again: What You Do Matters— 2011 96,469,067 98,814,083 2,345,016 48,073,860 a year and a half ahead of schedule. 2010 95,047,182 111,668,944 16,621,762 49,432,270 In April—by which time it had raised 2009 91,966,886 93,882,903 48,171,838 1,916,017 $715 million from 366,000 donors, ac- 2008 84,987,214 64,219,408 -20,767,806 43,438,449 cording to The Washington Post—the 2007 88,134,546 90,317,810 2,183,264 45,712,768 museum announced plans to increase 2006 79,073,855 109,016,461 29,942,606 42,585,022 that goal to $1 billion, to be raised by its 30th anniversary in 2023. TOTAL: $1,077,690,724 $1,306,290,939 $280,971,510 $479,672,611 Built a few blocks from the National even as they approved a 14 percent cut to the Department of EdMall on donated federal land—itself a taxpayer gift of enormous ucation, 18 percent cut to the Department of Health and Human value—the Holocaust Museum has enjoyed American taxpayer Services, and 29 percent cut to the State Department. funding for the entire quarter-century of its existence (see DeAs the above chart shows, the Holocaust Museum is hardly cember 2003 Washington Report, p. 9). In the last decade alone, about to go under—quite the contrary! In fact, in 2014 and 2015 Congress has allocated more than half a billion dollars to the inthe musuem would have been in the black even without its fedstitution, whose director, Sara J. Bloomfield, received a salary of eral subsidy. It has not suffered a deficit since 2008—something $520,896 in 2016 (the president of the United States earns most museums in this country can only dream of. $400,000 a year). Museums dedicated to the American, rather Despite the museum’s unrelenting efforts, fiscal health and taxthan European, history and people—such as the overwhelmingly payer largesse, however, there seems to be growing concern that, popular National Museum of African American History and Culas the number of Holocaust survivors inexorably diminishes, the ture, for which Congress allocated $270 million for construction message may be being lost as well. This concern takes the form costs and which celebrated only its second anniversary in Sepof media stories such as The Washington Post’s “An 89-Year-Old tember—receive significantly less in federal taxpayer funding. Holocaust Survivor Worries: What Happens When We’re All In fiscal year 2019, for example, the Holocaust Museum will Gone?” (Jan. 26, 2018) and “They Survived the Holocaust: Now receive $58 million in American tax dollars, compared to less the World Is Forgetting What They Endured” (April 23, 2018). than $7 million for its young counterpart. The latter’s annual budAccording to the latter, “Two-thirds of American millennials get for 2017 was $41.3 million, versus more than $100 million polled did not know what Auschwitz is, and 22 percent had not for the Holocaust Museum. And virtually every year since its inheard of the Holocaust or were not sure if they had, according ception, the Holocaust Museum has received more taxpayer dolto a new survey conducted by the Conference on Jewish Matelars than the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, which in rial Claims Against Germany.” Perhaps this accounts for the FY2019 will receive slightly more than $40.5 million. growing emphasis on anti-Semitism rather than Holocaust guilt. Moreover, the Holocaust Museum’s federal contribution apparThe Holocaust Museum’s mission states: “The United States ently is sacrosanct: When President Donald Trump proposed a 5 Holocaust Memorial Museum inspires citizens and leaders percent cut of $3 million in his budget proposal for 2018, members worldwide to confront hatred, prevent genocide, and promote of Congress from both sides of the aisle rebelled and rejected the human dignity.” Perhaps writer David Rieff put his finger on the modest cut (see Aug./Sept. 2017 Washington Report, p. 26)— problem when, as quoted in the earlier Post article, he stated: “Since 1945, ‘never again’ has meant, essentially, ‘Never again Janet McMahon is managing editor of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. will Germans kill Jews in Europe in the 1940s.’” ■
Still Profitable After All These Years
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018
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Two Views
Russia and Israel Relations
PHOTO CREDIT JALAA MAREY/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
spite having expended far fewer resources in the region than the United States has over the last couple of decades. Dealing with Israel has not compromised the Russian commitment to the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad or the reasons for that commitment. To the contrary, consultations with the Israelis have provided useful deconfliction of military operations and probably have prevented something like last week’s downing of the Russian plane from happening much sooner. Russia’s objectives are also served to the extent it can nudge Israel to focus on targets that have more to do with Iran and Hezbollah and less to do with the Syrian regime. The Israeli government of Binyamin Netanyahu—who has traveled to Moscow to confer with Putin three times so far this Israelis watch from the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights as warplanes backing a Syrian year—has the narrower perspective of seekgovernment offensive carry out airstrikes in the southwestern Syrian province of Daraa on ing to throw its military weight around outJuly 23, 2018. side its borders with impunity. Its focus in Syria is on Iran and its Lebanese ally Hezbollah. Neither of those two players could hope to overcome Israel’s military superiority in the area, but for the Israeli government it is the impunity that matters as much as the ability to launch strikes. Its strikes in Syria By Paul R. Pillar over the past two years—now numbering at about 200—are exactly the kind of operation for which the Israelis do not want to THE SUDDEN RUFFLING of Israeli-Russian relations over have to worry much about costs and complications. the accidental shootdown by Syria of a Russian surveillance Military deconfliction, given the extent of both Israeli and aircraft, killing 15 crew members, is the sort of incident apt to Russian military operations in Syria, thus has been as useful happen when a modus vivendi joins parties with much differto Israel as it has been to Russia. Israel also has tried to do ent perspectives, one of them broad and the other narrow. some of its own nudging, especially in getting the Russians to Russian President Vladimir Putin has the broad perspective. His get the Iranians to keep their distance from the line of control policies toward both Syria and Israel are part of a strategy of makalong the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. ing Russia an important player throughout the Middle East. It is a There may be some misunderstanding, in Israel as there good realist strategy, worthy of emulation, in which Russia talks sometimes seems to be in the United States, about that last diwith everybody and does not allow any rigid division of the region mension, involving Russian-Iranian relations. Although Russia, into friends and foes to constrain its diplomacy. Putin has played Iran and the Syrian regime have been functioning as allies in the his cards skillfully and has made his government a more broadly Syrian war, they each have their own, partly differing, interests. influential interlocutor in the Middle East than the United States deNone of them can command the others to do what they believe Paul R. Pillar is a contributing editor at The National Interest, where to be contrary to their interests. Herein lie ingredients for what this was first published on Sept. 25, 2018. He’s the author of Why could be additional ruffles in the Israeli-Russian relationship. America Misunderstands the World. Copyright © 2018 LobeLog. All rights reserved. Last week’s incident, however, had more to do with Israel’s
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propensity for seeking absolute security for itself even at the expense of absolute insecurity for others. It has kept up its series of attacks in a neighboring state even when, in this specific incident, that state felt sufficiently threatened to start firing back. Russia lost 15 of its service members as a result. Russia—which, unlike the United States , feels no domestic political pressure to sweep under the rug a loss of its countrymen’s lives due to Israeli action in a war zone—eventually had to speak out forcefully. Russian defense minister Sergei Shoigu said Russia was “compelled” to respond further by providing Syria with Russia’s S-300 air defense system, which is more sophisticated than the system Syria already had. Uncertainties linger about the details of exactly what happened in the Syrian skies Sept. 17, and this uncertainty may account for early inconsistency in Russia’s response, which went from hard to soft and back to hard. Russia alleges that Israeli pilots used the Russian plane as “cover” from Syria air defenses. Israel denies that allegation and says its planes had already returned to Israeli airspace when the air-defense missile was fired. In the end, what must have mattered in Russian thinking was the fact that if Israel had not been attacking targets in Syria, the missile never would have been fired. This dispute and its accompanying ill will are unlikely to lead to fundamental changes either in military operations in Syria or in Russian-Israeli diplomacy. The upgrade of Syrian air defenses will complicate but not stop the Israeli attacks. There may be similar incidents in the future owing to the practical difficulty of separating what belongs to Syria (which Israel, having grown comfortable with the Assad regime as “the devil we know,” is not currently seeking to fight a war against) from what belongs to its Iranian and Hezbollah allies. (The Israel Defense Forces stated that its operation last week targeted a Syrian facility that was about to transfer weapons to Hezbollah on behalf of Iran.) But both Russia and Israel will continue to have the same reasons as before to do business with each other.
To Russia With Love By Gideon Levy
A RAY OF HOPE is breaking through: Someone is setting limits on Israel. For the first time in years another state is making it clear to Israel that there are restrictions to its power, that it’s not okay for it to do whatever it wants, that it’s not alone in the game, that America can’t always cover for it and that there’s a limit to the harm it can do. Israel needed someone to set these limits like it needed oxygen. The recent years’ hubris and geopolitical reality enabled it to run rampant. It could patrol Lebanon’s skies as if they were its own; bombard in Syria’s air space as if it were Gaza’s air space; destroy Gaza periodically, put it under endless siege and continue, of course, to occupy the West Bank. Suddenly
Copyright © Haaretz Daily Newspaper Ltd. All rights reserved. NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018
someone stood up and said: Stop right there. At least in Syria: That’s the end of it. Thank you, Mother Russia, for setting limits on a child whom no one has restrained for a long time. The Israeli stupefaction at the Russian response and the paralysis that gripped it only showed how much Israel needed a responsible adult to rein it in. Does anyone dare prevent Israel’s freedom of movement in another country? Is anyone hindering it from flying in skies not its own? Is anyone keeping it from bombing as much as it pleases? For decades Israel hasn’t encountered such a strange phenomenon. Israel Hayom reported, of course, that antiSemitism is growing in Russia. Israel is getting ready to play the next victim card, but its arrogance has suddenly gone missing. In April the Bloomberg News agency cited threats from retired Military Intelligence chief Amos Yadlin and other officers that if Russia gives Syria S-300 anti-aircraft missiles, Israel’s air force would bombard them. Now the voice of bluster from Zion has been muted, at least for the moment. Every state is entitled to have weapons for defense against jet bombers, including Syria, and no state is permitted to prevent that forcibly. This basic truth already sounds bizarre to Israeli ears. The idea that other countries’ sovereignty is meaningless, that it can always be disrupted by force, and that Israeli sovereignty alone is sacred and supreme; that Israel can mix in the affairs of the region to its heart’s content— including by military intervention, whose true extent is yet to be clarified in the war in Syria—without paying a price, in the name of its real or imagined security, which sanctifies anything and everything—all this has suddenly run into a Russian “nyet.” Oh, how we needed that nyet, to restore Israel to its real dimensions. It arrived with excellent timing. Just when there’s a president in the White House who runs his Middle East policy at the instructions of his sponsor in Las Vegas and mentor on Balfour Street; when Israel feels itself in seventh heaven, with an American Embassy in Jerusalem and no UNRWA, soon without the Palestinians—came the flashing red light from Moscow. Perhaps it will balance out, just a bit, the intoxication with power that has overtaken Israel in recent years, maybe it will start to wise up and recover. Russia, without meaning to, may yet turn out to be better for Israel than all the insane, corrupting support it receives from the current American administration, and from its predecessors, too. Russia has outlined for the world the way to treat Israel, using the only language Israel understands. Let those who truly care for Israel’s welfare, and for justice, learn how it’s done: Only by force. Only when Israel gets punished or is forced to pay a price does it do the right thing. The air force will think twice now and perhaps many times more before its next bombardment in Syria, whose importance, if indeed it has any, is unknown. Had such a Russian “nyet” hovered above Gaza’s skies, too, so much futile death and destruction would have been spared. Had an international force faced the Israeli occupation, it would have ended long ago. Instead, we have Donald Trump in Washington and the European Union’s pathetic denunciations of the evictions at Khan Al-Ahmar. ■
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Special Report
Jamal Khashoggi and the Arab Dark Hole Where Foreign Outrage Refuses to Tread
By Rami G. Khouri
OZAN KOSE/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
I HAVE FOLLOWED closely in the United States the unusually sharp reactions to the apparent abduction and murder of the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. This is as heartening as it is unusual. It may also miss the point about the deeper meaning of Jamal Khashoggi’s life and work. We have never seen such an outpouring of public and political anger in the United States that now demands answers from the Saudi Arabian government about what happened to him. Yet I fear this also encapsulates a deep, dark, black hole of selective, occasional, and personalized moral and political outrage that ignores—and perhaps perpetuates—the true crimes and pressures that plague all journalists and ordinary citizens across the Arab world. The Khashoggi case is only the latest and most severe of tens of thousands of cases of Arab men and women who have been Nobel Peace Prize laureate Yemeni Tawakkol Karman (r) and Egyptian opposition politician detained, imprisoned, tortured, and in some Ayman Nour (l) hold pictures of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi during an Oct. 8 demonstracases killed by their own governments or tion in front of the Saudi Arabian consulate where he was last seen on Oct. 2, in Istanbul. domestic political movements—usually for view, has been the right of freedom of expression. It is telling that the “crime” or “security threat” of speaking their mind independently, many reforms across the Arab region in administrative, commeroffering views that differ from the state’s positions, or simply refuscial, judicial, educational, gender and, even occasionally, security ing to parrot the government’s propaganda. sectors have not touched the home-based Arab mass media, The ghastly kidnapping and/or killing of Khashoggi—especially which remains under the licensing and legal thumbs of governif it has been ordered by the Saudi leadership, which remains an ments and security agencies. unconfirmed accusation—absolutely deserves the international atConsequently, the Arab security state’s insistence on treating its tention it is getting. Yet this attention will remain transient, deeply nationals like robots and parrots may well have been the single flawed, and lacking credibility if it does not translate into a more segreatest detriment to the normal, stable, equitable national developrious effort to join hands with brave Arab men and women across ment of our Arab countries since the 1950s—when army officers our region who continue to struggle for the freedoms, rights, and seized power and gradually steered the region toward its current basic dignities that are denied to us by those very governments that fate of tensions, violence, disparities and mass emigration of tens the U.S. and other world powers support almost absolutely. of thousands of our brightest young people, who refuse to acquiesce This is a pivotal moment because of both the nature of the in their own dehumanization and mass mind control experiments. crime and the nature of the victim. The single most important Khashoggi would not quietly accept life in an Arab region of basic human right that has been denied the Arab citizen, in my 400 million people who are not allowed by their governments to Rami G. Khouri is senior public policy fellow, adjunct professor of use their entire brain for cultural, political, intellectual, scientific, journalism at the American University of Beirut, and a non-resident discovery, or just entertainment purposes. He understood that senior fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Middle East Initiative. Arabs who could speak their minds and debate their common Copyright ©2018 Rami G. Khouri. Distributed by Agence Global. Reprinted with permission. public conditions would eventually play the major role in ending NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018
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the multiple economic and political miseries that plague us today. Societies wither and states fragment and collapse when their human element shrivels because it is not allowed to use its brain to express opinions, engage in public discussions, and offer suggestions for how to resolve the few problems we faced before we entered the era of the security state some half a century ago. Freedom of expression does not mean political opposition plots, security threats, or sinister foreign conspiracies, as most Arab governments frame the accusations they make against those citizens whom they torment, deter, detain, expel, imprison, indict, and, in some cases, torture and kill. The added dilemma is that Arab governments that prevent their citizens from thinking and speaking freely do so by following their own laws, which allow them to abuse citizens in the ways that prevail today. Jamal Khashoggi understood this and sought in vain to find a way to achieve normalcy, dignity, integrity, and fraternity in our Arab societies, working within the established state system. For years he worked within the limits of what his Saudi government deemed permissible, cooperating closely with government
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officials and organizations to try to achieve a more equitable society that treated all its citizens decently. He fled abroad when he realized he could not achieve his goals, and felt his life was in danger. I am sure that if Jamal Khashoggi could speak today, he would ask those individuals and institutions in the world that genuinely care about his fate and legacy to do this: Turn your faces toward those masses of ordinary Arab men and women who are suspended in the impenetrable zones of their own dehumanization, at the hands of those state powers that are vehemently supported by the American, British, Israeli, Iranian, Turkish, Russian and many other foreign governments. I suspect he would remind those who now clamor for information about him that this case is not mainly about him. He is just the most visible and tragic—but heroic —tip of the iceberg of hundreds of millions of Arab citizens who are denied their voice, and therefore their humanity, but who persist in their struggle to regain that humanity. They languish in Arab jails in their tens of thousands in most Arab countries, and in their tens of millions they wander across Arab lands like mindless robots, comprising that deep, dark hole where the selective, occasional moral and political outrage we hear today from the U.S. and other lands refuses to tread. ■
Palestine Declares War Continued from page 42
U.N. members, “including those members of the Security Council which voted against it and those Members of the United Nations who are not members of the Council.” More recently, the General Assembly adopted a resolution calling “upon all States to refrain from the establishment of diplomatic missions in the Holy City of Jerusalem, pursuant to Resolution 478.” Although General Assembly resolutions are not normally binding, it could be argued that this provision was a logical corollary of the duty of nonrecognition in customary international law. It is highly unlikely that the U.S. will recognize the Court’s jurisdiction. As indicated by Bolton’s comments, the
WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
U.S. is planning to challenge Palestine’s statehood claim. In any event, it is doubtful the U.S. would comply with an adverse decision. The U.S. is a permanent member of the Security Council, the body which is responsible for enforcing judgments. The U.S. would clearly veto any resolution seeking to enforce a judgment against it. However, a favorable decision from the Court could deter other states from moving their embassies to Jerusalem. Already, Paraguay has rescinded its decision to move its embassy to Jerusalem. And a more law-abiding U.S. president may one day even decide to move the embassy back to Tel Aviv—or at least recognize Palestinian claims to the city. A favorable decision could also influence events elsewhere—at the International Criminal Court, for example, where Palestine has requested that the prosecutor open an investigation into war crimes committed by Israel on the territory of the State of Palestine. Having an authoritative opinion from the ICJ on Palestine’s statehood could assist ICC lawyers with their preliminary examination regarding the jurisdiction and admissibility of Palestine’s request that it open an investigation. A favorable decision on Palestinian statehood may also influence some European states to break ranks with the EU and recognize Palestine. Others could follow. This is the first time the Palestinian leadership has taken up a case at the ICJ on its own initiative. On one previous occasion Palestine appeared before the Court following a vote at the U.N. General Assembly requesting an Advisory Opinion from the Court. Then, Palestine needed the support of the Arab bloc at the General Assembly. Given the divisions in the Arab world, Palestine’s leaders have chosen to go it alone this time. Only history will tell whether Palestine v United States of America will serve Palestine’s long-term interests. But given current U.S. policy, which has crossed all of Ramallah’s red lines, Palestine’s leaders clearly believe they have little choice but to hunker down and fight back where they can, lawfully and peacefully. ■ NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018
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Special Report
Turning Off the Taps in Turkish Cyprus
By Jonathan Gorvett
AMIR MAKAR/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
AFTER MONTHS OF BAKING sun and little-to-no rain, the Mesaoria— the great central agricultural plain of the island of Cyprus—is now a parched-out, ochre expanse, shimmering into a dusty horizon. Here, in the northern third of this Mediterranean island—home to the breakaway Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC)—farmers are gathered in a village coffee shop. And the mood is an angry one. “There’s one thing everyone here is talking about,” says Dogus Bilge, who owns a local smallholding. “Water!” Cyprus—both to the north and south of the U.N.-patrolled buffer A couple walks along a road in the northern part of Nicosia in the self-proclaimed Turkish Republic zone that has divided the island of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), on Aug. 31, 2018, with the flags of Turkey (red) and Northern Cyprus since the Turkish invasion of 1974— (white and red stripes) seen flying behind. is the most water-stressed country in Europe, according to the European Commission. SIGNING UP This year is the third year of drought in a row, too, with reservoirs in the largely Greek Cypriot south—the internationally recWhile many Turkish Cypriots have close connections to Turkey, ognized Republic of Cyprus (ROC)—at their lowest in a decade, many are also proud of a distinctive heritage and culture, setting according to its agriculture minister, Costas Kadis. them apart from their mainland cousins. They point to a different Both sides have also seen aquifers dry up, as past over-use history, as Cypriots, with close links to Europe and the UK in parof ground water has led to salinization—salty sea water seeping ticular. They also largely support reunification with the ROC, rather in to replace vanished ground water. Poor irrigation techniques than any unification with Turkey. have also added to the problem, as have unregulated and poorly Much of the TRNC, however, is already highly dependent on managed building developments and substandard infrastructure. Turkey. The currency in circulation is Turkish lira, a large financial While both Turkish and Greek Cypriot administrations have dispensation is made to the island by Ankara, and some 40,000 long been aware of the problem, it continues to worsen. Turkish soldiers are stationed there. Since 1974, too, a highly Yet, back in 2015 in the TRNC, many thought the water issue disputed number of settlers from Turkey has also come to the ishad been solved. This was with the arrival, three years ago, of land, while major university expansion has also made it home to a pipeline from Turkey, which lies across a narrow stretch of sea many mainland students. to the north. This can supply some 75 million cubic meters Each time U.N.-sponsored talks to try and re-unite the island (2,648 million cubic feet) of fresh water a year. fail, more land tends to get developed, largely by investors from For many Turkish Cypriots, however, this Turkish water has Turkey. Much of the land in the north originally belonged to not turned out to be a life saver, so much as an additional burGreek Cypriots, who fled in 1974. With any settlement it’s likely den. Indeed, it has become a symbol of what many native-born much of this land will be returned to them. Another failure in nehere see as an unwelcome foreign take-over. gotiations thus reduces the political risk on making an invest“It’s how they are trying to control us,” adds Bilge. “It’s Turkey ment, leading to a flurry of new developments. saying to us, ‘we own you’. And that, we really don’t like.” Meanwhile, mainland political influence is also spreading, with Turkey’s ruling pro-Islamist Justice and Development Party Jonathan Gorvett is a free-lance writer based in Istanbul. (AKP) making an increasingly physical impact via a program of NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018
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mosque building, funded by Ankara. Turkish Cypriots are some of the least religious people in the region, yet, this summer saw the opening of the giant, Hala Sultan mosque, also on that Mesaoria plain. Recently, too, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has moved to sideline the secular, left-leaning Turkish Cypriot leader, ‘President’ Mustafa Akinci. One sign of this came at the recent U.N. General Assembly in New York. There, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu met directly with the ROC’s President Nicos Anastasiades. Turkey has traditionally left negotiations with the Greek Cypriots up to the Turkish Cypriots, and does not recognize the ROC. “The Turkish Embassy here in the TRNC is the real government,” says Mehmet Kemeroglu, back in the coffee shop.
LIRA AND KURUS
This year’s Turkish economic melt-down was also highly troubling for the TRNC. Dependent on imports for many sta-
ples—particularly energy—the Turkish lira’s 40 percent loss in value against the dollar since the start of the year sent prices rocketing. “With the latest increases in the cost of fodder, fuel and electricity,” Mustafa Naimogullari, the leader of the Turkish Cypriot Animal Breeders Union, told reporters early October, “some of our members are unable to cope financially and have now started to sell their animals.” Debt is a growing issue, particularly for businesses that have foreign exchange loans to repay—some one third of all TRNC enterprises, according to a recent TRNC Chamber of Industry survey. “On top of all this too,” adds Kemeroglu, “now they’ve put up the price of water— despite promising that it would stay cheap for years.”
TURNING ON THE TAPS
Water from Turkey began to be distributed to municipalities in the TRNC in mid-2016. Since then, its cost to the local authorities has jumped between 10 and 20 times, de(Advertisement)
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pending on the municipality, while the consumer now pays three to five times more, depending on where they live. The system also experiences periodic outages. In early October, for example, the pipeline split due to higher than normal pressure, cutting water for several days. Now too, privatization of the distributor is on the cards, with this also locking consumers into contracts that will prevent them from using other water sources. “After a transition period, all the water sources will be under the control of a private company,” says former TRNC parliamentarian Dr. Okan Dagli. “In this position, it will be technically illegal to use our own water.” Back in the coffee shop, Bilge is clear what needs to be done. “We have to have peace,” he says. “We have to have a settlement. If not, we will be just another Turkish province.” Yet, with no new round of negotiations scheduled, few see much hope of that in the year to come, here on the bone-dry plain of the Mesaoria. ■
Edited by Muhittin Ataaman
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Islam and the Near East in the Far East
Malaysian Shake-up Touches Middle East Relations
By John Gee
ROSLAN RAHMAN/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
FOLLOWING ITS MAY 9 Malaysian election win, the Pakatan Harapan (PH, or Coalition of Hope) has consolidated its hold on power and implemented some of its campaign promises. The unpopular Goods and Services Tax was scrapped and domestic oil prices were stabilized. The government suspended or postponed a series of large-scale development projects involving foreign countries, notably China. The previous government of Najib Razak was thought to have made commitments that would be very costly for Malaysia, and the new leadership is wary of burdening the country with debts that might force it into default, an austerity program, or passing national assets into foreign hands. Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has said that he wants to restore autonomous status to the East Malaysian states of Sarawak and Sabah, although that was expected to be resisted by the upper house of parliament, still dominated by Barisan NaMalaysian police block the road leading to former Prime Minister Najib Razak's resisional (BN), the former ruling coalition. In Septemdence in Kuala Lumpur, May 13, 2018. Najib was hit with a travel ban as speculation ber, it voted down the repeal of the Anti-Fake News mounted that he was about to flee the country following his election loss, in a possible Act, which had been used by the former govern- bid to avoid prosecution over a multi-billion-dollar scandal. ment against opposition leaders before the election. charges of corruption, particularly related to the 1Malaysia DevelHowever, the upper house can only postpone change for a year, opment Berhad (1MDB) investment firm scandal (see October if the directly elected lower house decides to press ahead and re2016 Washington Report, p. 54). In the days following the election, affirm its support for any measure. police raided apartments owned by Najib and his wife, Rosmah The BN is wounded and rudderless. The coalition has been reMansor. Malaysians who have struggled economically in recent duced from 13 to 3 parties, with a total of 52 seats in the lower years were already skeptical about the integrity of most politicians, house of parliament (49 for BN’s main component, United Malays but the wealth amassed by the couple still astonished many: on National Organization—UMNO), following electoral losses, the May 25, the public heard that in three luxury condominiums, 114 subsequent defection from the BN of 4 parties in Sabah in May million ringgits ($27.5 million) in cash was found, in 26 different curand 4 in Sarawak in June, and individual defections. (It had acturencies, as well as 284 handbags and 72 bags containing watches ally retained 79 seats on election night.) UMNO seems uncertain and jewelery. Inevitably, comparisons were made between Najib’s how to reform itself, and whether it is more advantageous to make wife’s handbags and Imelda Marcos’ shoe collection, discovered a pitch for the support of conservative religious Malays—many of when her husband, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos, was whom have been drawn to the Islamist party, PAS—or to try to reoverthrown in 1986. A total estimate of the goods, money and incover some of the center ground that it lost to the PH. vestments that have been salted away may not emerge until Najib The BN is burdened with the legacy of its support for ex-Prime is brought to trial, due to commence on Feb. 19, 2019. At the time Minister Najib, who, along with many of his associates, faces of writing, Najib faced 32 charges involving criminal breach of trust, money laundering and abuse of power; Rosmah was due to apJohn Gee is a free-lance journalist based in Singapore, and the pear in court on Nov. 8 to answer twelve charges relating to money author of Unequal Conflict: The Palestinians and Israel. NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018
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laundering and five of tax evasion. The change of government has had repercussions for relations with certain Middle Eastern states. Ex-Prime Minister Najib had close ties to Saudi Arabia, and the new government clearly hopes to maintain a friendly relationship, but in a way that it sees as more balanced. It has announced the withdrawal of Malaysian troops from the Islamic Military Counter-Terrorism Coalition, an initiative widely regarded as promoted by Saudi Arabia as part of its efforts to isolate Iran and counter its alleged sponsorship of terrorism. One motivating factor for this may have been the disquiet among Malaysians about the Saudi-led military campaign in Yemen and its dire impact upon civilian there. In August, the Najib government’s plan to establish a Saudisponsored King Salman Center for International Peace in Malaysia’s administrative capital, Putrajaya, was cancelled. Both Saudi and UAE entities have played a role in the 1MDB scandal, and this may have colored the attitude of the new
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Malaysian government toward them. The idea for 1MDB is reported to have been floated by a businessman and close associate of Najib, Low Taek Jho, in 2009. Shortly after its establishment by the Malaysian government, 1MDB teamed up with PetroSaudi International Ltd. to seek to mobilize Middle Eastern investment in Malaysia. In July 2015, The Wall Street Journal reporte3d that nearly $681 million of 1MDB money had been paid into Najib’s personal account. Najib claimed that the money did not come from 1MDB, but was a donation from a member of the Saudi royal family, most of which he had returned. In 2012, Low Taek Jho encouraged 1MDB to begin a partnership with two stateowned Abu Dhabi companies, Aabar Investments PJS and its subsidiary, the International Petroleum Investment Company (IPIC), which hoped to gain assets in Malaysia’s power sector. The two companies provided guarantees for the principal and interest payments on two separate $1.75 billion bond issues by 1MDB, in return for which 1MDB paid $1.37 billion into an Aabar entity account in the British Virgin Islands, as well as offering an option to buy 49 percent of 1MDB’s new energy businesses. The option was terminated two years later with the payment of $993 million to the BVIdomiciled company, as well as a payment of $1.15 billion to Aabar. 1MDB thus paid out more than it received from the bond issues. (For more information see Leslie Lopez’s article “Malaysia-Abu Dhabi link a key challenge in 1MDB probe,” published in the July 1, 2018 Singapore Straits Times). There was friction between Abu Dhabi and Malaysia in 2015 over 1MDB’s failure to repay a $1 billion loan, though this appeared to have been resolved by repayments at the end of 2017. Meanwhile, in July 2016, the U.S. Department of Justice claimed that 1MDB payments earmarked for Aabar and IPIC had been misappropriated by senior officials of the two Abu Dhabi companies and had ended up in Najib’s personal bank account. Abu Dhabi launched its own investigations of the officials. The 1MDB story is one of massive corruption and labyrinthine financial deals that
WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
reflect badly on everyone involved, and it’s a story that has still to be fully told. In June, Malaysian Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng estimated that Malaysia ultimately would have to pay out 50 billion ringgits ($12 billion) to cover 1MDB’s liabilities.
INTERNATIONAL PRESSURE ON MYANMAR OVER ROHINGYA
On Aug. 27, a U.N. fact-finding mission called for an international investigation into the treatment of Myanmar’s Rohingya community and for the prosecution of Gen.Min Aung Hlaing and five other military commanders. It identified their crime as “genocide” against the Muslim minority group, and added that they should also be investigated and prosecuted for “crimes against humanity and war crimes in Rakhine, Kachin and Shan states.” The fact-finding mission, created by the U.N. Human Rights Council in March 2017, interviewed 857 victims and eyewitnesses of “ethnic cleansing,” and examined satellite images and documents, having been refused entry to Myanmar. The mission found that rape was employed against Rohingyas on a large scale. It said: “The scale, brutality and systematic nature of these violations indicate that rape and sexual violence are part of a deliberate strategy to intimidate, terrorize or punish a civilian population, and are used as a tactic of war.” In September, the International Criminal Court based in The Hague ruled that it had jurisdiction over the expulsion of Rohingyas from Myanmar. Although Myanmar has not signed up to the Rome Statute establishing the court, Bangladesh has, and the deportation of Rohingyas across Myanmar’s border with Bangladesh gave the ICC jurisdiction. At the end of September, the ICC started a preliminary investigation into whether there was enough evidence to justify a full investigation into Myanmar’s actions against the Rohinyas. Myanmar and Bangladesh agreed on a deal in November 2017 to begin repatriation of the 700,000 Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, but it has not been implemented. One report said that, as of September 2018, just two families had been readmitted. The plight of the refugees is desperate: no country wants them. ■ NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018
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Special Report
Hating Muslims in the Age of Trump
By Juan Cole
KEREM YUCEL/AFP/GETTY IMAGES)
THESE DAYS, OUR GLOBAL political alliances seem to shift with remarkable rapidity, as if we were actually living in George Orwell’s 1984. Are we at war this month with Oceania? Or is it Eastasia? In that novel, the Party is able to erase history, sending old newspaper articles down the Ministry of Truth’s “memory hole” and so ensuring that, in the public mind, the enemy of the moment was always the enemy. Today, there is one constant, though. The Trump administration has made Muslims our enemy of the first order and, in its Islamophobia, is reinforced by an ugly resurgence of fascism in Germany, Italy, Hungary and other European countries. It’s hard today even to imagine that, in the late 1980s, the rightwing Christian Voice Magazine published a “candidate’s biblical Democratic congressional candidate Ilhan Omar speaks to volunteers in Minneapolis, scoreboard,” urging its readers (and poten- Minnesota, on Oct. 13, 2018. The Somali-American state legislator is on track to become one tial voters) to rate their politicians by how of the first female Muslim members of the U.S. House of Representatives. “biblically” they cast their ballots in Confor the poor and helpless. His hatred of refugees uprooted by the gress. One key measure of this: Did that legislator support the antihorrific Syrian civil war, for instance, stems from his conviction that Communist Muslim jihadis in Afghanistan, a cause warmly supthis population (predominantly women and children, as well as ported by evangelist Pat Robertson in his 1988 presidential camsome men fleeing the fighting) might actually be adherents of the paign? Now, attempting to appeal to 21st century evangelicals, so-called Islamic State group (also known as ISIL, ISIS, or Da’ish) President Trump has announced that “Islam hates us.” and so part of the building of a secretive paramilitary force in the The kaleidoscope of geopolitics and Islamophobia is now spinWest. He’s even speculated that “this could be one of the great ning so fast that it should make our heads spin, too. At times, it tactical ploys of all time. A 200,000-man army, maybe.” seems as if Donald Trump is the anti-Ronald Reagan of the 21st This summer, he also tweeted: “Crime in Germany is way up. century, idolizing former KGB operative Vladimir Putin, but seeing Big mistake made all over Europe in allowing millions of people in former U.S. allies in the Muslim world like Pakistan as purveyors who have so strongly and violently changed their culture!” And a of “nothing but lies and deceit”—until, that is, with bewildering raday later claimed it had risen by 10 percent. Though immigrant pidity, he suddenly gives us the “good” (that is, oil-rich) Muslims communities can indeed produce some crime until they find their again, willingly performing a sword dance with the Saudi royals, footing, the crime rate in Germany, despite the welcoming of 2 milseemingly entirely comfortable with the scimitar of the Saracen. lion immigrants in 2015 alone, has fallen to a 30-year low, as have While the president oscillates between abusing and fawning crimes by non-German nationals. over the elites of the Muslim world, his true opprobrium is reserved Nor, of course, is there an army of terrorists the size of the activeJuan Cole is professor of history at the University of Michigan. He duty forces of France or Italy among those hapless Syrian refugees. runs a news and commentary webzine on U.S. foreign policy and Still, that outlandish conspiracy theory may be part of what lay beprogressive politics, informed Comment. His new book, Muhamhind the president’s blatantly unconstitutional 2015 call for a “total mad: prophet of peace amid the Clash of Empires (Nation Books), and complete shut-down” of Muslims coming to the United States. has just been published. This article originated at TomDispatch. Copyright ©2018 Juan Cole. Distributed by Agence Global. Consider it a great irony, then, that some significant part of the turNOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018
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moil in the greater Middle East that helped provoke waves of refugees and an Islamophobic backlash here and in Europe was, at least in part, the creation of this country, not Muslim fundamentalist madmen. The Islamophobes like to argue that Islam is an inherently violent religion, that its adherents are quite literally commanded to such violence by its holy scriptures, the Qur’an. It’s a position that, as I explain in my new book, Muhammad: Prophet of Peace Amid the Clash of Empires, is both utterly false and ahistorical. As it happens, you would have to look to far more recent realities to find the impetus for the violence, failed states, and spreading terror groups in today’s Greater Middle East. Start with the Reagan administration’s decision to deploy rag-tag bands of Muslim extremists (which al-Qaeda was first formed to support) against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 1980s. That set in motion massive turmoil still roiling that country, neighboring Pakistan, and beyond, decades after the fall of the Soviet Union. Of course, al-Qaeda notoriously blew back on America. Its September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington were then used by American neoconservatives in the administration of George W. Bush—some of whom had served in the Reagan years, cheering on the American-backed Afghan fundamentalists, as well as their Arab allies—to set the United States on a permanent war footing in the Muslim world. The 2003 invasion of Iraq, promoted on the false pretext that Saddam Hussein’s government supported al-Qaeda, kicked off a set of guerrilla insurgencies and provoked a SunniShi’a civil war that spread in the region. Hundreds of thousands would die and at least four million people, including staggering numbers of children, would be displaced over the years thanks to George W. Bush’s boondoggle. The al-Qaeda franchise ISIS (formed initially as al-Qaeda in Iraq in the wake of the U.S. invasion) arose to expel American troops there. Ultimately, its militants made inroads in neighboring Syria in 2011 and 2012 and the U.S. allowed them to grow in hopes of putting pressure on the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad. 54
As is now all too clear, such policies created millions of refugees, some of whom streamed towards Europe, only to be greeted by a rising tide of white Christian bigotry and neo-Nazism. There’s no way to measure the degree to which America’s wars across the Greater Middle East and North Africa have, in fact, changed our world. When, for instance, British Prime Minister Tony Blair signed on to Bush’s illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq, how could he have foreseen that he was helping set off events that would result in a British withdrawal from the European Union (a decision in which anti-immigrant sentiment played an outsized role)—and so the diminishment of his country?
Such policies created millions of refugees
Having helped spread extremism and set in motion massive population displacements, Western elites then developed a profound fear of the millions of refugees they had helped chase out of the Middle East. Executive Order 13769, President Trump’s abrupt January 2017 visa ban, which created chaos at American airports and provoked widespread protests and court challenges—many of its elements were, however, ultimately upheld by the Supreme Court—appears to have been premised on the notion that a Trojan Horse of Muslim extremism was headed for American shores. In reality, the relatively small number of terrorist attacks here by Muslim-Americans (covered so much more intensively than the more common mass shootings by white nationalists) have most often been carried out by “lone wolves” who “self-radicalized” on the Internet and who, had they been white, would simply have been viewed as mentally unbalanced. Still, realities of that sort don’t make a dent in the president’s agenda. In 2018, the Trump administration will likely only admit about 20,000 refugees, far less than last year’s 45,000, thanks to administration demands that the FBI carry out “extreme vetting” of all applicants without being given any extra resources to do so. Of the
WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
refugees admitted in the first half of this year, only about one in six was a Muslim, while in 2016, when 84,995 refugees were admitted, they were equally divided between Christians and Muslims. On average, the U.S. still admits a little more than a million immigrants annually, of which refugees are a small (and decreasing) proportion. Since 2010, more immigrants have come from Asia than any other area, some 45 percent of them with college degrees, which means that Trump’s very image of immigrants is wrong. His ban on immigrants from five Muslimmajority countries (Iran, Syria, Libya, Yemen and Somalia) was largely symbolic, since they were generally not sources of significant immigration. It was also remarkably arbitrary, since it did not include Iraq or Afghanistan, where violent insurgencies and turmoil continue but whose governments host American troops. It does, however, include the relatively peaceful country of Iran. Trump’s Muslim ban has broken up families, even as it harmed American businesses and universities whose employees (or in the case of colleges, students) have been abruptly barred from the country. The restrictions on immigration from Syria and Yemen are particularly cruel, since those lands face the most extreme humanitarian crises on the planet and the United States has been deeply implicated in the violence in both of them. Moreover, Iranians who do emigrate to the U.S. are, for the most part, members of minorities or political dissidents. In fact, no nationals from any of those five banned states have committed lethal acts of terrorism in the United States in the last 40 years. The Islamophobia of President Trump, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, National Security Adviser John Bolton, and others in the administration, aided and abetted by the megaphone that Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News offers, has had a distinct impact on public opinion. Attacks on Muslim-Americans have, for instance, spiked back to 2001 levels. A recent poll found that some 16 percent of Americans want to deny the vote to Muslim-Americans, 47 percent support Trump’s visa restrictions, and a majority would like all mosques to be kept under surveillance. (A Continued on page 70 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018
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COPYRIGHT @2018 KHALIL BENDIB www.bendib.com
THE WORLD LOOKS AT THE MIDDLE EAST
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The Khaleej Times, Dubai, U.A.E.
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How Can the Arab World Move Beyond Conflict?
The Arab Center Washington DC held its annual conference, titled “The Arab World Beyond Conflict,” on Sept. 20 at the JW Marriott in downtown Washington, DC. Speakers diagnosed the underlying causes of instability in the region—namely poverty, unaccountable leadership and the rise of belligerent actors—and offered suggestions for how the region can move beyond these paralyzing realities. Rami Khouri, professor of journalism at the American University of Beirut, argued that poverty is the pre-eminent cause of conflict in the region. Recent data shows that two-thirds of the Arab world lives in poverty or at the edge of poverty, he noted, and 60 million of the region’s 400 million people depend on aid to survive. He cited autocracy and “nonstop foreign military intervention” as two major drivers of this poverty. The region’s poverty epidemic is largely ignored, Khouri added. “We’re dealing with a rather catastrophic situation, which is almost totally unreported in the Arab press and in the international press,” he warned. Describing the region’s poor as “invisible people,” he lamented: “They don’t matter, they don’t have power, they don’t have agency. No one cares about them.” Solutions to the poverty crisis, such as improved educational systems and more reliable social safety nets, will only emerge if the Arab people are empowered to engage in governance and civic activities, Khouri emphasized. “If we can only do one thing in the Arab world, it’s to provide freedom of expression,” he stated. “Unless individual citizens and groups of citizens are able to speak their mind freely—to check authority, to hold power accountable, to express their grievances, to provide solutions, and to be involved in constructive mechanisms of development, if we don’t have that fundamental underlying freedom to use our voice and our mind—then almost nothing else will get done.” Sara Leah Whitson, executive director of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and 56
(L-r) Rami Khouri, Sara Leah Whitson and Mehran Kamrava discuss impediments to peace and prosperity in the Arab world.
North Africa division, reiterated this point. The region’s repressive rulers intentionally avoid political reform in order to ensure that public accountability does not threaten their power and access to wealth, she noted. The bottom line, she emphasized, is that poverty and instability will remain as long as average citizens are denied meaningful say over their government’s actions. “So long as states in the region continue to see power as a zero-sum game versus their own citizenry, it’s difficult to envision stable and just states in this region, at least in the short term,” she said. Bessma Momani, professor at the University of Waterloo and a senior fellow at the Center for International Governance Innovation, emphatically argued that the Arab world’s leaders must reimagine economic development. At the time of the Arab Spring in 2011, she pointed out, the region was experiencing very strong economic growth, with new towers, malls and resorts popping up in major cities. Nevertheless, the region’s citizens rebelled against their governments. The problem, according to Momani, was that these major land development projects were incorrectly equated with success and prosperity. “These were very much false forms of modernization,” she said. “Every Arab country was growing [economically], but something wasn’t right. What wasn’t right is that it wasn’t inclusive. People did not feel it in their very pockets.” Instead of investing in massive projects that do little to benefit average citizens, Momani said Arab governments should work to provide the basic services that
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people crave, such as trash collection, suitable public transportation and community parks. Their citizens would gladly pay taxes and support their governments if they saw a return on their money, she surmised. “People don’t mind paying taxes,” she said. “What they do mind is paying taxes that aren’t being used on them. The challenge is, in the Arab world the taxes go up but the services go down.” This dynamic, she noted, naturally leads to popular unrest and instability. The Arab world, Momani emphasized, needs “leaders who see growth in terms of their people. They cannot look out from their high-rise towers and see the built environment and think that’s development. If we can’t get that out of their heads, I don’t see a future for the Middle East.” Ambassador Amatalalim Alsoswa, Yemen’s former minister of human rights and its former ambassador to Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands, noted that wars, military spending and corruption also deflect money from projects that benefit the common good. “Imagine if the millions and millions of dollars spent on weapons and bombs in the current conflicts in the Arab world were instead used to build schools, hospitals, bridges and recreational parks,” she said. “Imagine if elites stopped filling their own pockets and did everything in their power to eliminate poverty and discrimination.” On the geopolitical front, Mehran Kamrava, director of the Center for International and Regional Studies at Georgetown University-Qatar, said the Middle East is being destabilized by a zero-sum contest for conNOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018
PHOTO COURTESY ARAB CENTER WASHINGTON DC
WAGING PEACE
trol and influence among its powerful countries, particularly Saudi Arabia and Iran. Every major country in the region, he pointed out, has deployed sectarianism as a tool in their quest for power. “They are all guilty in terms of [propagating] a sectarian narrative that supports their regional ambitions, and of course their political projects domestically,” he said. He also cited as another cause of conflict the rise of “belligerent actors” who have no regard for customary regional diplomatic processes. “What we are seeing is a breakdown of traditional diplomatic norms in the Middle East, which has resulted in a pervasiveness of military actions, resort to military boycotts, blockades—things that some years ago were rare occurrences,” he said. “The Arab order, whatever of it there once was, has completely broken down,” he added, as the region’s actors now play by their own rules. —Dale Sprusansky
PHOTO COURTESY ARAB CENTER WASHINGTON DC
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and make a counter proposal and lead the country back to peace. “If I had to say how this possibly could end,” the ambassador continued, “I would just say three letters—MBS [Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman]. When MBS decides that he has had enough and he truly wants to end this war, then it will end.” Barbara Bodine, former U.S. ambassador to Yemen, made a bleak prediction about the war: “It will not be solved militarily unless or until the Saudis or Emiratis decide to use a level of violence equivalent to that of [Syrian President Bashar] Assad and the Russians.” There is, of course, already tremendous human suffering in Yemen, Bodine pointed out. Yemenis are experiencing the largest
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When Will Yemen’s Brutal War End?
The Gulf International Forum hosted a group of panelists with differing views to discuss “The War in Yemen: Is There Light at the End of the Tunnel?” at Washington, DC’s National Press Club on Sept. 13. Now in its fourth year, the war in Yemen continues unabated, causing a humanitarian crisis described by U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres as “the world’s worst.” David Des Roches, associate professor at the National Defense University’s Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies, began the conversation by stating his view that, while the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen—supported militarily by the U.S.— has been unsuccessful, “operationally and tactically it has been impressive.” Ambassador Abdulhakim Al-Eryani, a career Yemeni diplomat, disagreed. “In terms of impressiveness, I would be more impressed by the Houthis, who started out as barefoot soldiers and who have stood up to this onslaught by the best technology the world has to offer,” he countered. “They resisted and they stood their ground. That’s impressive. But I would like to see them become a little more politically sophisticated
Ambassador Amatalalim Alsoswa.
cholera epidemic in modern history, and the fighting is taking a particularly devastating toll on the children, who endure widespread hunger and lack of health services. The current U.S. administration is likely to remain supportive of the Saudis and Emiratis, Bodine predicted. “I also think that most people in the Trump administration could not find Yemen on a map, and probably don’t particularly care,” she added. Dr. Nabeel Khoury, non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East, said that sustained peace in Yemen would only happen under “a functional government capable of looking after their responsibilities, providing security, services, health, education and paying the salaries of government employees.” The legitimacy of the government, as well as government institutions, “should be preserved,” he argued, “because otherwise we will only have warring factions, and this would complicate the solution even more.” Giving Yemen’s 29 million citizens a voice is also important, Khoury stated. “They are stranded in this war and do not have a voice. No one talks about the people and what they want and what they need. Maybe a group of Yemeni men and women could be formed just to call for peace and to pressure both sides of the conflict.” Until there is a settlement, Khoury recommended that the economy and the humanitarian efforts be depoliticized. “The livelihood of the people should not be a matter
(L-r) Ambassador Abdulhakim Al-Eryani, Dr. Nabeel Khoury and David Ottaway share ideas on ending the war in Yemen. WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
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it impossible for them to build one Palestinian identity or even to stay connected with families in the occupied territories. Israelis are happy to use Palestinians as their work force as long as they don’t participate in decision-making, Farah said. The new Jewish nation-state law downgrades The Struggle of Arab Palestinians in the Arabic language and escalates segreIsrael gation in housing, education and the work place. “Tax-paying Arab Israelis are willing to be neighbors and live as equals in Israel,” Farah said. “Instead we are humiliated and violated. Israelis treat us the way they were treated in Europe in the 1930s.” He called for new international pressure on Israel, and urged Americans to insist their elected representatives stand for peace, real democracy, equality and social justice, Jafar Farah describes the struggles of Palestinian Israelis. and to quit targeting Arab Two directors of Israeli advocacy centers communities. Feminist peace activist Nabila Espanioly discussed the discrimination, police brutality and racism faced by their fellow Arab who founded al-Tufula, a pedagogical center Palestinian citizens in Israel on Oct. 2 at the and multipurpose women’s center in Palestine Center in Washington, DC. Com- Nazareth, described the daily struggles of munity organizer Jafar Farah directs the Palestinian Israelis. “We were left as orphans Mossawa Center, a non-profit NGO that when we were separated from our Arabic works to promote the economic, social, cul- roots,” she said. The Arab Israeli educational tural and political rights of the Palestinian curriculum is controlled by a state which erases Palestinian identity and history. Arab citizens in Israel. Al-Tufula is trying to provide resources— Farah said he and other Mossawa Center staff had spent the week meeting with including children’s books and song books— U.S. members of Congress at a critical to help Palestinian parents and educators time. The Trump administration took puni- teach children about their rich culture and tive actions against the Palestinian people, including shutting down the Palestinian mission in DC. “Palestinians deserve to have political representation in every place. It’s part of our right to self-determination,” Farah said. “No one else can talk on our behalf.” Israel has worked to marginalize Palestinians since 1948, he continued. Palestinian organizations, words, signs and flags were forbidden. Farah’s brother was jailed for flying the Palestinian flag in Haifa in 1988. Israel has isolated its Arab minority and made Nabila Espanioly.
make them proud of their identity. Espanioly, who is also a member of Mossawa, noted that “mossawa” means “equality” in Arabic, a word that doesn’t exist in Israeli society. The organization fought to register its name—all the way to Israel’s supreme court. The notion that Israelis and Arabs can be equal creates fear in the nation that calls itself the only democracy in the Middle East. —Delinda C. Hanley
for negotiations,” he insisted. “If financial institutions are functioning and trade is going in official ways, then maybe the beneficiaries of war would earn less and there would be more incentives to go towards a peaceful settlement.” —Elaine Pasquini
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Swedish #WalkToPalestine
Benjamin Ladraa walked 5,000 km (3,107 miles) from Sweden to Palestine to raise awareness about Israeli human rights violations in the occupied territories. After his walk, on Sept. 11, 2018, he stopped by the Washington Report. We asked the 25-yearold Swede what sparked his interest in this issue. He said he became friends with Palestinians who grew up in Syria’s Yarmouk refugee camp. Then he saved money for a year, sold all his possessions and—following his mother’s advice—bought some good shoes. Most people are not aware of the atrocities going on, he said. “The media isn’t reporting and the education system is doing a poor job of highlighting 70 years of occupation. I thought I’d raise awareness by carrying a huge Palestinian flag and stopping to talk to people—especially students in universities,” Ladraa said. It took him 11 months, Ladraa noted, and he had a lot of adventures and “crazy moments” along the way. When Ladraa accepted a prize in Ankara at the International Mount of Olives Peace Award ceremony, he got to meet Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the parents of slain American peace activist Rachel Corrie, 23, and Mohammed Abu Khdeir, 16, who was kidnapped and burned alive. He also spoke to Croatia’s parliament. He told all those audiences that Palestinians don’t need sympathy and tears, they need supporters to put pressure on Israel. The world should demand that Israel stops destroying Palestinian infrastructure and building settlements. “We need to cut military cooperation and sanction Israel,” Ladraa added. It should come as no surprise that after NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018
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Moving for Mental Health
Swede Benjamin Ladraa sends a message to Americans.
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walking so far, and spending six hours at the Allenby border crossing, Ladraa was denied entry. Border police said they suspected he would organize a demonstration. “They proved my point,” Ladraa stated. “Israel targets activists and forbids dissent.” Ladraa has lots of suggestions for Americans as he travels this country, like transferring the Pentagon’s budget to healthcare and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and helping students and the homeless instead of Israel and other human rights abusers. Ignoring death threats and hate mail, he talks about love while he urges Americans to organize and vote. —Delinda C. Hanley
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) faces a critical funding crisis due to the August 2018 U.S. decision to cut all funding to the agency. So it was more important than ever for nearly 700 supporters to show up and raise funds at the Anacostia Riverwalk Trail along the Potomac River at 7 a.m. on Sept. 22 for DC’s seventh annual Gaza 5K walk/race and dabke party. UNRWA DC’s acting director Laila Mokhiber welcomed the crowd and described her last trip to Gaza. UNRWA counselors—who are refugees themselves— told harrowing stories about Gaza’s mental health crisis. Gazans suffer from trauma due to repeated Israeli military assaults and the continued blockade. Gaza’s children and their families need access to counselors to help them deal with trauma, stress, depression and other mental health issues. Counselors can’t do their jobs if they lose funding, and it is the children—who are so vital to the future of Palestine—who will suffer without these services. Elizabeth Campbell, director of UNRWA’s representative office in Washington, DC, said the agency is facing an existential crisis due to the unexpected cuts in U.S. funding. She described UNRWA’s scope and scale, as it runs 711 schools serving 525,000 Palestinian refugee children in the West Bank, East Jerusalem,
Runners and walkers raised $180,000 for UNRWA’s Gaza mental health programs.
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Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. “To put it in context, UNRWA’s school system would represent in the U.S. the thirdlargest school system after New York and Los Angeles....We run amazing schools. UNRWA is a treasure worth protecting and investing in.” Palestinians haven’t been given a political horizon so education is their only way forward, she concluded, urging runners to “put in your heart one child who depends on you.” Palestinian American comedian and professor Amer Zaher, who emceed the event, made the morning extra fun and led the crowd in encouraging runners. After all the runners and walkers returned from the track, Ahmad Hawa from the Mount of Olives Association played dabke songs and Fuad Saleh gave dance instructions. The Gaza 5K raised $180,000, just shy of their $200,000 goal, to support mental health programs and employ 25 counselors for Palestinian refugee children and families in the Gaza Strip. To make a U.S.tax-deductible donation, please visit <www.unrwausa.org/current-campaigns>. —Delinda C. Hanley
ANERA Holds 50th Anniversary Dinner
More than 500 steadfast supporters of American Near East Refugee Aid (ANERA) celebrated its 50th anniversary with a dinner on Sept. 28 at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Washington, DC. With the U.S. administration cutting assistance to Palestinians, including USAID programs, attendees realized it is more urgent than ever for private donors to support ANERA’s work to prevent a humanitarian crisis. Syrian-American rapper/poet Omar Offendum emceed and performed, as did Cairo-born composer and master of the oud, Ramy Adly and his ensemble. ANERA’s president and CEO Sean Carroll gave a history of ANERA, which he said started just as the United States was reeling over the Vietnam War and Washington was burning after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Displaced Palestinian refugees were not on the minds of most Americans.
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Some Americans were very concerned. Months after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, Betty and Jim Sams invited 50 organizers who were sending aid to Palestinians to their home. They discussed whether to unite under one umbrella organization, and it was probably Betty Sam’s Lebanese cooking that sealed the deal. Orin Parker, president of the American Friends of the Middle East (now called Amideast), offered office space and staff assistance, and they set about forming ANERA. John Richardson became the first executive director and John Davis the first president. Carroll thanked many of those still-living founders as well as past presidents or CEOs who attended the celebration and served as honorary hosts, including Rev. Bill Corcoran, and Peter Gubser’s widow Annie Gubser. He and other speakers praised Frances Stickles (in memoriam), who launched ANERA’s education committee, and the Women’s Program Association (Lebanon). They also thanked numerous honorary hosts, including former Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel and his wife Lilibet Hagel, Jordan’s Amb. Dina Kawar, Malcolm Kerr’s widow Ann Kerr, the Madonna Foundation, and U.S. Amb. Susan Ziadeh (ret). After journeying through five decades of ANERA’s work in Palestine and Lebanon— and celebrating the delivery of more than $67 million in programs in 2017 alone—the audience was urged to help lay the foundation for future impactful programs so “hope finds its way” in the Middle East. If supporters redouble their efforts in the near future, Carroll said, perhaps ANERA will no longer be needed 50 years from now. “As airlines say, ‘we know you have a choice in flying.’ Thank you for flying with ANERA.” Very active boardmember Southern California businessman Murad Siam and Hani Almadhoun, director of donor development, urged attendees to write that check now. For more information, please visit <www.anera.org>. —Delinda C. Hanley
A Celebration of Life and Hope
The United Palestinian Appeal hosted its 40th Anniversary Banquet on Sept. 20, at the Key Bridge Marriott Hotel in Arlington, 60
(L-r) ANERA president Sean Carroll, co-founder Betty Sams and her daughter Victoria Sams. VA, to celebrate UPA’s 40 years of service, and to raise funds for future projects in Palestine, Lebanon and Jordan. This was the first time UPA’s community of supporters and staff had gathered in such impressive numbers and the dinner raised more than $100,000 for UPA programs. The evening’s emcee was Iman Awad, the legislative director for Emgage, which raises public awareness for Muslim American civic engagement. The banquet featured remarks from staff in field offices in the West Bank and Jordan, representatives from UPA’s international advisory council, and various special invited guests. Reflecting on UPA’s legacy, Isam Salah described how the charity started with the goal of helping Palestinians live with dignity. Salah said another co-founder, George Salem, chose the name, making it similar to the United Jewish Appeal in hopes of avoiding attack at a time when Americans believed Palestinian was synonymous to the “T” word. Co-founders decided they didn’t want to inoculate or dilute the name by using “Middle East.” UPA founders concluded they should rely on individual, not government donations, to ensure their independence. Co-founder and treasurer George Salem described UPA’s origins, first helping a nursing hospital, then providing child sponsorship programs, university scholarships,
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and finally procuring medical supplies. UPA pays no rent for its DC offices and keeps overhead expenses low—less than 3 percent—which is virtually unheard of in charitable organizations. “Together, we have built and established one of the very few enduring Palestinian institutions in America,” Salem concluded, “Together we are united.” UPA’s executive director Saleem Zaru began his remarks by asking for a moment of silence to observe the 36th commemoration of the 1982 massacre in Beirut’s Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. Zaru said Palestinians love life and don’t glorify war. “As we reflect on the meaning of our mission and search for motivation in an environment torn by violence and numbed by injustice, we often find ourselves drawing strength from the resilience and steadfastness of the communities we serve.” Dr. Rushdi Amr, a dentist from Hebron, described volunteering for Operation Smile after his first child was born with a cleft lip and palate. He helped UPA launch its Embracing Life Program to improve the lives of Palestinians with cleft lip and cleft palate. Clinical psychologist Dinah Ayna, Ph.D., who has worked with refugee communities for more than 20 years, told the audience about UPA programs that allow refugees to “simply be humans.” One such project NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018
PHOTO BY NATHAN MITCHELL COURTESY ANERA
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PHOTO COURTESY REP. MCCOLLUM
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“Now in Congress, you would is Beit Atfal Assumoud, which think that’s common sense, but provides vocational training, soyet this is not the case when it cial care, family guidance and comes to protecting Palestinian mental health programs. It’s children, and when the governembroidery project generates ment doing the abusing is Israel,” income for refugee women. she continued. “The U.S. gov(Their embroidery is for sale at ernment should not spend one Middle East Books and More.) dollar of our taxpayer’s funds in Prof. Brian K. Barber asked supporting a brutal military deattendees to support UPA, tention that abuses children.” which has the wisdom and willMcCollum thanked the 29 Deingness to listen to the people it mocratic members of Congress serves. UPA is helping Palestiniwho have co-sponsored her bill. ans retain their self-worth and “I admire their willingness to dignity under increasingly dauntstand with me, because it’s not ing and exhausting conditions, UPA’s executive director Saleem Zaru praises his staff for their easy,” she noted. “We are conhe said. Barber urged Ameri- dedication and hard work. fronted by a right-wing pro-Israel cans to show their compassion and passion for social justice by continuing were pleased to finally hear a U.S. law- lobby that supports Israel’s brutality, and maker describe Israel as an apartheid state. groups like Christians United for Israel that to support UPA. McCollum said her legislative effort to work to promote settlement expansion and This event was the first of a series of 40th anniversary gatherings, with events protect Palestinian children from Israeli ag- delegitimize Palestinians to justify their reliplanned in Gaza, the West Bank and Jor- gression should not be viewed as bold. “It’s gious extremism.” Elected officials ought not let fears of dan in early 2019. For more information, not a complicated bill,” she said. “It says that U.S. aid to Israel shall be prohibited being labeled anti-Semitic prevent them please visit <www.upaconnect.org.> —Anour Esa and Delinda C. Hanley from being used to arrest, detain, abuse, from standing up for Palestinian rights, Mctorture or otherwise violate humanitarian Collum emphasized. “Let me be clear, holdlaw and the human rights of Palestinian ing the Israeli government accountable for HUMAN RIGHTS children. As an American and as a mother, its abuses is not anti-Semitic, it is just being I don’t think it’s particularly controversial or responsible and just,” she said. “Why can’t Rep. Betty McCollum: “It’s Called a statement of moral courage to condemn I hold a foreign government accountable for Apartheid” a government that systematically arrests how they abuse an entire population of people under their control?” Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN) did not mince and abuses children. her words when she addressed the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights’ annual conference in St. Paul, MN on Sept. 29. The nine-term congresswoman, who has introduced legislation (H.R. 4391) that would prevent U.S. taxpayer dollars from being used to support Israel’s detention of Palestinian children, unwaveringly criticized Israel for practicing apartheid and decried the U.S. government’s complicity in Israel’s human rights violations. In July, the Israeli government passed a law declaring the country to be “the nationstate of the Jewish people,” solidifying the second-class citizenship of the country’s 1.7 million Palestinian citizens. “The world has a name for the form of government that’s codified in the nation-state law,” McCollum said. “It’s called apartheid.” The room Rep. Betty McCollum (center, red shirt) posing with Palestinian human rights activists in her erupted into profuse applause, as many office on Capitol Hill. NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018
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McCollum noted that she is able to be a strong voice in favor of Palestinian rights because she has the support of her constituents. “I am a reflection of the people who elect me,” she said. “So my work to promote peace, attack poverty, defend the rights of children and stand in solidarity with the oppressed, including the Palestinian people, is because I have the support of my wonderful constituents.” Despite the overwhelmingly staunch support for Israel in Congress, McCollum is hopeful that the Palestinian rights movement is making progress. “There’s a truth we’re fighting for, and that is that the Palestinian people deserve freedom, justice and equality, just like people anywhere in the world,” she said. “My goal with H.R. 4391 is to offer an alternative perspective, to force policymakers to think about the $3.8 billion in [annual] U.S. aid to Israel, and how that helps enable, facilitate and enforce a military occupation of Palestinian lands and the repression of the Palestinian people.” She also noted that young progressives who are not afraid to criticize Israel and support Palestinian rights have enjoyed electoral success this election cycle. “I believe there’s a change coming to Congress in the new year,” she said. “There are strong progressive women and men who’ll be coming to Washington who will certainly have their voices heard and I’m certain these new voices will bring new energy to our movement.” —Dale Sprusansky
Activists from several groups gathered in front of the Israel pavilion at Folklorama, Winnipeg’s annual cultural festival, on Aug. 9 to participate in a vigil commemorating Israel’s deadly 2014 attack on the Gaza Strip. As Israel’s supporters inside the pavilion celebrated the country’s 70th birthday, the activists outside called attention to the 70th anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba. Independent Jewish Voices, Peace Alliance Winnipeg, Winnipeg Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid, and the Canadian Palestinian Association of Manitoba all took part in the vigil. Dokhi Fassihian, head of the Middle East and North Africa division at Freedom House, offered ideas for creating a coherent U.S. human rights policy toward Iran, which she claimed has long been missing. What is useful, Fassihian explained, is separating democracy and human rights
from American strategic objectives. “Otherwise, it is where we are today,” she said. According to Fassihian, building a global human rights consensus regarding Iran— as when the U.S. worked with European allies and others on the nuclear deal—is more effective than working unilaterally. Repeatedly using sanctions for short-term
The state of human rights in Iran was the topic of a Sept. 13 program at the Washington, DC-based Atlantic Council. Moderator Barbara Slavin, director of the Atlantic Council’s Future of Iran Initiative, began by noting that supporting the Iranian nuclear deal does not mean condoning or ignoring Iran’s human rights abuses. “I think it’s possible to seek a U.S. return to the nuclear deal and still criticize the Iranian government for repressing its own people, jailing dual nationals, and other offenses,” she said. “There is much Iran could do to improve its human rights posture for the good of its own people, not to placate critics from the outside.” 62
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Human Rights Still Stifled in Iran
(L-r) Barbara Slavin, Dokhi Fassihian, Hadi Ghaemi and Sussan Tahmasebi note the uphill battle facing Iranian human rights activists.
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Syrian Refugee Resettlement: Successes and Shortcomings
Although rarely making front-page news at the moment, the eight-year-old Syrian crisis has resulted in one of the largest refugee migrations in modern history. To discuss the failures and successes of global efforts to resettle the 6.3 million Syrian refugees, the Global Center for Refugee Education and Science (GCRES) and Vets for American Ideals co-hosted an Aug. 30 program at the Washington, DC offices of Human Rights First. “I’m trying to be the voice for those who cannot speak for themselves,” explained Ahmad Beetar, who left his home in Syria in 2013, came to the U.S. on a State Department fellowship and began to rebuild his life. “I was a journalist and was offered a lot of money to work for the regime and the opposition, and because I refused I was harassed.” Like other Syrians who refused to work or fight for either side, he lived every day in fear. “Refugees are survivors, they are resilient, they are looking for ways to make their lives productive, because they want to live in dignity,” said Bill Frelick, director of the refugee policy program at Human Rights Watch. “They do not want handouts. If people are encouraged to become self-reliant and to live productive lives, then they feel dignity, they feel pride and
STAFF PHOTO PHIL PASQUINI
gain does not work, she told the audience, and neither do threats. “I think it really diminishes the global consensus,” she said. “We need a more long-term vision that incorporates democracy and human rights benchmarks.” Addressing the current state of women’s issues in Iran, Sussan Tahmasebi, cofounder of the Iran Civil Society Training and Research Center, noted that women have broken many barriers. “I think it is important to look at the achievements, as well as the discriminations,” she said, “because we do not want to define women as victims, because they definitely are not.” Literacy rates among women are very high, especially for the generation born after the revolution, she noted, while more than 50 percent of the country’s university students are women. Among the issues that need to be addressed, she cited drug addiction, women’s homelessness, and violence and sexual harassment. Regarding overall human rights in Iran, Tahmasebi asserted, “Until humanity is put at the center of the security policy in the Middle East, and until the policy is not specifically and only directed at the security of the United States and Israel, we’re not going to have change on human rights.” “To talk about where Iran’s human rights stand right now is a little depressing for me, having participated in forums like this for nearly 20 years,” Hadi Ghaemi, executive director of the Center for Human Rights in Iran, told the audience. “I always have to say that the human rights situation in Iran is in crisis.” According to Ghaemi, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has moved completely to the side of the judiciary, intelligence and security forces who are still detaining political activists, students, journalists, dual nationals and religious minorities. “The situation is very fluid, and we’re in unchartered territory now that the United States has turned international affairs into complete chaos,” Ghaemi lamented. “I believe the international community must focus on human rights issues.” —Elaine Pasquini
they are working to help create enterprises, to generate a growing economy, which works to the benefit of the host communities as well.” Robert L. McKenzie, senior fellow and director of New America’s Muslim Diaspora Initiative, noted that, even in the best of times, the United States takes in less than 1 percent of the world’s refugees. “This fear of refugees freaks out people here and in Europe,” he noted. “When we lower the number of refugees we will take, we signal to our European allies that they can also lower their numbers.” In 2015, Suzanne Akhras Sahloul launched the Syrian Community Network, which serves about 4,000 refugees in various U.S. cities. “Syrians really value education, so you see a lot of parents who may not have an education, but they want their children to be doctors, or engineers or pharmacists,” she said. “Their teachers share stories about how well the children are doing, and some children have even taken on leadership roles for new refugee students, helping to translate and helping with homework.” Erol Yayboke, deputy director and fellow with the Project on U.S. Leadership in Development, explained the findings of his research on host communities in the U.S. “People asked for more refugees because they are such good reliable workers,” he enthused. “These people have been through a
(L-r) Mahmoud El-Hamalawy, Bill Frelick, Ahmad Beetar, Robert L. McKenzie, Suzanne Akhras Sahloul and Erol Yayboke discuss Syrian refugees. WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
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lot, and they really just want to have a productive life for their families.” Noting the rise in right-wing parties in Europe, Yayboke pointed out that “People are closing their doors and building walls at the same time that historic amounts of people are being displaced. Years of migration research shows that if you are making it harder to let people in at the same time that more and more people are moving, you are just shooting yourself in the foot." —Elaine Pasquini
Inaugural Fundraiser for Museum Of the Palestinian People
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Ahmed Hmeedat, behind the podium, and Nizar Farsakh with the microphone describe plans for the museum.
bition, “Imagining the Future of Palestine.” For more information, visit <www.mppdc.org>. —Delinda C. Hanley
Qais Al-Sindy’s Latest Exhibit: “16 x 20 x 20”
The Jerusalem Fund Gallery in Washington, DC hosted a poignant and unusual opening reception for the Iraqi-born artist Qais Al-Sindy on Sept. 7, 2018. His 20 paintings were all the same size, 16x20 inches, but told 20 different stories of exile and displacement. Curator Dagmar Painter asked poets to give their own interpretations of each piece, and the result was a
deeply moving live original poetry reading by Zeina Azzam, who read her own work as well as others. Then to top it all off, Fuod Foty accompanied the poetry readings with haunting notes from his oud. The result: the audience understood, using every sense, the deep inner feelings of people leaving home to journey into exile. Al-Sindy’s journey began in Iraq, took him around the world, and may or may not end in America. Along the way he collected stretched 16x20 canvases as well as stories and dreams—his own and others. His expressionistic paintings depict exiles carrying burdens, souvenirs and to-
Qais Al-Sindy (l) and Dagmar Painter stand in front of his paintings, (l-r) “Kiss From Heaven,”“My Cello..My Boat” and “Remnants of a Journey.”
WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018
STAFF PHOTO D. HANLEY
The Tabard Inn in Washington, DC hosted a well-attended inaugural fund-raising reception for the Museum of the Palestinian People (MPP) on Sept. 24. After browsing and bidding on the silent auction, Tabard Inn matriarch Fritzi Cohen welcomed guests. She noted that this was the second day of Sukkot, a week-long Jewish holiday celebrated by dwelling in a foliage-covered hut. Guests were glad to be in the lovely historic inn, rather than a hut, sampling delicious Middle Eastern cuisine. Chairman of the board Nizar Farsakh, a motivational trainer, described MPP’s exciting plans. After securing space provided by a generous donor, next door to the Washington Report and Middle East Books and More, the museum began design work to transform offices into a stateof-the-art museum. “This is everyone’s museum,” Farsakh said. “MPP will express Palestinian identity, tell our story and our place in the world.” This museum plans to start conversations and help visitors see Palestinians in new ways that will surprise, delight and move them. Renovation begins once MPP reaches its $100,000 goal. They hope to raise $200,000 to cover renovation costs, launch their first exhibit, and prepare a variety of cultural and community events. Ahmed Hmeedat, a Palestinian artist who was born and raised in Dheisheh Refugee Camp outside the city of Bethlehem, is recruiting artists for their first exhi-
STAFF PHOTO D. HANLEY
MUSIC & ARTS
kens of lost loves, lives and homes. His painting, “Bring the Moon with You,” inspired this poem by Azzam: Bring the moon with you it is the only witness to our worn shoes, the faces we left behind. Tether it to your arm and bring the moon with you, a lantern to light the river, the way to our stories. —Delinda C. Hanley
STAFF PHOTO D. HANLEY
activisms_56-67.qxp_November/December 2018 Activisms 10/17/18 7:49 PM Page 65
Poet Zeina Azzam.
Music, Dance Highlight Syria Fest
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018
BOOK TALKS Preventing Palestine: Is History Repeating Itself?
Seth Anziska, a visiting lecturer at University College London and author of the new book, Preventing Palestine: A Political History from Camp David to Oslo, spoke at the Middle East Institute in Washington, DC on Sept. 21.
STAFF PHOTO PHIL PASQUINI
The Syrian Cultural House’s second “Syria Fest” in Washington, DC’s Freedom Plaza on Sept. 2 drew a large crowd of locals and tourists. The day-long event sought to showcase Syrian food, music, dance, art and history. The festivities included a myriad of dance styles, including folkloric by Carolina Hernandez, Jerusalem dabke from George Mason University, a Whirling Dervish performed by Adnan Tarakji and Circassian dance by the Narts Ensemble. Ghuydar Bashmaf performed Syrian traditional music, while vocalist and oud player Muath Idriss offered up popular Syrian pop tunes. In addition, the DC Oriental Melodies Ensemble performed traditional Arabic music and dance. Franz Afraim Katzir, founding director of Sephardic Heritage International DC, drew a large crowd to the Cultural Tent for his talk on “Journeys of Syrian Jews: From Ancient Times Until Today.” Visitors were moved by Jason Hamacher’s lecture on “Witness Aleppo, Experiences, Sights and Stories from Pre-War Syria.” Photos by Jason Hamacher, along with Syrian Cultural House’s collection, and traditional clothing from the Weiss-Armush collection, were displayed in the Cultural Tent. Moon bounces, face painting and a coloring station provided a fun time for children, while adults browsed NGO booths. Visitors of all ages enjoyed delicious Middle Eastern cuisine. The Syrian Cultural House is a nonprofit
based in the greater Washington, DC area that aims to conserve and promote Syrian heritage and culture. The group’s work includes supporting the acclimation of newly arrived Syrian refugees. —Elaine Pasquini
The book, he explained, explores how and why Palestinian statelessness persists all these years after the Camp David (1978) and Oslo (1993) talks were initiated with the intent to bring about a sovereign and independent Palestinian state. “What we find all these years later is quite the opposite,” he noted. “We have a situation of persistent lack of statehood, and the lack of sovereignty for Palestinians living in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and in the Arab diaspora.” Preventing Palestine uses newly uncovered documents from the Israel State Archives, as well as archives in the U.S. and Beirut, to offer readers fresh insights into the negotiations and events of the era from Camp David to Oslo. These documents, Anziska argues, show that from the beginning of the Camp David talks, Israel’s ultimate goal was to prevent genuine Palestinian sovereignty by instead focusing on autonomy and individual Palestinian rights. Menachem Begin, Israel’s prime minister during the Camp David negotiations, intentionally set talks in this direction, he said. “The imprint of the political worldview of Menachem Begin…shaped that notion of
Carolina Hernandez performs a folkloric Syrian dance at the Syria Fest in Washington, DC. WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
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other ethnic community simply not wanting us to exist at all. As the ADL [Anti-Defamation League] wrote, they said ‘there’s no such thing as Arab Americans, it’s a petro dollar fiction of Muslims and Christians who just happen to be of Syrian, Lebanese, Palestinian, Egyptian, Iraqi descent.’” Such hostility is alive today, Zogby said. “In some ways we’ve also gone back to the ’70s in terms of the very way that Arab Americans who want to become active on this issue become an endangered species, and that’s very problematic.” Preventing Palestine is available from AET’s Middle East Books and More. —Dale Sprusansky
Continuity and Change in Jordan
Curtis Ryan, a professor of political science at Appalachian State University, appeared at George Washington University in Washington, DC on Sept. 24 to discuss his new book, Jordan and the Arab Uprisings: Regime Survival and Politics Beyond the State (available from AET’s Middle East Books and More). The purpose of his book, the scholar said, is to analyze Jordan before, during and after the Arab Spring. Having interviewed Jordanians across the political, social and religious spectrums—from King Abdullah, to members of the Muslim Brotherhood, to far-left groups—Ryan believes the book is a representative sample of what Jordan is, who Jordanians are,
she said. “I read it and I kept thinking, ‘this is a roadmap, which takes us not just how we got to where we are today, but gives a very good indication of where we’re heading if people don’t decide to head it off, to somehow go a different course or push for a different course.” James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute, noted that the recent emergence of the Canary Mission (a website that seeks to intimidate students who advocate on behalf of Palestine) and the introduction of legislation that would limit the free speech of Americans when it comes to Israel, also show continuity with the past. Palestinian-Americans were often threatened and delegitimized during the period between Camp David and Oslo, Zogby noted. “The process of excluding us was so intense that it took a real toll on our ability to function here,” he said. Jewish organizations regularly belittled Palestinians, he noted. “We were maybe the only Author Seth Anziska reveals new information about Israel-Palesethnic community oper- tine peace talks he obtained from archives in the U.S., Israel and ating here that had an- Lebanon.
WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018
STAFF PHOTO D. SPRUSANSKY
autonomy to focus on potential rights of individual residents in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, but not collective sovereignty for Palestinians as a whole,” Anziska said. The creation of the Palestinian Authority at the end of the Oslo process, he said, solidified Palestinian dependence on Israel and obstructed the dream of an independent Palestine. Efforts to prevent a Palestinian state continue today, and Anziska believes his book helps readers understand how modern Israeli and American policies are a continuation of those first implemented in the 1970s. “What I wanted to do in the book is to interrogate this obsession we tend to have with only looking at the history of this story from the 1990s to the present,” he said. Ignoring the period between Camp David and Oslo “obscures the historical roots and origins of many of the phenomena that we’re now dealing with today.” Offering commentary, Lara Friedman, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, said the book shows that the U.S. government ought to begin taking clearly stated Israeli positions seriously. “They are articulated with such clarity, often in the same words, year after year,” she said. “When [Israeli Education Minister] Naftali Bennett is now talking about ‘state minus’…that was the language in the ’70s.” It’s time to stop believing that peace talks will result in the Israelis changing their outlook, Friedman said. “The Israelis are playing a very long game, and the positions that were described at the beginning of the era of peace making, at the beginning before Camp David by Begin—his positions vis-à-vis the West Bank are what we’re seeing as the positioning today. One should take that seriously.” The Trump administration’s attempts to depict the Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization as terrorist organizations, and efforts to find other Arab countries (such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia) to negotiate on behalf of the Palestinians, also show that history is repeating itself, Friedman warned. “This book is not just a history book,”
activisms_56-67.qxp_November/December 2018 Activisms 10/18/18 9:10 PM Page 67
and how the country’s politics works, and the debates surrounding some of the Kingdom’s most contentious issues. Though Jordan has not experienced regime change or devastating civil strife since protests swept across the Arab world in 2011, Ryan emphasized that much of importance has taken place in the country in recent years. “There’s a tremendous amount that happened during the Arab Spring, and that is happening now,” he said. In his book Ryan analyzes the subtle and incremental changes that have occurred in the Kingdom in the wake of the Arab Spring, and how historical realities have shaped these developments. Issues such as political parties and opposition groups, political activism, identity politics, electoral systems, reform, refugees and regional insecurity each receive their own chapter. Given its economic woes, unstable neighbors, high number of refugees and complex social arrangements, Jordan has long been described as “on the brink” and susceptible to collapse. “If you look at it objectively on paper, none of this should
work,” Ryan noted. And yet, the Kingdom manages to survive. Ryan quipped that the Mark Twain quote, “the rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated,” appropriately explains Jordan’s perseverance. The most recent wave of protests took
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place in June 2018, when the government announced plans to raise taxes and decrease subsidies. Popular backlash forced the government to reverse these policies and led to the resignation of the prime minister. These protests show that Jordan is far from a stagnant place, Ryan said, and throws into question notions that the country has successfully weathered the Arab Spring. “I don’t think any of this is over,” he cautioned. “A lot of the causes of the initial events that led to the Arab uprisings are still on the table.” Jordanians are not afraid to voice their opinions, he observed. “It is an incredibly vibrant country in terms of political debate…people get up and tell you what they are thinking—this is not a shy country.” This reality, coupled with persistent economic issues, means that activism is likely to remain alive in Jordan. “We don’t know where in the end this is going,” Ryan concluded. “The Arab Spring is over, activism is not, and that still continues. It did not begin with the Arab Spring, it did not end with the Arab Spring.” —Dale Sprusansky
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B •O •O •K •S To Save an Empire: A Novel of Ottoman History
By Allan R. Gall, Ingram Spark, 2018, paperback, 424 pp. MEB: $15.
With the Balkans and ethnic tensions once again back in international headlines, alongside the reliable newsmakers that are Russia and Turkey and their influence in the contemporary Middle East, there’s hardly a more appropriate time to brush up on the events and actors responsible for shaping the region as we know it. In his newly released novel, To Save an Empire, Allan R. Gall does just that. Gall narrates an impressively researched tale of the waning Ottoman Empire set in the late 19th century. Following the fateful tale of the last truly ensconced Ottoman sultan, Abdülhamit II, the novel weaves through stories of palace intrigue, great power struggles and romance. As the reformist Ottoman statesman, Mithat Pasha, sets his eyes on remaking the empire into something more in the image of a European parliament and re-orienting the loyalties of the ruled, Sultan Abdülhamit sees in him an
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Reviewed by Amin Gharad existential threat to his authority. All the while, Abdülhamit’s domain threatens to sink in a sea of external challenges. Already crippled by debt, the Russian Empire and European powers are at the ready to encroach upon territories of the teetering “sick man of Europe.” The eventual outbreak of the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78 results in an influx of thousands upon thousands of Muslim refugees into Ottoman lands. The dramatized narrative provides a window also into the marriage of Sultan Abdülhamit to his Belgian wife, Flora. Of Christian heritage, her story is intertwined with that of the many war-displaced Muslims whom she commits to assisting, while at the same time providing a glimpse into the complex interplay of various religious and ethnic groupings in late Ottoman Anatolia. A story of struggle, love, jealousy, fear and loss, Gall’s grasp of the era’s zeitgeist combined with his masterful narrative style makes for a historical retelling as enlightening as it is enthralling.
Philosophy in the Islamic World: A Very Short Introduction
By Peter Adamson, Oxford University Press, 2015, paperback, 144 pp. MEB: $10. In this small volume, Peter Adamson manages an impressive feat: With the conciseness emblematic of the Very Short Introduction series and a clarity arguably rare in the realm of the field, Adamson pens a sweeping overview of philosophy in the Islamic world. His work—particularly for a text of its size—is ambitious, and distin-
WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
guishes itself in avoiding the tendency to focus solely on the ‘philosophers’ (falāsifa). That approach often limits itself to the Medieval period roughly between the 9th and 12th centuries, ending with Ibn Rushd (Averroes). Eschewing this field-wide idiosyncrasy of narrowed focus, Adamson favors a broader treatment, and delves into material of philosophical interest, be it from the tradition of Muslim dialectal theology, Muslim jurisprudence, modern Muslim reformists, and even non-Muslim thinkers residing in the Muslim world such as the great Jewish philosopher, Maimonides. Topically, Adamson delves into the contributions of various thinkers from the Islamic world on matters related to reason and revelation, God and being, concepts of eternity, and ethics and politics. In addition to exploring the contributions of the likes of al-Kindi, al-Farabi, al-Ghazali, and Mulla Sadra, Adamson does not shy away from telling a story of intellectual continuity, not merely rupture and decline. He cites the contributions of modern voices like the late sociologist, Fatema Mernissi, modern Indian scholars such as Muhammad Iqbal and Sayyid Ahmad Khan, and the late Algerian thinker Mohammed Arkoun. “Medieval thinkers have never stopped being relevant,” Adamson writes, “thanks to many generations of epitomizers, commentators, super-commentators, and critics.” It is a primer and Adamson makes no pretense insinuating otherwise. Nonetheless, his introduction to philosophy in the Islamic world makes important headway in rehabilitating the often truncated and impoverished treatment of philosophical thought in the historical realms of Islam. ■
Amin Gharad is director of Middle East Books and More, a project of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018
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• EAST • BOOKS • AND • MORE MIDDLE Literature Films Pottery Solidarity Items More *
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WINTER 2018 Arabic for Nerds: Fill the Gaps—270 Questions about Arabic Grammar, by Gerald Drißner, CreateSpace, 2015, paperback, 462 pp. MEB: $21. Gerald Drißner has been collecting interesting facts about Arabic grammar, vocabulary and expressions, hints and traps for almost ten years. Finally he has compiled them into a book: Arabic for Nerds. This book explains how Arabic works and gives readers hints in using and understanding the language better. Since most of the Arabic words are given in transliteration, the reader should be able to read this book without a dictionary.
The Meccan Rebellion: The Story of Juhayman al-’Utaybi Revisited, by Thomas Hegghammer and Stéphane Lacroix, Amal Press, 2011, hardcover, 78 pp. MEB: $29. Based on information gathered from extensive fieldwork in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere, this account sheds new light on the story and legacy of Juhayman al-‘Utaybi, the militant who led the 1979 takeover of Islam’s holiest site: the Grand Mosque in Mecca.
The Merchant of Syria: A History of Survival, by Diana Darke, Oxford University Press, 2018, hardcover, 224 pp. MEB: $24. The Merchant of Syria tells two parallel stories: the life of a cloth merchant and his resilience, and the rich history of a nation built on trade. Over millennia Syria has seen great conflict and turmoil, but like the remarkable story of Abu Chaker, it continues to survive.
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. Now Israelis fight internecine battles—over religion and state, war and peace, race and identity—contesting the very notion of a ‘Jewish and democratic’ state.
Moment of Truth: Tackling Israel-Palestine’s Toughest Questions, by Jamie Stern-Weiner, OR Books, 2018, paperback, 496 pp. MEB: $17. A halfcentury into the conflict between Israel and Palestine, Moment of Truth brings together eminent political leaders, scholars and activists for a wide-ranging, at times contentious, and remarkably fruitful discussion of the region’s fate. Contributors include John Mearsheimer, Mazin Qumsiyeh, Wendy Pearlman, Gideon Levy and Richard Falk.
Zionism: A Very Short Introduction, by Michael Stanislawski, Oxford University Press, 2016, paperback, 152 pp. MEB: $10. Michael Stanislawski presents an impartial and disinterested history of Zionist ideology from its origins to the present. Sharp and accessible, his balanced analysis of controversial events illuminates why, despite the undeniable success in its goal of creating a Jewish state, profound questions remain today about the long-term viability of Zionist ideology in a rapidly destabilizing Middle East.
Making the Arab World: Nasser, Qutb, and the Clash That Shaped the Middle East, by Fawaz Gerges, Princeton University Press, 2018, hardcover, 528 pp. MEB: $26. Gerges tells this story through an unprecedented dual biography of Nasser and another of the twentieth-century Arab world’s most influential figures—Sayyid Qutb, a leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood and the father of many branches of radical political Islam. Their deeply intertwined lives embody and dramatize the divide between Arabism and Islamism. Yet, as Gerges shows, beyond the ideological and existential rhetoric, this is a struggle over the state, its role, and its power.
Sesame Street, Palestine: The Ups and Downs of Producing a Children’s Program, by Daoud Kuttab, BearManor, 2018, paperback, 109 pp. MEB: $18. Everything is political in Palestine, even “Sesame Street.” Awardwinning journalist Kuttab reveals how his attempt to create an educational television program for Palestinian children resulted in a political drama. Conceived against the backdrop of the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin and the second intifada, the show became a microcosm of the frayed politics of the region. The Israelis objected, the U.S. pulled financing and Kuttab ended up in a Palestinian prison.
Cigarette Number Seven: A Novel, by Donia Kamal, American University in Cairo Press, 2018, paperback, 191 pp. MEB: $18. As a child, Nadia was left with her grandparents in Egypt, while her mother sought work in the Gulf. Decades later, she looks back on her fragmented childhood from an uncertain present: it is 2011 and the streets have erupted in an unexpected revolution. Her activist father, the sole anchor in her life, encourages her to be a part of the protests, and so Nadia joins the sit-in at Tahrir Square. Kamal draws us into Nadia’s world: from the private to the public; from the men she has loved and lost; to her participation in the momentous events of the Egyptian revolution.
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. NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018
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Hating Muslims Continued from page 54
frequent, if completely false, talking point of the Islamophobes is that Muslims here have a single ideology and are focused on a secret plan to take over the United States.) You undoubtedly won’t be surprised to learn that such unhinged conspiracy theories are far more prevalent among Republicans than Democrats and Independents. Similarly unsurprising is the fact that Americans in the Trump era give a lower favorability rating to Muslim-Americans (a little over 1 percent of the U.S. population) than to virtually any other religious or ethnic group (though feminists and evangelicals are runners-up). By a spread of about 20 points, they believe that Muslim-Americans are both more religious than Christian Americans and less likely to respect the country’s ideals and laws. They slam Muslims for according women and gays low sta(Advertisement)
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tus, though a majority of Muslim-Americans say that homosexuals should be accepted in society, a belief that Muslim-American women hold in the same percentages as the rest of the American public. As for those women, they are among the best educated of any faith group in the country, suggesting extremely supportive families. In reality, Muslim-Americans are remarkably well integrated into this country and have committed little terrorism here. In the past decade and a half, on average, 28 Muslim-Americans a year were associated with acts of violent extremism out of a population of 3.5 million and most of those “acts” involved traveling abroad to join radical movements. Muslim-American extremists killed 17 people in 2017, a year in which white gunmen killed 267 Americans in mass shootings. The Islamophobia that Donald Trump has made his own arose in the decade after the collapse of the Soviet Union, once the bogeyman of Communism was removed from the quiver of the American Right. The 1990s were hard on the Republican Party and its plutocrats (with a popular Clinton in the White House), and on the arms manufacturers facing a public increasingly uninterested in foreign adventurism with no sense of threat from abroad. The Pentagon budget was even briefly cut in those years, producing what was then called a “peace dividend.” (It wasn’t.) And though it’s now hard to imagine, in 1995 the United States was not involved in a conventional hot war anywhere in the world. In this no-longer-so-new century, the Republican Party, like the Trump presidency, did, however, find the bogeyman it needed and it looks remarkably like a modernized version of the rabidly anti-Communist McCarthyism of the 1950s. In fact, the endless demonization of Muslims may be less a cudgel to wield against the small MuslimAmerican community than against Democratic opponents who can be lambasted as “soft on terrorism” if they resist demands to demonize Muslims and their religion. In my own state of Michigan, Elissa Slotkin, an acting assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs in the Obama years and a former CIA analyst, is running as a Democrat in the 8th District
WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
against Congressman Mike Bishop. Slotkin played a role in developing the anti-ISIS strategies that Trump adopted when he came into office. Nonetheless, our airwaves are now saturated with pro-Bishop ads smearing Slotkin, a third-generation Michigander, for her supposed involvement in President Obama’s Iran nuclear deal and so for being little short of a Shi’a terrorist herself. Similarly, in San Diego, California’s 50th district, the scandal-ridden campaign of Republican Congressman Duncan Hunter (indicted for embezzling $250,000 in campaign funds) continues to broadly intimate that his opponent, Ammar CampaNajjar, a Christian American of Palestinian and Mexican descent, is a Muslim Brotherhood infiltrator seeking to enter Congress. Still, despite all the sound and fury from the White House, the U.S. Muslim population continues to grow because of immigration and natural increase. Over the past 30 years, between 3,000 and 13,000 immigrants have arrived annually from Egypt, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Iraq, Jordan, Morocco, Turkey and a handful of other countries. Their governments are close geopolitical allies of the U.S. and to interdict their nationals would be politically embarrassing, as Trump discovered when he attempted to include Iraq on his list of banned countries and was persuaded to change his mind by Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis. Of course, not all Americans share Trump’s bigotry. Two-thirds of us actually disapprove of politicians engaging in hate speech toward Muslims. Some 55 percent of us believe that Muslim-Americans are committed to the welfare of the country, a statistic that would break the 60 percent mark if it weren’t for evangelicals. Two Muslim-American politicians, Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar, won Democratic primaries in Detroit and Minneapolis and so are poised to become the first Muslim-American women in the House of Representatives. Such an outcome would be one way in which Americans could begin to reply to the wave of Islamophobia that helped lift Donald Trump into office in 2016 and has only intensified since then. The decency of Middle America has certainly been tarnished, but as the polls indicate, not lost. Not yet anyway. ■ NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018
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partment team led by a former Raytheon lobbyist and the $2 billion worth of weapons to be sold are air-to-ground munitions produced by Raytheon. Alaskans can help alleviate the humanitarian crisis in Yemen. They can contact Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan and Rep. Don Young today and tell them to do something to end our military support for Saudi Arabia's immoral war in Yemen, and to block the sale of arms that are used to slaughter civilians in Yemen. Douglas Pengilly, Kodiak, AK
U.S. BACKING OF SAUDI ARABIA— FROM ISTANBUL TO YEMEN
DON’T PLACE WEAPONS SALES OVER INNOCENT LIVES
To the Anchorage Daily News, Oct. 1, 2018 Saudi Arabia's war in Yemen has caused the worst humanitarian crisis in the world today: 5 million children starving, school buses and hospitals being bombed, the worst cholera outbreak in history and 130 children dying every day. Our country has provided military support for Saudi Arabia in that war without any authorization from Congress since 2015. As the atrocities committed by Saudi Arabia on Yemeni civilians have become known, the reason why our country would continue to provide that support has been unclear. Well, now the reason is clear. According to The Wall Street Journal, “Secretary of State Mike Pompeo backed continued U.S. military support for Saudi Arabia's war in Yemen over the objections of staff members after being warned that a cutoff could jeopardize $2 billion in weapons sales to America's Gulf allies.” In short, our country continues to provide military support for Saudi Arabia's war in Yemen so that weapons dealers can continue to reap massive profits by selling more arms to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which will be used with our military support to kill more Yemeni civilians. Shocked and disgusted by that? It gets worse. In another example of President Donald Trump “draining the swamp” directly into his own administration, the warning to not “jeopardize $2 billion in weapons sales” came from a State DeNOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018
To The New York Times, Oct. 17, 2018 The Trump administration’s eagerness to bend over backward to accept the Saudi regime’s denials that it murdered Jamal Khashoggi, a United States resident and Washington Post journalist, is deeply troubling. This is particularly true given that both the president and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo seem willing to accept the results of the Saudi government’s proposed investigation of the case—an instance of the accused investigating themselves that would not hold up in any court of law. More important, as the chief architect of Saudi Arabia’s brutal intervention in Yemen, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is already implicated in the killing of thousands of innocent civilians in an indiscriminate bombing campaign that has targeted hospitals, water treatment plants, markets, weddings, a funeral and, most recently, a school bus carrying dozens of children. The regularity with which the regime has targeted civilians—frequently using United States-supplied bombs and aircraft—make its claims that these are “mistakes” ludicrous. At a minimum, the United States should stop arming Saudi Arabia and end military support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen, regardless of how the Khashoggi case is resolved. William D. Hartung, New York, NY. The writer is the director of the Arms and Security Project at the Center for International Policy.
WHY NOT ALSO CUT AID TO ISRAEL?
To The Guardian, Sept. 3, 2018 The article by Peter Beaumont and Oliver Holmes (U.S. accused of using aid cuts to force Palestinians into accepting Israel peace deal, August 31) only deals with one side of the involvement of the
U.S. government in the Middle East peace process. A far more effective way of using aid cuts to force a peace deal would be for the U.S. to cut its massive military aid to Israel. The deal over that aid was signed in September 2016 and amounts to $38 billion over 10 years. If the U.S. government stopped signing the checks, the Israeli government would certainly be forced to engage in genuine peace negotiations with the Palestinians. Michael Meadowcroft, Leeds, UK
WHY IS CONGRESSMAN DODGING QUESTIONS ABOUT ISRAEL?
To The Independent, Sept. 25, 2018 On Nov. 21 of last year, three members of Utahns for a Just Peace in the Holy Land met with Rep. Chris Stewart’s district director with concerns regarding U.S. relations with Israel. One of our concerns was with Rep. Stewart’s cosponsorship of the Israel Anti-Boycott Act. We wanted to know why Stewart supports erosion of American free speech rights in favor of a foreign power. We also asked that Stewart co-sponsor the Promoting Human Rights by Ending Israeli Military Detention of Palestinian Children Act. It seemed to us that opposition to child abuse should not be a partisan issue. We asked Rep. Stewart his opinion of Israeli nuclear weapons and the prospect of a Middle East nuclearweapons-free zone. We wanted to know his opinion as to whether Israel should sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and submit to inspections like Iran does. The only non-signatories besides Israel are India, Pakistan, South Sudan, and North Korea (which withdrew from the treaty). After several follow-up inquiries and 10 months later, we finally got a letter from Rep. Stewart, which was vacuous and dodged our questions. Stewart certainly has no obligation to share our political views nor support or oppose any particular piece of legislation. But like any elected official, Stewart does have an obligation, as our representative in Congress, to directly and honestly answer our questions on matters before the House of Representatives. Just why he cannot or will not meet that obligation we do not know. Unfortunately, we cannot ask him directly, because he will not meet with us in person. Utahns deserve better representation than that. Bob Brister, Salt Lake City, UT
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Jeff Meer, Silver Spring, MD. The writer is the U.S. executive director of Humanity & Inclusion.
UNRWA’S VITAL WORK
To The News & Observer, Sept. 12, 2018 The U.S. recently announced it is ending all funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA). Since then I have been thinking about the column “How I made it from Gaza to Duke and UNC” (July 1). In this thoughtful piece, the author credits UNRWA as a lifesaver for him growing up in a refugee camp in Gaza. It provided him with the education that enabled him to land a Rotary Peace Fellowship. He is currently working toward a graduate degree in Global Studies and International Development at UNC and Duke. The U.S. has been funding a third of UNRWA’s budget of $1.1 billion which provides social and medical services and education to five million Palestinian refugees. The U.S. is stopping its support, and a shortfall will result in service reduction. Schools for 526,000 Palestinian children could close. All children have the right to education and the dignity and opportunity that come with it. Withdrawing support ratchets up the risk for recruitment by extremist groups and leads to greater destabilization in the Middle East. Moreover, this act is another example of the erosion of moral leadership and values evident in this administration. Kathy Huffstetler, Raleigh, NC
DETENTION OF U.S. STUDENT
To The Independent Florida Alligator, Oct. 8, 2018 On Oct. 2, Lara Alqasem, 22, a University of Florida graduate was detained at Ben Gurion airport and ordered deported after Israeli security looked her up on Canary Mission, a right-wing blacklist site. Alqasem was going to study to get an MA at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and had received a visa valid for a year for that purpose. Lara's detention raises major concerns about study abroad programs in Israel which might well deny entry to students of Palestinian origin or anyone who does not pass the right-wing litmus test. Unfortunately such tests are also being used to deny entry to people engaged in social justice work. Just recently, Professor Katherine Franke, who arrived in Israel to lead a delegation of human rights activists, was detained and deported. We the undersigned faculty call for the immediate release from detention at Ben Gurion airport of Lara Alqasem, a U.S. 72
THE ENDLESS WAR ON TERROR
citizen of Palestinian heritage who had a valid visa and was detained several days ago after being profiled by Israeli immigration officers at Ben Gurion airport and continues to remain in detention. She has been interrogated, threatened with a denial of the right to enter, and according to Cody O’Rourke, communications director of the Holy Land Trust in Bethlehem, was at times denied food, water, and access to the bathroom when she was first detained. This kind of surveillance and treatment of U.S. students by Israel is unacceptable. It is a violation of her human rights, her academic freedom and freedom of movement. The detention unfortunately suggests that Israel discriminates against Arab American students, who because of their cultural and familial connections to Palestine (Lara has Palestinian grandparents) are regularly turned back when they seek to enter Israel. —Signed by 26 professors from the University Florida and elsewhere.
To the Missoulian, Oct. 11, 2018 Another 9/11 memorial has come and gone, No. 17. That's 17 years of war in the Middle East on top of the 10 years of war on terrorism prior to Sept. 11, 2001. We haven't made much progress fighting terrorism. We’ve lost 7,000 men and women. We’ve killed countless terrorists and civilians. We are suffering the loss of 20 veterans a day to suicide. There is no real hope of so-called victory. It is time to put our energy into bringing this worldwide war on terrorism to an end. It’s time to find a way to bring the essential people to the table and bring peace to the Middle East, North Africa, the Philippines and elsewhere. It's time to work for peace between two great religions whose roots are in the worship of the same God. But even as I write this letter, I feel that my effort is as futile as our war on terrorism. Dean Grenz, Boulder, MT (Advertisement)
BOMBING OF CIVILIANS CONTINUES IN AFGHANISTAN
To The Washington Post, Sept. 28, 2018 The Sept. 26 news article “Afghan civilian casualties alarm U.N.” represented another example of how limiting the use of precision-guided munitions to only welltrained combatants with strict rules of engagement is no guarantee that civilians will not be inadvertently killed or injured. Global statistics show that when explosive weapons with wide-area impacts, such as those that killed a teacher and her family in Kapisa province in Afghanistan on Sept. 22, are deployed in populated areas, 92 percent of casualties are to women, children and men who are not part of the conflict. These losses are unacceptable. They violate international humanitarian law and are clearly preventable. Simply put, we must instruct our military and those of our allies to stop bombing civilians.
WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
This novel grabs you, shakes up your mind, grips your heart and wrings it out. Cassie, a senior English teacher, uses Shakespeare’s plays to help her students see the commonality in man over centuries as it relates to the Palestinian-Israeli crisis during the ’80s. Set in a private academy in NJ, this epic tragedy proves the universality of man’s darker side when jealousy and hatred transcend love and humanity. Amazon ($20.98); Kindle ($3.88) NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 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 Oct. 2, 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 Rizek & Alice Abusharr, Claremont, CA Miriam & Stephen Adams, Albuquerque, NM Michael & Jane Adas, Highland Park, NJ James C. Ahlstrom, Stirling, NJ Qamar Ahsan, Flint, MI Ahmad Al-Absy, Omaha, NE Saleh Al-Ashkar, Tucson, AZ Dr. Subhi Ali, Waverly, TN Joe & Siham Alfred, Fredericksburg, VA Arthur Alter, Santa Barbara, CA Hamid & Kim Alwan, Milwaukee, WI Nabil & Judy Amarah, Danbury, CT Ruby Amatulla, Dhaka, Bangladesh Edwin Amidon, Charlotte, VT Nazife Amrou, Sylvania, OH Louise Anderson, Oakland, CA Mr. & Mrs. Thomas Are, Stone Mountain, GA Dr. Robert Ashmore, Mequon, WI Mr. & Mrs. Sultan Aslam, Plainsboro, NJ Salim Bahloul, Blackburn South, Australia Rev. Robert E. Barber, Parrish, FL Elizabeth Barlow, Augusta, MI Allen & Jerrie Bartlett, Philadelphia, PA Mohammed & Wendy Bendebba, Baltimore, MD Helen Bourne, Encinitas, CA Dr. Ann Bragdon, Houston, TX John V. Brown, Los Altos, CA James Burkart, Bethesda, MD Liza Burr & John Landgraf, Saint Paul, MN Prof. Mireya Camurati, Williamsville, NY 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 Ibrahim Elkarra, San Francisco, CA NOvEmBEr/DECEmBEr 2018
Kassem Elkhalil, Arlington, TX 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 William Grimstad, Woodland Park, CO Iftekhar Hai, S. San Francisco, CA 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 Prof. & Mrs. Brice Harris, Pasadena, CA 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 Mustafa Issa, Montreal, Canada Mary Izett, Walnut Creek, CA Rafeeq Jaber, Palos Hills, IL Dr. Raymond Jallow, Los Angeles, CA Bilquis Jaweed, West Chester, OH Ronald Jaye, Watsonville, CA 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 Charles Kennedy, Concord, NH 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 Amal Marks, Altadena, CA 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 Ernest Miller, Phoenix, AZ 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 Stephen L. Naman, Atlanta, GA Jacob Nammar, San Antonio, TX Mary Neznek, Washington, DC Mr. & Mrs. W. Eugene Notz, Charleston, SC Kamal Obeid, Fremont, CA Rawhi Omar, Crestwood, KY Khaled Othman, Riverside, CA A. Karim Pathan, Cary, NC Ruth Persky, Los Angeles, CA Jim Plourd, Monterey, CA John Prugh, Long Beach, CA Cheryl Quigley, Toms River, NJ Doris Rausch, Columbia, MD Kenneth Reed, Bishop, CA 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
WAShINgTON rEPOrT ON mIDDLE EAST AFFAIrS
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Walter & Halina Sasak, Northborough, MA Dr. Abid Shah, Sarasota, FL Bernice Shaheen, Hilton Head, SC# Richard J. Shaker, Annapolis, MD George Shalabi, Prairie Du Sac, WI Qaiser & Tanseem Shamim, Somerset, NJ Lewis Shapiro, White Plains, NY Kathy Sheridan, Mill Valley, CA Dr. Mostafa Hashem Sherif, Tinton Falls, NJ Andy Sherman, Ardmore, OK Zac Sidawi, Costa Mesa, CA Sisters of St. Francis, Tiffin, OH David Skerry, Medford, MA William & Ursula Slavick, Portand, ME Edgar W. Snell, Jr., Schenectady, NY Rev. John J. Sullivan, Maryknoll, NY McDonald Sullivan, Seattle, WA Thomas & Carol Swepston, Englewood, FL Monica Swift, Los Angeles, CA Sajid Syed, Closter, NJ Doris Taweel, Laurel, MD Dr. Paul E. Teschan, Nashville, TN 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)
Bradley Bitar, Olympia, WA Helen Bourne, Encinitas, CA Dr. Ann Bragdon & Karim Al Kadi, Houston, TX Duncan Clark, Rockville, MD Larry Cooper, Plymouth, MI**** Mr. & Mrs. John Crawford, Boulder, CO Mr. & Mrs. Andrew Curtiss, Herndon VA Tom D’Albani & Dr. Jane Killgore, Bemidji, MN** Ron Dudum, San Francisco, CA Dr. David Dunning, Lake Oswego, OR 74
Catherine Fararjeh, Santa Clara, CA Ken Galal, San Francisco, CA Joseph & Angela Gauci, Whittier, CA Raymond Gordon, Bel Air, MD Alfred R. Greve, Holmes, NY 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 Sandra La Framboise, Oakland, CA William H. Lindberg, Edina, MN Nidal Mahayni, Richmond, VA Tom & Tess McAndrew, Oro Valley, AZ Ben Monk, Saint Paul, MN Sara Najjar-Wilson, Reston, VA Audrey Olson, Saint Paul, MN Hertha Poje-Ammoumi, New York, NY 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
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 Masood Hassan, Calabasas, CA Helen Holman, Litchfield, ME 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 William & Nancy Nadeau, San Diego, CA Mary Norton, Austin, TX Herbert & Patricia Pratt, Cambridge, MA Mary H. Regier, El Cerrito, CA Lisa Schiltz, Barber, Bahrain Yasir Shallal, McLean, VA Norman Tanber, Dana Point, CA Dr. Robert Younes, Potomac, MD Dr. James Zogby, Washington, DC
WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
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 Paula Davidson, Naples, FL Edouard and Linda Emmet, Paris, France Dr. & Mrs. Clyde Farris, West Linn, OR**,*** Mr. & Mrs. Majed Faruki, Albuquerque, NM Gary Richard Feulner, Dubai, UAE 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 George & Karen Longstreth, San Diego, CA 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 Benjamin Wade, Saratoga, CA
CHOIRMASTERS ($5,000 or more)
Estate of Donald S. Bustany, Studio City, CA Estate of Mark L. Chandler, Rock Hill, SC Donna B. Curtiss, Kensington, MD*,** 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
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018
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American Educational Trust Washington Report on Middle East Affairs P.O. Box 53062 Washington, DC 20009
November/December 2018 Vol. XXXVII, No. 7
Four years of failed rains have led to massive loss of livelihoods for half a million Afghans in the northwestern province of Badghis. The Kharestan tent city houses 4,787 families from Muqur and Bala Murghab districts in Badghis, Afghanistanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s worst drought-affected province. Residents urgently need food and better shelter to survive the upcoming winter months. PHOTO COURTESY NRC/ENAYATULLAH AZAD