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ARE EVANGELICALS ABANDONING ISRAEL?
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Children at an UNRWA school in Gaza participate in games as part of a psychosocial support project implemented by UPA partner Ma’an Development Center.
Help Gaza children cope with trauma and loss Donate to UPA now at
helpupa.org/donate helpupa.org 1330 New Hampshire Ave NW Suite 104 Washington, DC 20036 Telephone: (202) 659-5007 Transforming lives, empowering communities since 1978 Toll-Free: (855) 659-5007
United Palestinian Appeal
UPA is a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. Contributions are tax-deductible according to applicable laws.
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On Middle East Affairs
Volume XXXIII, No. 7
October 2014
Telling the Truth for More Than 30 Years… 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 Cease-Fire Follows Cease-Fire But Gaza Remains a Prison—Rachelle Marshall 11 “Son of Death” Mohammed Deif—Uri Avnery 12 “Even If Israel Destroys Our Homes, We Will Never Leave,” Gazans Vow—Mohammed Omer
24 The Ottoman Empire and World War I: It Could All Have Been Very Different…—John Gee 25 The Barton-Howe “Report” and the Middle East, Past and Present—Richard Drake 36 Palestinians and Israelis Tell a New Story Despite The Conflict—Clara McGlynn
14 Would-Be Peacocks and Tiny Red Poppies —Samah Jabr
CONGRESS AND THE 2014 ELECTIONS
16 As Right-Wing Jews Attack Arab Citizens,
28 The Lobby Doesn’t Care if the Senate Stays
Knesset Suspends Palestinian Lawmaker
—Jonathan Cook 18 Block the Boat, Oakland: A Big Success for BDS —Sara Powell 21 From Ferguson to Palestine: “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot!” —Delinda C. Hanley 22 Will Palestine Transcend Western Pressure and Join the International Criminal Court?—Ian Williams
Democratic or Goes Republican—as Long as It’s Pro-Israel—Janet McMahon
29 Pro-Israel PAC Contributions to 2014 Congressional Candidates—Compiled by Hugh Galford 33 Congress Backs Israel’s “Right” to Slaughter Palestinians in the Name of “Self-Defense”
—Shirl McArthur
SPECIAL REPORTS 19 Understanding ISIS: Frequently Asked Questions —Dale Sprusansky 40 Foreign Journalists Face Growing Obstacles in Yemen—Kevin A. Davis
Flood Damage, Political Indifference
—Peter Lippman
COURTESY JERUSALEM FUND GALLERY
42 Bosnian National Elections to Take Place Amid “Generations Lost” by Helen Zughaib, one of her works on view through Oct. 17 at the Jerusalem Fund Gallery in Washington, DC. See story p. 66.
ON THE COVER: A man holds up a Palestinian flag as he stands on the hood of a demolished car amid ruined buildings in the southern Gaza Strip town of Zanea, Aug. 6, 2014. © BJORN KIETZMZNN/DEMOTIX/CORBIS
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(A Supplement to the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs available by subscription at $15 per year. To subscribe, call toll-free 1-888-881-5861.)
Other Voices
Compiled by Janet McMahon
Why Israel’s Bombardment of Gaza Neighborhood Left U.S. Officers “Stunned,” Mark Perry, http://america.aljazeera.com The Demonization of Gaza, James Abourezk, www.counterpunch.org
Searching for a Palestinian Dr. King, Dean Obeidallah, www.thedailybeast.com
OV-8
New Yorker Limits Its Exposé of Israel Lobby to AIPAC, Philip Weiss, http://mondoweiss.net
OV-9
OV-1 OV-3 OV-4
Israel’s Most Important Source of Capital: California, Darwin Bond-Graham, www.counterpunch.org
OV-10
Gevalt, Anti-Semitism!, Gideon Levy, Haaretz
OV-4
Starbucks Doesn’t Mix Coffee With Politics, Nathan Guttman, The Forward
OV-12
My Personal BDS, Uri Horesh, http://mondoweiss.net
OV-5
The Israel Lobby Eliminates Another Critic, Paul Craig Roberts, www.paulcraigroberts.org
OV-6
I’ve Seen “Apartheid” Against Palestinians, Lois A. Carrig, www.goerie.com
OV-6
ISIS, the Neocons, and Obama’s Choices, Scott McConnell, www.theamericanconservative.com
OV-7
U.S. Unilateral Military Action Is Not Solution To the Iraqi Crisis, Amer Araim, Contra Costa Times OV-16
An Open Letter to the Hollywood Community, Wallace Shawn, The Hollywood Reporter
Palestinian-American Teen Denied Access to Israel’s Airport, Allison Deger,
http://mondoweiss.net
SodaStream to Decide Whether to Shut Down Controversial West Bank Factory, OV-14 Ora Cohen, Haaretz
OV-14
DEPARTMENTS 5 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
52 ISRAEL AND JUDAISM: Jewish Moral and Ethical Values
7 PUBLISHERS’ PAGE 44 NEW YORK CITY AND
Also a Victim of Israel’s Assault On Gaza—Allan C. Brownfeld
TRI-STATE NEWS: Rally to Stop Ongoing War Crimes Against The People of Gaza—Jane Adas 46 NORTHERN CALIFORNIA CHRONICLE: Emotional
67 OTHER PEOPLE’S MAIL 54 MUSLIM AMERICAN ACTIVISM: Muslim Relief
Mural—Elaine Pasquini
The War Around Us
UNRWA in Gaza
The Orange Trees of Baghdad: In Search of My Lost Family
55 HUMAN RIGHTS: American Teenager Beaten By Israeli Police
48 SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
70 BOOK REVIEWs:
Organizations Pledge to Help
Ceremony Marks Dedication of Oakland Palestine Solidarity
65 MUSIC & ARTS: Kurdish Performer Omar Souleyman Dazzles Washington, DC Audience
Speaks on Capitol Hill
—Reviewed by Kevin A. Davis 71 MIDDLE EAST BOOKS AND MORE
CHRONICLE: Experts at Levantine Center Assess Damage From Israel’s 50-Day
56 WAGING PEACE:
Rampage on Gaza
Can the U.N. Bring Peace and
—Pat and Samir Twair
Justice to Palestine?
73 2014 AET CHOIR OF ANGELS 43 INDEX TO ADVERTISERS
50 CHRISTIANITY AND THE MIDDLE EAST:
72 BULLETIN BOARD
64 DIPLOMATIC DOINGS:
Are Evangelicals Abandoning
Groundbreaking Ceremony for
Israel?—Gary M. Burge, Ph.D.
U.S. Diplomacy Center
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Publisher: Managing Editor: News Editor: Assistant Editor: Middle East Books and More Director: Finance & Admin. Director: Art Director: Executive Editor:
ANDREW I. KILLGORE JANET McMAHON DELINDA C. HANLEY DALE SPRUSANSKY KEVIN A. DAVIS CHARLES R. CARTER RALPH U. SCHERER RICHARD H. CURTISS (1927-2013)
Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (ISSN 8755-4917) is published 8 times a year, monthly except Jan./Feb., March/April and June/July combined, at 1902 18th St., NW, Washington, DC 20009-1707. Tel. (202) 939-6050. Subscription prices (United States and possessions): one year, $29; two years, $55; three years, $75. For Canadian and Mexican subscriptions, $35 per year; for other foreign subscriptions, $70 per year. Periodicals, postage paid at Washington, DC and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, P.O. Box 91056, Long Beach, CA 90809-1056. Published by the American Educational Trust (AET), a 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 land-for-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, selfdetermination, 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 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
OCTOBER 2014
LetterstotheEditor Gaza Onslaught I commend you for your decades-old work fighting on behalf of those who have no voice and exposing the truth about the conditions under Israel’s occupation of Gaza and the West Bank. Unfortunately, your voices have fallen on deaf ears, at least those that are influencing the misguided policies of the United States in Congress and the administration. No condemnation of the slaughter of innocent women and children has come from Congress or the White House, yet as soon as news of a single captured Israeli soldier was made public, Tony Blinken, the deputy national security adviser, called the act “ absolutely outrageous” and demanded that the soldier be immediately released. So did John Kerry, who has on numerous occasions expressed his strong support for Israel while acting as a mediator. The truth is that the U.S. can never be an honest broker. History is fraught with evidence of that. Supplying Israel with lethal ammunition while they are slaughtering women and children says it all. Samir A. Abu-Dayyeh Sr., Long Beach, CA It does, indeed. That is why we focus on getting information to Americans on the U.S. role in the Middle East, including congressional voting records (see September 2014 issue, p. 28) and how much money their elected representatives take from the Israel lobby (see p. 29 of this issue). There’s no question in our mind that the American public is miles ahead of Congress and the White House—and the coming election is the perfect opportunity to prove that! Incompetent or Immoral? It is often asserted by Israeli apologists or those striving for “balance” that Hamas is also committing war crimes because its rockets “target civilians.” It should be obvious that these artisanal rockets are so primitive and unsophisticated that they are incapable of targeting anything. In American football terminology, they are “Hail Mary passes” thrown in the general direction of Israel, with “payloads” so minimal that they virtually have to hit someone on the head to do any serious damage. On the other hand, Israel possesses the world’s most modern and sophisticated weapons, many developed and generously provided by the world’s leader in all things military, the United States of America. If these weapons consistently hit civilian targets and kill civilians, then either the “world’s most moral army” (as Israel boasts) must THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
also be the world’s most incompetent army, or all but the terminally brainwashed must conclude that it is Israel that truly “targets civilians,” with devastating efficiency. John V. Whitbeck, Paris, France Whether the Israeli military is incompetent or immoral it is, alas, consistent, as it’s been killing Palestinian civilians since its inception.
Stop Sending Weapons to Israel! Palestinians have paid a horrific price in the ongoing Israeli attack on Gaza, and we are funding this attack with our tax-dollars. While it’s imperative to address the im-
mediate crisis and call for a cease-fire, the U.S. should also restrict our military support to Israel in accordance to U.S. laws that prohibit funding foreign forces accused of gross human rights violations. The U.S. should also address the root causes of violence, including lifting the siege on Gaza and ending the Israeli occupation, rather than treating this as yet another escalation in an on-going conflict. Sincerely, Raed Jarrar, Washington, DC What a team: Israel violates international law, and the U.S. violates its own laws!
Do the Protesters Understand... ...that if America “gives” Israel $225 million for “defense,” at least $180 million comes back to American “defense” industries? America isn’t helping Israel, America is helping General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, United Technologies, et al. It’s corporate welfare without which, even with AIPAC’s influence, I guarantee you the checks would not be written. Jim Houghton, Los Angeles, via e-mail What the protesters do understand is that if America gave any other country in the world $225 million for defense, the entire $225 million would come back to U.S. defense industries instead of financing a foreign nation’s own arms industry. Moreover, Israel 5
lte_5-6_October 2014 LTE 9/11/14 4:06 PM Page 6
gets its aid package in full at the beThe most recent was in June 2014 Keep Those Cards and Letters Coming! ginning of each fiscal year, while in Providence. They were most Send your letters to the editor to the Washington other countries get theirs in installwelcome and we also included a Report, P.O. Box 53062, Washington, DC 20009 ments. This means that Israel can copy in the packets for our new or e-mail <letters@wrmea.org>. earn interest on the money, while the Reflection and Learning project. U.S. forgoes that interest. We suspect that publish my name as a donor. I am proud to Thank you very much for all your help General Dynamics et al. would not consider be a donor, so do publish my name. to us and the wider community. that sound business practice. We certainly Thanks for your continuation in this Susan E. Nye, Secretary/Treasurer, Unidon’t! vital service. tarian Universalists for Justice in the MidWilhelmine Bennett, Iowa City, IA dle East, Boston, MA National Summit DVD P.S. I’ve requestd the Iowa City Public LiWe thank you for your generous donation, A friend of mine sent me a set of six DVDs brary subscribe to the Washington Report and for including us in your impressive work. about your National Summit to Reassess which they (shamefully) don’t presently. the U.S.-Israel “Special Relationship.” I felt Without angels such as yourself this mag- It May Not Be Much... that this was by far the best discussion of azine would not have suvived more than 32 But I have an op-ed published in the Aug. that topic I have ever seen, and I assume years. We have long believed that justice for 1 edition of the Erie Times-News that I’m that you would like to spread the word the Palestinians requires that Americans very proud of. I’m an activist in isolation so this pleased about it. Accordingly, I request your per- learn the truth about our country’s role in permission to offer the series to three public petuating Israel’s deadly occupation. We are me. I want you to know that I was able to inaccess TV channels with which I have a encouraged to see that their awareness is good working relationship: Nutmeg Tele- growing, and we, too, look forward to the day corporate some of your facts in the article, vision in Farmington, CT; Sound View when Palestinians will benefit as well. If only and gave you a nice plug, I think. The title Community Television in Bridgeport, CT; so many innocent men, women and children is: “People in Gaza suffer multiple hardships” (at least in the hard copy of the and Cablevision of Norwalk, CT. Also I didn’t have to die in the meantime. paper). hope you will make this an annual event. A Great Honor Lois A. Carrig, Erie, PA Edward Whitney, Westport, CT You have reason to be proud of your exThe summit was a great success, and we It was a great honor to be a reader of the were gratified to hear many similar comments Washington Report for decades. However, cellent op-ed, which readers can find in this about it. Your assumption is correct, and your being 86 years old and hardly able to read, issue’s “Other Voices” supplement under the plan to air the summit on public access TV is please stop sending me the magazine and (online) title, “I’ve seen ‘apartheid’ against one of the ways we hoped to spread the word. if there is any left of my subscription, you Palestinians.” We now have the entire summit available on send it to whom you wish. Humanity is on the edge of death (self-de- NatGeo Disinfo a single DVD for $19.95 (see ad p. 35). struction) and the reasons are the deviation The July 2014 issue of the National GeoA Proud Angel and rejection of the faith which is the con- graphic had part two of a travel series, this Enclosed find my donation of $500. I am nection between the Creator and the created. issue covering the Hejaz region in Saudi 85 years old, living on a fixed, limited in- A human who fears God will not kill an- Arabia. On p. 95 (it may be p. 98), the magcome—otherwise my donation would be other human. In fact, animals kill to survive, azine showed a map of the entire Hejaz remuch more. I’m hoping to see some justice while humanity kills to control, oppress and gion, going north to Jordan and west to Isfor the Palestinians before I die and I think deprive others of God-given rights. rael. Unfortunately, neither the West Bank that is not possible without the continuaThank you for your devotion to report nor Gaza was included on this map—the tion of your publication. the injustice in the Middle East and around entire area was assigned to Israel, as Last year when I made a donation the world. though no vestige of Palestine or the Pales($1,000) it was decided (not by me) not to tinian people existed. It was disgraceful. Ahmed Jamil, Lackawanna, NY I sent a letter to the magazine, expressThank you for your support for so many years. We ing my surprise that a magazine of such geOther Voices is an value every one of our read- ographic acumen could fail to include a optional 16-page ers and the feeling we have people and a country recognized as a nonthat we’re all one big family member state by the U.N. General Assemsupplement available of people who care about the bly. Perhaps they will print it; perhaps not. only to subscribers of the Middle East and U.S. foreign However, the trend is unmistakable—any Washington Report on policy—and justice here at media entity with Zionist control will no Middle East Affairs. For home. If you find you miss longer recognize Palestine on any map. an additional $15 per Although your staff is undoubtedly overus don’t hesitate to restart year (see postcard insert worked—but doing an outstanding job nevyour subscription! for Washington Re port ertheless—perhaps one of your staff could subscription rates), Spreading the Word look into this and write a pithy piece regardsubscribers will receive Enclosed please find a do- ing deception by omission and Israel’s supOther Voices inside each issue of their Washington nation of $200. We are al- porters’ intent to make Palestine invisible. Report on Middle East Affairs. ways grateful to have Loretta Krause, via e-mail Back issues of both publications are available. To copies of the Washington We could write a book on that topic! and it subscribe telephone 1 (888) 881-5861, fax (714) 226Report to distribute at our wouldn’t be limited to magazines, but would booth at the General As- have to include such “newspapers of [falsi9733, e-mail <circulation@wrmea.org>, or write to sembly of the Unitarian fied] record” as The Washington Post and P.O. Box 91056, Long Beach, CA 90809-1056. Universalist Association. New York Times. ❑ 6
THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
OCTOBER 2014
publishers_7_October 2014 Publishers page 9/11/14 6:06 PM Page 7
American Educational Trust
Publishers’ Page
Obama Outlines Strategy. After more than a decade of wars, drone strikes and covert operations meant to defeat terrorism, President Barack Obama appeared on prime-time television on Sept. 10 to make the case for a new round of American military activity in the Middle East. The president revealed that the U.S., along with regional partners, will increase its air operations against ISIS in Iraq, and increase support for rebels in Syria. No one can deny that ISIS poses a dire threat to all peoples of the Middle East. In fact, hours before Obama’s address, dozens of...
Muslim Leaders Condemned ISIS. Imams and American-Muslim community leaders were joined by several representatives of the Obama administration and Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, a former Roman Catholic archbishop of Washington, at a packed National Press Club news conference to denounce ISIS. Imam Mohamed Magid of the All Dulles Area Muslim Society (ADAMS) said imams stand together to denounce violent extremism and urge young people not to join the ISIS “cult.” Most ISIS victims are Muslims, he pointed out, and the group has demolished mosques in Iraq. “Islam teaches us to build, not demolish, to save lives, not to take lives,” Imam Magid emphasized, saying the terror attacks have “brought shame on our religion.” Masjid Muhammad’s Imam Talib M. Shareef asked media to refer to the group as the “Anti-Islamic State.” Imam Johari Abdul Malik from the Dar Al-Hijrah Islamic Center asked fellow Americans not to blame Islam for the actions of terrorists, just as Christians can’t be blamed for…
The Acts of the Ku Klux Klan. What the 13 years since the 9/11 terrorist attacks have made clear is that U.S. military power—whether carried out by ground troops, drones or bombers —cannot defeat terrorism. In fact, many argue that the militarism of both the Bush and Obama administrations has helped create ISIS, a terrorist group even more extreme than al-Qaeda.
Put Myths to Rest. The myth that terrorism can be obliterated by bombs and missiles must be put to rest. Obama, to an extent, admitted as much in his speech. “American power can make a OCTOBER 2014
meet Hamas on the battlefield. To break this deadly and destructive habit Washington must…
Cut All Aid to Israel.
decisive difference, but we cannot do for Iraqis what they must do for themselves, nor can we take the place of Arab partners in securing their region,” he said. To really destroy ISIS, which is more of an ideology than a state or a group, military action will not suffice. ISIS has correctly been described as a parasite that feeds off people’s grievances. At first the group, once known as al-Qaeda in Iraq, fed off discontent stemming from the reckless U.S. invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq.
This is a Time for Diplomacy. For ISIS to die, so too must the regional environment that created it. As the U.S. builds a coalition with Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE and others, the regional cold war which turned Syria red with blood and deepened U.S. occupationinduced fissures in Iraq must be resolved. This is something American diplomacy, not bombs, can help facilitate.
Despite the fact that this country defends the self-proclaimed Jewish state at every turn, Israeli leaders continue to defy U.S. desires, as shown by the recent decision to bomb Gaza indiscriminately and steal more than 1,000 acres of Palestinian land for settlement construction. As President Obama attempts the difficult task of disrupting the revenue stream of the very un-Islamic ISIS, he must also stop military aid to another nation that abuses religion: Israel. Jewish and Islamic extremists can no longer be permitted to…
Control the Regional Narrative. Middle East Books and More... Long-time subscribers have seen many changes to our bookstore, located below the Washington Report’s Washington, DC offices. Over the years we’ve added more books, as well as multi-media and solidarity items, including Palestinian olive oil products. The name has also undergone variations in the past decades: It’s been the AET Book Club, AET Bookstore, and even Middle East Books and Palestinian Arts and Crafts (PACT). You’re invited to visit <mid dleeastbooks.com> to see why we’re now called Middle East Books and More. And here’s a good reason to pay us a visit...
Israel Gives Hamas a Boost.
The Summit DVDs Have Arrived!
Contrary to what Binyamin Netanyahu has asserted, Hamas, which is resisting an illegal Israeli occupation, and ISIS are hardly two peas in a pod. They are similar in one regard, however: they are fueled by the suffering of ordinary people. Polls show that, after watching Israel ruthlessly target civilians in Gaza for seven weeks, Palestinians are more inclined to support Hamas over Fatah, something unthinkable prior to this summer, when Hamas was perhaps weaker than ever. If Israel truly feared the weapons and tunnels deployed by Hamas, it would not have scuttled the most recent round of peace talks, vilified President Mahmoud Abbas and the nonviolent Palestinian movement, and used the horrific killing of three settlers as a pretext for a new war with Hamas. Indeed, if Israel were serious about peace, it would have embraced Abbas’ many peaceful overtures. Instead it chose to once again
Those who attended or watched on C-SPAN the March 7 National Summit to Reassess the U.S.-Israel “Special Relationship” discovered the many ways our country’s close relationship with Israel harms Americans. Those who missed the summit or want to share the experience with their colleagues or organizations can now do so! Share the DVD and this magazine with friends and family before you...
THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
Cast Your Vote in November. Make sure they are aware of the role their elected officials play in stoking regional injustices. After seeing harsh Israeli occupation tactics deployed here at home on the streets of Ferguson, MO, we know that the march toward justice and freedom may start online or in the streets—but it ends at the ballot box. As informed voters, together we can...
Make a Difference Today! 7
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Cease-Fire Follows Cease-Fire But Gaza Remains a Prison SpecialReport
THOMAS COEX/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
By Rachelle Marshall
Palestinian children get out of a taxi to spend the day with their parents in their destroyed home after spending the previous night in an UNRWA school in the northern Gaza Strip city of Beit Hanoun, Aug. 22, 2014. srael began the process of dismantling
IGaza’s economy almost as soon as it cap-
tured the strip of territory from Egypt in 1967. Most of Gaza’s inhabitants were refugees from Palestine who had been forced off their land in 1948 when Israel became a state. Once in Gaza they built up a thriving fishing industry and an international market for their fruits and vegetables, but after 1967 Israel’s export restrictions and diversion of Gaza’s water to settlers did so much damage to the economy that by 2006 Gaza’s annual per capita gross domestic product was down to $600, a fraction of what it had been before the occupation. It was not surprising, therefore, that Gaza became the birthplace of Hamas, an Islamic resistance organization that arose during the late 1980s as a challenge to the more moderate PLO. In 2006 Hamas won open and fair elections in the occupied territories only to have most of its elected members arrested by Israel, and the West Bank taken over by Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas. In 2007, after the failure of a U.S-backed effort by Fatah to drive Hamas out of Gaza, Hamas assumed leadership of the territory. Rachelle Marshall is a free-lance editor living in Mill Valley, CA. A member of Jewish Voice for Peace, she writes frequently on the Middle East. 8
Israel’s response was to turn what was already one of the poorest places on earth into a maximum security prison, its inhabitants surrounded by cement walls, barbed wire barriers, a 500-meter wide no-man’s land, and watchtowers manned by Israeli sharpshooters. Israel has since controlled everything that goes in or out of Gaza, and sees to it that necessities such as food and fuel are kept to a minimum. The Aug. 25 cease-fire that followed six weeks of Israeli bombardment of Gaza, and Hamas’ firing of rockets into Israel, left that situation virtually unchanged. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu crowed that Hamas had not won “even one of the conditions it demanded,” although Israel agreed to ease some travel and trade restrictions and restore the six-mile fishing zone. The Israelis had made similar promises after the cease-fire in 2012, however, and failed to honor them. The periodic outbreaks of violence follow a now familiar pattern. Israeli snipers shoot at Gaza farmers across the border and Israeli gunboats fire on fishermen, whereupon Palestinian militants in return fire homemade rockets at Israel. Israel blames Hamas and assassinates several Hamas members with air strikes, often killing family members as well. Hamas is eventually provoked into firing off its own THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
rockets, which do little damage but provide Israel with the excuse for an extended air and artillery bombardment that devastates large areas of Gaza. Eventually both sides agree to a ceasefire, but Israeli violations continue and the cycle is repeated. Before this summer’s violence, a 7-year-old child in Gaza had already lived through three massive Israeli attacks: Operation Hot Winter, February 2008; Operation Cast Lead, December 2008-January 2009; and Operation Pillar of Defense, November 2012. Operation Protective Edge, which began on July 7, was Israel’s fourth and heaviest assault on Gaza in six years and left much of Gaza a wasteland, with thousands of grieving families camped in the ruins of their homes. The statistics are staggeringly one-sided. In the first 6 weeks Israel lost 64 members of its invading army and 6 civilians, one of them a 4-year-old boy. More than 2,100 Palestinians were killed, including at least 500 children, and thousands were wounded. Property damage was on a similar scale. More than 11,000 Gaza homes were destroyed, along with factories, water and sewage systems, businesses and farms. Hundreds of schools and 10 hospitals were severely damaged. Israeli bombs leveled three multi-story apartment houses in Gaza City, wounding 40 people, including 11 children. “We lost in one instant all we had worked for 40 years to build,” said Fuad Harara, standing in the ruins of his house. The Palestinians gained little from their sacrifice. In return for a longterm truce Palestinian negotiators had originally demanded a lifting of the blockade, the free movement of people and goods in and out of Gaza, and the creation of a seaport. European Union foreign ministers offered to have the EU monitor Gaza’s border crossings and assure that no weapons could enter. But Prime Minister Netanyahu refused the offer, determined to avoid any appearance of rewarding Hamas. Germany, France and Britain have proposed another solution to the continuing impasse in the form of a U.N. Security Council Resolution calling for the reopening of Gaza’s borders with international monitoring, and a plan to expedite the reconstruction of Gaza. It is questionable, however, whether the resolution will be accepted by the U.S., which has invariably vetoed every resolution it deemed harmful to Israel. A State OCTOBER 2014
Department official hedged by saying that the Obama administration’s immediate objective was to halt Gaza violence and that the proposal would be evaluated with that goal in mind. It’s safe to assume that also in mind will be the wishes of Israel and its constituency in Congress. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, showing understandable impatience, has chosen to bypass both the U.S. and Israel and, in a last-gasp effort to salvage the two-state solution, called for either an international conference or a U.N. resolution demanding that Israel set a deadline for ending the occupation. Meanwhile, he said, the Palestinian Authority will press the case against Israel at the International Criminal Court. A senior Israeli cabinet member, Yaakov Peri, said Abbas’ announcement “is certainly not constructive, and obviously is unacceptable to Israel.” Netanyahu’s refusal to ease the blockade was a blow not only to Hamas but to Abbas and other Palestinian moderates as well. Despite Gaza’s huge losses Hamas remains popular among Palestinians for standing up to Israel, while Abbas is increasingly seen as weak and ineffective. In spurning Palestinian leaders who have renounced violence and shown a willingness to guarantee Israel’s security, the Israelis again left no doubt of their opposition to an independent Palestinian state. Netanyahu said as much last July, when he declared that Israel intended to maintain permanent “security control” of the West Bank, and a month later the government appropriated 1,000 acres of Palestinian land near Bethlehem for new settlement construction. The best that Gazans can hope for at the moment is help in restoring such essentials as shelter, food and water. Palestinian leaders estimated they would need $6 billion to repair the damage done by the Israeli attack, but of course Gaza cannot expect anywhere near that amount. After Israel’s Operation Cast Lead in 2008-09 demolished much of Gaza, the $4.7 billion promised by international donors never materialized. Washington refuses to give money directly to Gazans because there is no way to assure it will not end up with Hamas. Even if aid funds were forthcoming, Israel restricts the import of construction materials for private projects. Although the physical damage done by Israel’s latest assault can be calculated in terms of dollars, there is no way to measure the human losses. How can the loss of a child be measured, much less the loss of an entire family? The truth of Israel’s unproved but repeated assertion that Hamas’ use of civilians as human shields is to blame for the large number of Palestinian casualties becomes even flimsier when Gazans tell their individual stories. OCTOBER 2014
MENAHEM KAHANA/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
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Israeli children aim toy guns through openings in newly built cement protection walls around a kindergarten in the center of Kibbutz Nahal Oz, located near the border with Gaza, Sept. 8, 2014. Dr. Hassan al-Zeyada, a psychologist at the Gaza Community Health Center who has spent his career helping victims of trauma caused by repeated wars and displacement, became a victim himself in July, when an Israeli bomb destroyed his family’s home and killed his mother, three brothers, and several other relatives. One of his colleagues, Dr. Yasser Abu Jamei, lost 26 relatives in a single bombing. Israeli air strikes have repeatedly hit homes crowded with families but with no evidence of Hamas activity. “There is no safe place,” Dr. Zeyada said. “Psychologically, that is the problem.” The magnitude of Israel’s assault also gave the lie to Israel’s claim that the army went to great lengths to avoid attacking civilian targets. As Israeli bombs were destroying 175 industrial enterprises that were the basis of Gaza’s economy, such as the main flour mill, food companies, clothing factories, shops and Beit Hanoun’s entire industrial zone, the spokesman for the Israeli military, Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, said, “Categorically, we do not target factories. We target facilities that have been involved in rocket manufacturing.” Colonel Lerner offered no evidence for his statement. Nor did he explain how an unexploded bomb from an F-16 came to be found in a soccer field, between a religious center and a building used for food distribution, or why on Aug. 3 a barrage of Israeli shells hit a U.N. shelter in Jabaliya refugee camp, collapsing nearby homes and killing 20 people, many of them children. Officials of the U.N. said afterward that the building was clearly marked and there was no Hamas activity near the site. When The New York Times e-mailed Colonel Lerner a map showing where the THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
strikes hit and asked him to point out the source of enemy activity, he did not respond. Although there is no evidence that Hamas used civilians as human shields there is ample evidence of Israeli war crimes, including the deliberate killing of civilians. A reporter for The Daily Beast described the destruction of the village of Khuza’a in northern Gaza, where in the ruins of a small home he saw six dead bodies piled together, surrounded by bullet casings from Israeli assault rifles. Human Rights Watch reported on Aug. 4 that Israeli soldiers shot at civilians as they tried to flee the village. In another episode, Israeli soldiers raided the home of Ramadan Muhammed Qadech and killed his 65-year-old father. After ordering the rest of his family to take off their clothes, the soldiers tied their hands and made them stand at the windows while they fired through them. Qadech was forced to stand at one window with three of his children. A 17-year-old teenager in the same town, Ahmed Jamal Abu Raida, said he was seized by Israeli soldiers and held blindfolded and handcuffed for five days while he was forced to walk through tunnels ahead of soldiers searching for explosives. Israel excuses such actions by accusing Hamas of fighting with lawless means. “The modus operandi of our enemy is by definition defying the laws of armed conflict,” said an Israeli colonel, Eran Shamir-Borer, as if Israel’s army abided by those laws. Factual distortions have also been a major element in much of the commentary on Israel’s latest assault. President Barack Obama repeatedly refers to Israel’s “right to defend itself,” as if Hamas were the ag9
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ISIS: A Deadly Legacy of the Iraq War The rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is yet another another warning sign that military interventions can have unforeseen and unwanted consequences. ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is a product of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, a military intervention that accelerated the growth of extremist movements that threaten to destabilize much of the Muslim world. Like thousands of other Iraqi males, Baghdadi was picked up in a house raid by U.S. forces in 2004 and spent time at Camp Bucca military prison. There he met several high-ranking officers who had served under Saddam Hussain but lost their positions when the U.S. occupation czar, L. Paul Bremer, abruptly disbanded the Iraqi army. Those officers now constitute most of ISIS’ top management, overseeing such functions as finance, recruitment, military strategy, and even local governance. After Baghdadi’s release from Camp Bucca he immediately set out to recruit other members of the now-banned Ba’ath party to fight the American invaders. Those fighters have since been joined by Sunnis eager for revenge after the repression they suffered under the rule of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. The result is that today Baghdadi commands a full-blown army that controls 35,000 square miles of land captured from Iraq and Syria and has come perilously close to Syria’s border with the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. He has threatened that ISIS would soon be in “direct confrontation” with the U.S. President Obama has authorized air strikes aimed at ISIS forces in Iraq and Syria. Pressure from congressional Republicans for stronger measures increased after ISIS troops in Syria decapitated captive American reporters James Foley in late August and Steven Sotloff in September. Even Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a senior Democrat from California, called for “coordinated and sustained action” against ISIS. gressor in the latest violence. Hillary Clinton in an interview with Jeffrey Goldberg in mid-August declared “There’s no doubt in my mind that Hamas initiated this conflict...So the ultimate responsibility has to rest on Hamas.” But as Nathan Thrall pointed out in the Aug. 1 issue of the London Review of Books, it was only after Israel arrested hundreds of Hamas members in the West Bank in early July, and Israeli air strikes killed seven Hamas members, that Hamas began firing rockets at Israel. The most frequently repeated myth, especially in full page pro-Israel newspaper ads, is that Hamas’ main objective is the destruction of Israel. It is a charge that was once true but has since been modified by pragmatic Hamas leaders, who ever since the late 1990s have offered Israel a longterm truce in exchange for Israel’s withdrawal to its 1967 borders. In 1997 King Hussein of Jordan conveyed to Israel a letter from Hamas political chief Khaled Meshal offering a 30-year truce on those terms. Israel’s response was an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate Meshal. (See December 1997 Washington Report, p. 7.) In 2002, Hamas supported the Arab peace initiative offering Israel full recogni10
This is exactly what the president announced in his Sept. 10 primetime address to the nation. “So tonight, with a new Iraqi government in place, and following consultations with allies abroad and Congress at home, I can announce that America will lead a broad coalition to roll back this terrorist threat,” he said. “Our objective is clear: we will degrade, and ultimately destroy, [ISIS] through a comprehensive and sustained counterterrorism strategy.” As the president pursues this strategy, he may want to keep in mind that by taking military action in Syria, the U.S. will be attacking one group of rebels seeking to ouster President Bashar al-Assad while supporting another group that also opposes Assad. It may not always be possible to distinguish one group from the other. Given the widespread anger at the U.S. in the region because of its past interventions and unstinting support of Israel, Middle East observers suggest that the Obama administration would be wiser to stay out of the conflict entirely and let nations that have more at stake deal with ISIS. Past anti-terrorism efforts indicate that U.S.military intervention is less likely to stop ISIS than contribute to its growth. Stephen Miles of Win Without War points out that “It’s almost always the case that the extremists are emboldened. We play into their hands by giving them what they want, which is a battle with the Americans.” Similar warnings were issued just before the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan by experts who argued that the use of armies against unconventional forces is most often ineffective. The U.S. nevertheless invaded Afghanistan and at huge cost succeeded in driving out al-Qaeda. That war, begun in 2001, is now going into its 14th year, and al-Qaeda has spread to Iraq, Yemen, Somalia and Libya. It faces a serious challenge only from its more ruthless offshoot, ISIS. —R.M.
tion and normal relations if Israel withdrew from the occupied territories, an offer Israel ignored. In 2006 Gaza’s former Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh sent a letter to George W. Bush offering a truce “for many years” on the same terms. That letter was also ignored. Finally, in 2010 Hamas announced it would honor any peace plan approved by a majority of Palestinians in a referendum. Gershon Baskin, an Israeli peace activist, recounts that in November 2012 he and Hamas military chief Ahmed Jabari had just completed a draft agreement containing mechanisms for maintaining a permanent truce, with Jabari agreeing to end all military attacks on Israel. Israel aborted the agreement by assassinating Jabari. Paul Pillar, former deputy director of the CIA Counterterrorism Center, notes that “Rather than saying Hamas is dedicated to the destruction of Israel, it would be closer to the truth to say that Israel is dedicated to the destruction of Hamas.” Israel again had the opportunity to achieve both peace and security when Hamas and Fatah adopted a reconciliation agreement setting up a government pledged to nonviolence, recognition of Israel, and adherence to past agreements with Israel. THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
Formal authority would be entirely in the hands of the Palestinian Authority and Abbas. But instead of agreeing to work with the interim government Israel condemned it as “terrorist,” and maintained the blockade of Gaza. For all the damage done by Operation Protective Edge, Israel did not emerge a victor but seems likely to be less secure than ever. Children whose earliest memories are of F-16 bombing attacks, ruined homes, and corpses lying in the street are likely to grow into adults filled with anger and the desire for revenge. As a result, without a change of policy Israel could well become trapped in permanent warfare, with Israeli families periodically having to hide in bombshelters while Palestinian casualties mount and worldwide condemnation of Israel grows. If U.S. support for Israel truly is “unshakable,” as Obama claims, he will take action to save Israel from its own shortsightedness by demanding that it end the blockade and negotiate peace in good faith with the Palestinians. Meanwhile, as the U.N. Human Rights Council prepares to investigate war crimes committed in Gaza, it’s time to think about the costs to America of its complicity in those crimes. ❑ OCTOBER 2014
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“Son of Death” Mohammed Deif SpecialReport
By Uri Avnery
he war was over. Families returned to
gartens opened up again. A cease-fire was in force and extended again and again. Obviously, both sides were exhausted. And then, suddenly, the war came back. What happened? Well, Hamas launched rockets against Beersheba in the middle of the cease-fire. Why? No why. You know how the terrorists are. Bloodthirsty. They can’t help it. Just like scorpions. But it is not so simple. The Cairo talks were near success, or so it seemed. But Binyamin Netanyahu was in trouble. He hid the Egyptian draft agreement for a long cease-fire even from his cabinet colleagues. They learned about it only from the media, which disclosed it from Palestinian sources. Apparently, the draft said that the blockade would be greatly relaxed, if not officially ended. Talks about the building of a port and airport were to start within a month. What? What did Israel get out of this? After all the shooting and killing, with 64 Israeli soldiers dead, after all the grandiose speeches about our resounding victory, was that all? No wonder Netanyahu tried to hide the document. The Israeli delegation was called home without signing. The exasperated Egyptian mediators got another 24-hour extension of the cease-fire. It was to expire at midnight on Tuesday, Aug. 19, but everybody on both sides expected it to be extended again and again. And then it happened. At about 1600 hours, three rockets were fired at Beersheba and fell into open spaces. No warning sirens. Curiously enough, Hamas denied having launched them, and no other Palestinian organization took responsibility. This was strange. After every previous launching from Gaza, some Palestinian organization has always proudly claimed credit. As usual, Israeli airplanes promptly started to retaliate, and bombed buildings in the Gaza Strip. As usual, rockets rained down on Israel (I heard the interceptions in Uri Avnery, a former member of the Israeli Knesset, is a founder of Gush Shalom, <www.gush-shalom.org>. OCTOBER 2014
THOMAS COEX/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
Ttheir kibbutzim near Gaza. Kinder-
Asfura (c) places the body of his grandson, 7-month-old Ali Deif, into his grave during his funeral at the Beit Lahiya cemetery in the northern Gaza Strip, Aug. 20, 2014. Ali and his mother were killed in an Israeli missile strike on the residence of Hamas military commander Mohammed Deif, who was not at home. Tel Aviv). Business as usual? Not quite. First it became known that an hour before the rockets came in, the Israeli population near Gaza was warned by the army to prepare their shelters and “safe spaces.” Then it appeared that the first Gaza building hit belonged to the family of a Hamas military commander. And then the news spread: It was the family of Mohammed Deif, the commander of the Izzadin al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas. (Qassam was a Palestinian hero, the first rebel against British rule in Palestine in the 1930s. He was hunted down and killed by the British.) Among those killed that Tuesday were Deif’s wife and baby son. But it seems that Deif himself was not there. That in itself is no wonder. Deif has survived at least four attempts to assassinate him. He has lost an eye and several limbs, but always came out alive. All around him, his successive commanders, political and military peers and subordinates, dozens of them, have been asTHE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
sassinated throughout the years. But he has led a charmed life. Now he heads the Israeli hit list, the most wanted and hunted Palestinian activist. He is the No. 1 “Son of Death,” a rather biblical appellation used in Israel for those marked for assassination. Like most inhabitants of the Gaza Strip, Deif is a child of refugees from Israel. His family comes from the village of Kawkaba, now in Israel, not far from Gaza. I passed through it in the 1948 war, before it was razed to the ground. For the Israeli Security Service, he is a prize for which it is well worth breaking the cease-fire and reigniting the war. For many security agencies around the world, including the American and the Russian, assassination is a sport and an art. Israel claims to hold the gold medal. An assassination is a complicated operation. It requires a lot of time, expertise, patience and luck. The operators have to recruit informers near the victim, install elecContinued on page 13 11
omer_12-13_Gaza on the Ground 9/11/14 3:18 PM Page 12
“Even If Israel Destroys Our Homes, We Will Never Leave,” Gazans Vow Gazaon the Ground
t has taken more than two
Iweeks for Maliha Al-Ommor,
85, to return to her home in the village of Al-Fokhari, on the far eastern border of Khan Younis—but she is back. She returned to a scene of devastation and destruction. Her son, Khaled Al-Ommor, watched his mother grieve as she looked at a 40-year-old ornately framed family photograph. Her home had been used as a sniper station by Israeli troops occupying the village, and the snipers had taken the photo out of its frame in order to write their daily shooting shifts on the back. But that was a small loss compared to the devastation the family was to experience. Even before the soldiers took over the Al-Ommor family home, Israeli missiles had almost totally destroyed the entry staircase. Walking through the house, one could see large holes left by missile strikes on the bed and cup- Khaled Al-Ommor holds the back of board in the bedroom of a family photograph (inset) which Khaled, 46, and his wife. It was Israeli snipers tore out of its frame also obvious that it had been so they could write their shifts on used as a military post. The toi- the back. let seat was smashed. The floor was littered with blue Israeli army plastic bags used for defecation. F16s dropped leaflets “Human shit scattered everywhere,” mut- demanding we evacuate our homes,” recalled Khaled. Their options were very limtered the family patriarch in disgust. Maliha paused to rest from the aches in ited. Everyone ran to UNRWA schools for her fractured hip, suffered as she tried to shelter, he said, which meant risking his children’s lives for almost an hour under flee her house before the bombs hit. “My son carried me from upstairs, but I gunfire. But he described his family’s exfell while we were escaping,” she ex- perience at the UNRWA school as being worse than dying under the rubble of his plained. “We were sitting peacefully at home home. Due to a lack of clean water, overwhen, at the end of a hot July day, Israeli crowding, and poor hygiene and diet, scabies and other diseases spread among those Award-winning journalist Mohammed Omer seeking refuge, including some of his own reports from the Gaza Strip, where he main- children. According to the U.N., 450,000 tains the Web site <www.rafahtoday.org>. Gazans fled to U.N. shelters, the schools He can be reached at <gazanews@yahoo. being the most crowded. com>. Follow him on Twitter: @MoGaza. “May Allah punish them for what they 12
THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
did to us,” Maliha said as she recalled the suffering of the previous few weeks. Compared to the rest of the neighborhood, however, the Al-Ommor family home was relatively intact. Al-Fokhari as a whole was almost completely damaged or destroyed, with nothing left of much of the village but rubble, dust and human remains. A few days later more bodies were found in the ruins of homes. According to Khaled the bodies of four neighbors were still missing. The air is thick and heavy with the smell of death, decaying flesh and blood from the torn up carcasses of cows, horses, donkeys and sheep lying about. “What do you expect from a military that aims a missile directly at a dog?” asked an angry young man who was removing the carcasses of scores of sheep killed by flying shrapnel. Khaled pointed to the graffiti the Israeli soldiers had left on the walls of his home—the most “polite” of which threatened, “We will return.” But our message to them, Khaled said, is, “We are steadfast.” This steadfastness is evidenced by his neighbor, Mahmoud AbuHadied, 70, who lost his home and put up a tent on the ruins, where he and his family now sleep. Khaled said his house was occupied and partially vandalized by Israeli troops during their 2008-2009 and 2012 attacks, and now again in 2014. “But what Israel destroys, I will rebuild every time,” he vowed. He built the house with money saved from his work as an electric technician in Israel before the siege was imposed in 2006. “It was only last month that I finished renovating damage from the 2012 war,” he told the Washington Report. PHOTOS M. OMER
By Mohammed Omer
OCTOBER 2014
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Why was his house left standing while all the others in the neighborhood were totally destroyed? This is a question many people ask. Khaled explains: “The house is atop a hill that overlooks the fence [marking Gaza’s eastern border with Israel], providing a perfect vantage point for Israeli snipers.” Al-Ommor’s neighbors told him that Israeli soldiers had detained them in his home and used them as human shields. “It must have been hot inside, because they took my mattress on the roof to sleep,” Khaled observed, pointing to strange holes that hadn’t been there before. He used to sit with his children on this very roof and look at the green countryside all around them— but since his children saw the bodies of two farmers blown to pieces, they refuse to sit up there anymore. During Israel’s 7-week war on Gaza, more than 2,100 people were killed and 11,000 injured. The majority of the victims were civilians, according to the United Nations, with 3,000 children injured, 1,000 of them permanently disabled. Another 1,800 children are now orphans. According to consensus government Minister of Housing Dr. Mofeed Al-Hassayna, 17,000 homes in Gaza were either destroyed or severely damaged—added to the as-yet-unrebuilt 5,000 homes demolished in Israel’s 2008-2009 and 2012 assaults on Gaza. Overall, according to the Housing Ministry, Gaza now suffers a shortage of 75,000 houses. Pointing to the huge piles of garbage from army rations and discarded utensils, napkins, cigarettes and leftovers of hashish, Khaled said, “This is where they ate and shit in one place.” But despite the stench of death, decay and Israeli defecation, Khaled believes his home and village will again be peaceful once his neighbors find their loved ones to bury them. “Even if Israel destroys our homes,” he explains, “we will never leave—we will build tents on the ruins of our homes and stay.” ❑
“Son of Death”… Continued from page 11
tronic devices, obtain precise information about his every movement, execute their design within minutes once the opportunity presents itself. Because of this, there is no time for confirmation from above. Perhaps the Security Service (usually called Shin Bet) got perOCTOBER 2014
mission from Netanyahu, its sole political chief, perhaps not. They obviously were informed that Deif was visiting his family. That was a golden opportunity. For months, indeed for years, Deif has been living underground, in the literal sense—somewhere in the maze of tunnels his men had dug beneath the Strip. He was never sighted. Since the beginning of this latest war, all the other prominent Hamas leaders have also been living under the ground. From Ismail Haniyeh down, not one of them has been seen. The unlimited command of the air by Israeli planes and drones makes this advisable. Hamas has no anti-aircraft weapons. It seems to me highly unlikely that Deif would risk his life by visiting his family. But Shin Bet obviously got a lead and believed it. The three strange rockets fired on Beersheba provided the pretext for breaking the cease-fire, and so the war started again. Real aficionados of the art of assassination are not very interested in the political or military consequences of their actions. “Art for art’s sake.” Apropos, the last Gaza war, two years ago, started the same way. The Israeli army assassinated the de-facto al-Qassam leader, Ahmed Jaabari. The ensuing war with its many hundreds of dead was just collateral damage. Jaabari was at the time filling in for Deif, who was convalescing in Cairo. All this is, of course, much too complicated for American and European diplomats. They like simple stories. The White House immediately reacted to the resumption of hostilities by condemning the Hamas launching of rockets and reaffirming that “Israel has a right to defend itself.” The Western media parroted this line. For Netanyahu, whether he knew in advance of the assassination attempt or not, it was a way out of a dilemma. He was in the unfortunate position of many leaders in history who start a war and do not know how to get out of it. In a war, a leader makes grandiloquent speeches, promises victory and bountiful achievements. These promises seldom come true. (If they do, like in Versailles 1919, that may be even worse.) Netanyahu is a gifted marketing man, if nothing else. He promised a lot, and the people believed him and gave him a 77 percent rating. The Egyptian draft proposal for a permanent cease-fire, though markedly pro-Israel, fell far short of a victory for Israel. It only confirmed that the THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
war ended in a draw. Netanyahu’s own cabinet was rebellious, public opinion was souring perceptibly. The resumption of the war got him out of this hole. But what now? Bombing the Gaza population draws more and more criticism from world public opinion. It also has lost its appeal in Israel. The maxim “Let’s bomb them until they stop hating us” obviously does not work. The alternative is to enter the Gaza Strip and occupy it completely, so that even Deif and his men have to come up to the surface to be assassinated. But that is a dangerous proposition. When I was a soldier in the 1948 war, we were taught never to get into a situation which leaves the enemy no way out. In such a case, he will fight to the end, causing many casualties. There is no way out of the Gaza Strip. If the Israeli army is sent to conquer the entire Strip, the fighting will be ferocious, causing hundreds of Israeli and thousands of Palestinian dead and injured, and untold destruction. The prime minister will be one of the political victims. Netanyahu is fully aware of that. He doesn’t want it. But what else can he do? One can almost pity the man. He can, of course, order the army to occupy only parts of the Strip, a village here, a town there. But that will also spread death and destruction, to no manifest gain. In the end, public discontent will be the same. Hamas threatened that week to open “the gates of hell” for us. This hardly affects the inhabitants of Tel Aviv, but for the villages and towns near Gaza this is really hell. Casualties are few, but fear is devastating. Families with children leave en masse. When calm returns, they try to go home, but then the next rockets drive them away again. Their plight evokes a very strong emotional response throughout the country. No politician can ignore it. Least of all the prime minister. He needs to end the war. He also needs a clear image of victory. But how to achieve this? The Egyptian dictator tries to help. So does Barack Obama, though he is furious with Netanyahu and hates his guts. So does Mahmoud Abbas, who is afraid of a Hamas victory. But as of now, the man who has the final decision is the Son of Death, Mohammed Deif, if he is alive and kicking. If not, his successor. If he is alive, the assassination of his wife and baby son may not have made him gentler and more peaceable. ❑ 13
jabr_14-15_Jerusalem Journal 9/11/14 4:09 PM Page 14
Would-Be Peacocks and Tiny Red Poppies JerusalemJournal
MENAR-DOLS-LARNEY (© 2014 SAMIA MENAR)
By Samah Jabr
Like poppies, Palestinians’ lives are brief and fragile. sraeli politicians and spokespersons
Isound like roosters who think they are
peacocks when they boast of “the most moral army in the world,” its “surgical strikes,” their wonderful “Iron Dome” (paid for by the U.S.), and their status as “the only democracy in the Middle East.” From that lofty spot, they spew contempt for “the Palestinian culture of death and hatred” and claim that “Palestinians use their children as human shields.” (In this writer’s profession, such a statement is known as projection.) The day after ISIS shocked the world with its video of American journalist James Foley being beheaded in cold blood, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu linked Hamas to ISIS—claiming Hamas to be “the enemies of peace; they are the enemies of all civilized countries and I believe they are the enemies of the Palestinians themselves.” Western leaders dutifully parrot whatever the Israeli rooster says. “Hamas has unilaterally and grossly violated the humanitarian cease-fire,” intone John Kerry Samah Jabr is a Jerusalemite psychiatrist and psychotherapist who cares about the wellbeing of her community—beyond issues of mental health. 14
and Ban Ki-moon, who described as “outrageous” and “barbaric” the alleged capture of an Israeli soldier on his way to kill in Gaza. No equivalent words were used to describe the deaths of more than a hundred Palestinians every day during Israel’s 50-day assault. But Kerry’s words were not enough to satisfy Netanyahu, who warned the secretary of state, “Don’t ever second guess me again on Hamas!” Nor is it only in time of war that the arrogance and entitlement of Israeli politicians are on display: it can be found when they try to intimidate critics with the accusation of anti-Semitism, when they censor mention of the occupation, when they monopolize human suffering through the industrialization of the Holocaust, and when they blur the reality of profound inequalities with the falsehood of rigged “peace talks.” Emulating their political leaders are a growing number of Israelis, whose bragging and incitement to violence have now reached unprecedented levels: David D. Ovadia, an Israel Defense Forces sniper, boasts of murdering 13 Gazan children in one day and promises to kill more. In pro-war demonstrations, Israelis adopted a vicious new racist chant THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
mocking the killing of children: “tomorrow there is no school in Gaza, they don’t have any children left.” Israelis wear Tshirts with the image of a veiled pregnant woman who has a sniper target on her abdomen, with the words, “One shot, two kills.” Rabbi Dov Lior from the illegal Kiryat Arba settlement issues a statement endorsing the killing of children and other civilians: “During war we are allowed to punish the enemy population by any punishment we find worthy, such as denying supplies or electricity and also bombing the whole area.” In an Internet post Knesset member Ayelet Shaked called for the slaughter of Palestinian mothers who give birth to “little snakes” and the demolition of their homes. “They have to die and their houses should be demolished so that they cannot bear any more terrorists,” said Shaked, adding, “They are all our enemies and their blood should be on our hands. This also applies to the mothers of the dead terrorists who send them to hell with flowers and kisses. They should go, as should the physical homes in which they raised the snakes. Otherwise, more little snakes will be raised there.” On the Israeli radio program “Hakol Deburim,” Prof. Mordechai Kedar of Bar-Ilan University maintained that “The only thing that deters a suicide bomber is the knowledge that if he pulls the trigger or blows himself up, his sister will be raped.” Yochanan Gordon posted a column on the Times of Israel website titled, “When Genocide is Permissible.” In it he articulated the difference in the Palestinian and Israeli regard for life, and asked, “What other way is there to deal with enemies of this kind, other than to obliterate them completely?” These statements are not mere rhetoric; they are consistent with the practices of the Israeli occupation forces, especially during the latest war on Gaza. We Palestinians are like red poppies with their brief and fragile lives. The “international community” has not been imOCTOBER 2014
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pressed with our beauty, however, and has failed to flatter us. On the contrary, we are often told that our reach for liberation is senseless and cannot flower. Nonetheless, we have faith in our collective ability to beautify the bare mountainside and inspire a revolutionary spring among the oppressed of the earth. The world may call this romanticism, but it is wrong. Palestinians are pursuing justice realistically, aware of the risks involved and the sacrifices demanded. We realize that our lives are irreplaceable and that past wrongs cannot be made right in such a way that returns everything to normal, as if nothing had happened. The people of Gaza seek to meet their basic human needs, to lift the siege, to expand the fishing zone, to live, to farm, to travel abroad, to have access to education and medical care without exposing themselves to oppression and humiliation. For the right to live in dignity, the people of Gaza are willing to risk death. Is it so strange that, for some, death itself is more acceptable than oppression and humiliation? Is it so hard to imagine that, for some, bleeding in the service of attaining dignity is more important than life-giving blood itself? In their yearning for liberation, Palestinians are prepared to make many sacrifices, in keeping with their faith in a just and peaceful afterlife. In Palestine today, there is grief but not despair, disappointment but not bitterness at a world whose ignorance and moral numbness has permitted so much cruelty to befall us. We realize that the gates of freedom are often opened by injured hands. We have seen that nonviolent and violent resistance alike are met by Israeli violence, making both tactics equally costly in human lives. We have learned that whatever route we seek to liberation, we will not be spared the brutality of the occupation. Palestinians are not following the principle of “An eye for an eye,” but of “For the sake of the roses, we bear the thorns.” The resistance does not seek revenge, even given the destruction and casualties Israel has visited upon us. The Israeli army has killed and injured thousands of our women and children; our resistance has killed a few dozen of its invading soldiers in order to push them away and obtain freedom. As a psychiatrist, I provided treatment to injured Gazans admitted to hospitals in Jerusalem and the West Bank. Their most frequent reaction to the enormity of the destruction that has laid waste to their lives was, “Allah is sufficient for us and He is the best disposer of affairs.” Betrayed by OCTOBER 2014
the “international community,” these people have placed their trust in a power that they believe to be higher than that of Israel, the United Nations and the government of the United States. Their profound faith is stronger than Israeli “smart” missiles and the techniques of professional psychiatrists. This is one of the secrets of the short lives and long memories of beautiful red poppies. Palestinians were once peaceful farmers, until they were displaced and transformed into refugees. When they gathered in peaceful demonstrations, such as on Land Day, the Israelis shot them like hunted birds. When Palestinians threw stones during the first intifada, Yitzhak Rabin instituted a policy of breaking their bones. When some blew themselves and their enemies up to protest Israel’s excessive brutality, Israel used the pretext to erect a wall. When Palestinians held free and fair elections to choose their leaders, Israel and the U.S. turned Gaza into a ghetto and an “Island of the Despised.” Then Palestinians began to manufacture rockets and dig tunnels in response to the siege (the resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto had tunnels too!).
A Pretext for War Almost every non-Arab Israeli family has a member who is actively involved in killing our children. Instead of assuming responsibility for the death and cruelty they inflict on us, “enlightened” Israelis want us to listen to their “fear of Palestinian terrorism.” But this war cannot be viewed as an isolated event. Gaza’s rockets and tunnels are simply the latest pretext, since Israel was founded upon and has been living all along on war crimes. It has destroyed our villages and committed horrific massacres for more than six decades—long before our resistance groups were born.
Israel’s ongoing aggression and destruction are meant to bury our hopes alive and force us to acquiesce to the status quo. But even though it is easier to remain oppressed than to aspire to liberation, we Palestinians will not surrender. We will never relinquish our resistance to our oppressors. The Palestinians are not a dead people; we, too, have a “self” to defend in the face of Israel’s unremitting dehumanization and aggression. As its Arabic meaning implies, Gaza will remain a thorn in the gorge of the occupation until a free and liberated Palestine is resurrected. But the fight of the Palestinian resistance to lift Israel’s siege is not only a story of pain and agony, despite the horrendous destruction and loss, and despite the world’s complacent silence and perfidy. It is also an epic, a saga, a narrative of the courageous acts of heroic and legendary figures who are in truth simply ordinary people: medical and civil defense personnel who worked ceaselessly, journalists who risked grave danger, families who took in the needy and dispossessed to share with them their homes and limited resources. The Palestinians are holding up despite all. The damage done to Gaza will not dampen our morale or weaken our resolve. There will always be red poppies growing on the tunnel roofs, amid the ruins, in the scorched earth. We will stand in solidarity and protect our poppies from being uprooted. We know that what we must do to be treated as humans is to treat ourselves as well as others in a humane way. Palestinians are proud to have survived Israel’s latest attacks without submitting to a humiliating surrender. Indeed, we look forward to the future, and to many seasons when the beautiful red poppies will fill the mountains and valleys of our beloved land. ❑
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THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
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As Right-Wing Jews Attack Arab Citizens, Knesset Suspends Palestinian Lawmaker TheNakbaContinues
GALI TIBBON/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
By Jonathan Cook
Jewish Israeli supporters of the right-wing Organization for Prevention of Assimilation in the Holy Land (LEHAVA) demonstrate outside the wedding hall in Rishon Letzion where Jewish bride Morel Malka married Arab Israeli Mahmoud Mansour, Aug. 17, 2014. srael’s large Palestinian minority faced an
Iunprecedented backlash of incitement
and violent reprisals as Israeli Jews rallied behind recent military operations in Gaza. Human rights groups and political activists noted that statements from public figures urging war crimes and genocidal actions in Gaza helped to stoke an especially dangerous atmosphere for Israel’s 1.6 million Palestinian citizens, who comprise a fifth of the population. Palestinian citizens were accused of being “traitors” and a “fifth column” for criticizing Israeli operations in Gaza, in a surge of ethnic hatred by the Jewish majority not seen since the outbreak of the second intifada 14 years ago. Among the Jewish population, support for the attack on Gaza held at over 90 percent throughout, with most IsJonathan Cook is a journalist based in Nazareth and a winner of the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His most recent book is Disappearing Palestine (available from Middle East Books and More). 16
raeli Jews disappointed that the army was not sent deeper into Gaza to rout Hamas. “There has been an explosion of incitement against the Palestinian minority on Facebook and other social media,” said Basel Ghattas, a Palestinian member of the Israeli parliament. “Pages calling for violence get tens of thousands of ‘likes’ overnight.” Jewish mobs had been patroling Jerusalem, Haifa and other cities with mixed populations looking for Palestinians to attack, and beating those participating in anti-war demonstrations, said Jafar Farah, director of Mossawa, an advocacy group for Arab citizens. “These are no longer spontaneous or isolated attacks,” he said. “The gangs of Jewish extremists are organized, well-funded and backed by a campaign of incitement from government officials.” Police, meanwhile, are reported to have arrested over the summer more than 1,500 protesters, many of them children and almost all of them Palestinians, in Israel and East Jerusalem. THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
Jerusalem has seen a wave of demonstrations since 16-year-old Mohammed Abu Khdeir was kidnapped by right-wing Jews and burned alive in early July. Reports suggest police have been using tactics violating Israeli law and more normally associated with the occupied West Bank: making night-time arrest raids to seize children and interrogating them without a parent being present. Government ministers have been among those leading the campaign of anti-Arab incitement. Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman called for a boycott of Arab businesses after Palestinian communities staged a oneday general strike in July to protest the mounting carnage from Israel’s Gaza operation, dubbed Protective Edge. Reprisals by companies followed, with a flood of reports of Arab workers sacked or disciplined for posting comments on social media against the military offensive. Several universities also punished Palestinian students for making critical comments or celebrating the deaths of Israeli soldiers. Tal Hassin, a lawyer for the Association for Civil Rights In Israel (ACRI), said there were numerous reports of sanctions being imposed. “Only Arab students have been punished,” she pointed out, “even though the social forums are simmering with racist comments by Jewish students.” She said university staff appeared to be acting like “thought police.” In another worrying indication of the new mood, an Israeli court approved a protest in August by a Jewish anti-assimilation group, Lehava, at the wedding party of a Jewish and Arab couple. Morel Malka had converted to Islam to marry Mahmoud Mansour, as Israeli law forbids marriages between couples of different religions. However, the celebration in the city of Rishon Letzion was marred by more than 200 right-wing Jews who shouted “Assimilation is a holocaust” and “Death to the leftists.” The liberal Haaretz newspaper editorialized: “The threats against them are the kind that would happen in a fanatical theocracy in the developing world—not in a Western democracy that Israel pretends to be.” Another lightning rod for growing intolerance has been Haneen Zoabi, a Palestinian member of the Israeli parliament, the KnesOCTOBER 2014
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set (see August 2010 Washington Report, p. 17). In July she became the first MK in Israel’s history to be suspended for six months, the longest punishment possible. She had refused during a TV interview to label as “terrorists” Palestinians behind the abduction in June of three Israeli teenage settlers in the West Bank. The youngsters were later found dead. In August the police also recommended that Zoabi be indicted for incitement, for allegedly calling two Arab policemen from Nazareth collaborators. Both Zoabi and Gideon Levy, the only Jewish journalist living in Israel regularly to write sympathetically about the Palestinians, admitted they had been forced to accept body guards to protect their safety. The ugly mood prompted Sayed Kashua, a Palestinian writer whose TV comedy show “Arab Labor” became a huge hit with Jews, to declare that he was leaving Israel for good. Kashua wrote: “Last week something inside of me broke. When Jewish youth parade through the city shouting ‘Death to the Arabs,’ and attack Arabs only because they are Arabs, I understood that I had lost my little war.” According to Ron Gerlitz, co-director of Sikkuy, a Jewish-Arab organization promoting equality, Israel is entering a new and dangerous period. “The level of verbal and physical violence [from Israeli Jews] is on a scale we have never seen before.” Calling Lieberman’s comments “unbelievable,” he asked, “How does he think such a boycott should be implemented? Should Arab shops be specially marked so Jews know how to avoid them? This kind of incitement gives legitimacy to ordinary people to go out on the streets and take the law into their own hands.” Gerlitz said Palestinian citizens of Israel were used to discriminatory and violent treatment by police, as occurred in October 2000, at the start of the second intifada. On that occasion police shot dead 13 Palestinian citizens and wounded hundreds more in a few days of clashes (see July 2001 Washington Report, p. 8). “It was bad enough when the violence came from the police,” Gerlitz said, “but it is more dangerous when, as now, we see Jewish extremists taking to the streets to attack Arab citizens. This could quickly get out of control.” Zoabi’s suspension in late July came as the parliament held a special meeting on incitement. Within days, a hotline established by the Justice Ministry to report incidents of inOCTOBER 2014
citement had received more than 1,100 calls, according to ministry spokesman Moshe Cohen. “There has been a big rise in racist material published on sites like Facebook and WhatsApp,” he said. But the Knesset committee hearing, led by Miri Regev, a hawkish member of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s party, mostly focused on what it considered “incitement” by Palestinian citizens. Much of the hearing was dedicated to Zoabi, who has faced a series of police investigations over comments critical of Israel’s policies in Gaza and the West Bank. A recent poll of Israeli Jews found 89 percent thought Zoabi’s citizenship should be revoked. The Justice Ministry’s Cohen said no public figure apart from Zoabi was being investigated. At the Knesset meeting, Tamar Zandberg, of the leftist Meretz party, noted Lieberman’s boycott comment and remarks by Ayelet Shaked, a rising star in the Jewish Home party of Economics Minister Naftali Bennett. During Operation Protective Edge, Shaked quoted approvingly from an unpublished article urging the slaughter of relatives of Palestinian “terrorists,” including their mothers, to stop them raising another generation of “little snakes.”
Advocating War Crimes Other prominent public figures also called for war crimes in Gaza. Moshe Feiglin, a deputy Knesset Speaker from Netanyahu’s Likud party, called for the massive destruction of Gaza, with inhabitants to be starved of supplies and then expelled to the Sinai. Danny Danon, until recently the deputy defense minister, demanded that Israel “stop providing fuel and electricity,” while Regev herself said action should be taken to “prevent the people of Gaza from receiving basic goods.” In another incident, Mordechai Kedar, a Middle East expert at Bar Ilan university, told a radio program that nothing could deter Palestinian terrorists except “the knowledge that their sister or their mother will be raped.” A feminist group wrote to Bar Ilan’s president, Daniel Hershkowitz, decrying comments that “grant legitimacy” to Israeli soldiers using rape as a weapon of war. The university backed Kedar, saying he had simply described “the bitter reality of the Middle East.” Rabbis have also joined the fray. Dov Lior, influential among extremist settlers, THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
issued a religious edict permitting soldiers to kill Palestinian civilians and for the defense minister to “order the destruction of Gaza.” That followed a pronouncement from Noam Perel, head of the world’s largest religious Jewish youth movement, for an “army of avengers.” Notably, Netanyahu did not speak out against such comments. He himself questioned the future of Palestinians inside Israel after widespread protests in early July at Abu Khdeir’s grisly murder in Jerusalem. Netanyahu said: “There’s no place in the State of Israel for those who throw rocks at police.…You can’t enjoy social security payments and child subsidies on one hand and on the other hand violate the most basic laws of the State of Israel.” A Haaretz columnist accused Netanyahu of being “the king of inciters.” “His whole government, his entire success at the polls, is based on the surefire recipe of incitement, hatred and fear-mongering,” wrote Nehemia Shtrasler. Suhad Bishara, a lawyer with Adalah, a legal group for the Arab minority, said the Israeli attorney general was not being consistent. “There have been a lot more inciteful comments than what Haneen Zoabi said, but they are not being investigated.” Human rights groups have been alarmed by the rapidly growing trend of Israeli firms and universities punishing workers and students for expressing political views on social media. A nurse at a medical clinic near Tel Aviv was suspended for posting on Facebook that Israeli soldiers were war criminals, and a doctor in Jerusalem suspended for calling them “murderers.” Hadassah college in Jerusalem revoked an Arab woman’s scholarship and banned her from campus over a Facebook post. Bishara said: “This has become a serious attack on freedom of expression. But it reflects a general atmosphere of zero tolerance of dissent.” Gerlitz, of Sikkuy, said the outburst of violence and incitement was not only provoked by events in Gaza, but reflected deeper trends in Israeli society. There was, he said, growing resentment and fear among Jews at the Palestinian minority’s greater success in integrating into the Israeli economy over the past decade. “Jews think of Arabs as street cleaners or taxi drivers,” he explained. “Now they see they are doctors, pharmacists, teaching in the universities or working in hi-tech. The right wing wants them back in their place, where they were before.” ❑ 17
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Block the Boat, Oakland: A Big Success for BDS SpecialReport
MARINETRAFFIC.COM
By Sara Powell
MarineTraffic.com tracked the evasive maneuvers of the Zim Piraeus on Aug. 20 and 21 as it attempted to outmaneuver protesters at the Port of Oakland (at right) by pretending to leave the port, then circling back. etween Aug. 16 and 20, 2014, five and
Ba half weeks into Israel’s brutal air,
land and sea assault on the Gaza Strip, BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) and social justice activists—along with many people who were simply stunned and horrified by the carnage Israel was wreaking—made history as they organized to “Block the Boat.” Taking a page from the anti-apartheid movement, and utilizing social media, San Francisco Bay area activists began picketing the Port of Oakland to prevent the docking and unloading of the Israeli Zim ship Piraeus. In 1984, the long years of hard work by activists against apartheid in South Africa finally bore fruit. Following the refusal of dockworkers from the ILWU (International Longshore and Warehouse Union) Local 10 to unload South African cargo, American public opinion shifted and official policy changed. In 2010, following Israel’s deadly attack on the Freedom Flotilla carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza, longshoremen refused to unload an Israeli ship at the Port of Oakland. The August 2014 action was in response to decades of punishing occupation Sara Powell is a former director of the AET Book Club. 18
and the attack on Gaza that left thousands dead and injured. The call to picket the Piraeus originally was scheduled for Aug. 2, but postponed until Aug. 16. According to an e-mail, the action was postponed because the ILWU and various Palestine solidarity groups had not been notified. Moreover, the ILWU contract had expired and workers had no contract, meaning anyone who refused to cross the picket line would not be paid. The Aug. 16 picket was scheduled for 5 a.m., but when the Piraeus delayed entering the Oakland port—the first of many evasive actions it took—picketers were told to show up at 3 p.m. Following a rally at the West Oakland BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) station, jointly sponsored by AROC (Arab Resource and Organizing Center) and ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) about 3,000 people set off for the docks. While en route, organizers halted the procession to announce success. The ship had again delayed entering the port due to protests. Nonetheless, the march continued down to the docks, where, amid a heavy police presence, another rally was held, calling for freedom for Palestine and denouncing the police THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
shooting of a young unarmed black man, Mike Brown, in Ferguson, MO. The mood was festive. The next few days of protest were somewhat tense and confused. Conflicting reports of the ship’s location were spread by Zionist sympathizers—trolls, in Internet parlance—who flooded the Block the Boat Twitter feed with disinformation. Nonetheless, websites like MarineTraffic. com provided activists with information on the ship’s movements. The Piraeus finally entered the Port of Oakland on Aug. 17, at 4:46 p.m. local time. Activists were there to form a picket line and keep the ship from unloading—but the logistics were daunting. Dockworkers arrived in three separate shifts, requiring picketers to be present throughout the day and night. Each parking lot had numerous gates to the dock, so every entrance had to be covered. (Since the public is not permitted to go to the docks themselves, it was the parking lot entrances that were picketed.) As the days wore on, the almost constant vigil was hard to maintain. One of the most tense actions happened in the early morning of Monday, Aug. 18—when the only arrests were made. About 20 activists, this writer included, went to the docks in the dark. With so few people there was no way to physically block all the parking lot entrances. Several retired ILWU members who were among the contingent fed us information received from active members about whether they would be penalized for honoring the picket line and which gate to go to. We moved from gate to gate, confronted at each one with a police presence that far outnumbered the activists. A longtime Palestine activist was the first to be arrested. As the police told activists they could not block the roads, Russell Bates sat down. There was one less person to block the multiple gates. Two other activists were arrested. One was released immediately, at the site. The other two were removed and cited. Intelligence from union members informed activists that dockworkers who refused to cross the picket line would not be penalized. Retired members explained that Continued on page 41 OCTOBER 2014
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Understanding ISIS: Frequently Asked Questions SpecialReport
By Dale Sprusansky ince September 2001, Americans have
Sviewed al-Qaeda as the face of global
terror. Accordingly, many have been taken aback by the dramatic rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), a Sunni group more powerful and brutal than alQaeda. In the wake of ISIS’ seemingly rapid ascent to power and renewed U.S. military involvement in the Middle East, many are scrambling to understand the new enemy du jour. Below are some of the most commonly asked questions about ISIS. The information has been compiled from a number of sources, including recent Washington, DC events held by the Palestine Center (Sept. 3), the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy (CSID) (Aug. 28), and Busboys & Poets (Sept. 4). Is there an agreed upon name for the group? No. The group refers to itself as the Islamic State. Those wishing to dismiss the group’s claim to statehood refer to it by a number of names and acronyms. The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, seems to be the preferred name by many in the West (including the Washington Report). However, the U.S. government and some media outlets refer to the group as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL. Others call it the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (Arabic for greater Syria). In the Arab world, the group’s opponents refer to it as Da’ish, a contemptuous term based on the acronym for its Arabic name: al-Dawla al-Islamiya fi Iraq wa al-Sham. When and how was ISIS created? ISIS is the successor to al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). Founded in October 2004, AQI played an instrumental role in the Iraqi insurgency against the U.S. occupation. AQI saw its influence decline in 2007, but began to gain steam in 2010 when Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi took control of the group. In late 2011 Baghdadi sent funds and experienced fighters to neighboring Syria to establish Jabhat alNusra (or the Nusra Front), which quickly came to be recognized as one of the strongest rebel groups battling President Bashar alAssad’s forces. In 2013, Baghdadi unilaterally announced the merger of AQI and the Nusra Front to create one unified organization (ISIS) Dale Sprusansky is assistant editor of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. OCTOBER 2014
no longer affiliated with al-Qaeda. Nusra Front leaders rejected Baghdadi’s power grab and reaffirmed their allegiance to al-Qaeda central. However, a number of Nusra Front fighters defected to ISIS, and the group quickly gained territory and influence. How much territory does ISIS control? ISIS operates freely between its territory in Syria and Iraq, as there is no effective border between the two countries. According to recent estimates, it controls nearly 33 percent of Iraq and 35 percent of Syria. Combined, the group controls territory the size of the UK. It is believed that roughly four million Iraqis and Syrians currently live in ISIS-controlled cities. What are the group’s goals? On June 29, 2014, the group dropped “of Iraq and Syria” from its name and began to refer to itself simply as the Islamic State. It proclaimed a new caliphate and named Baghdadi as the caliph. ISIS has stated that it intends to expand its 7th-century-style caliphate across much of the Middle East and North Africa and has specifically threatened the governments of Jordan, Lebanon (briefly overrunning in August the Lebanese border town of Arsal), Israel and Saudi Arabia, among others. ISIS follows a strict form of Sunni Islam and is intolerant of those who do not subscribe to its ideology, such as Shi’i Muslims, Christians and Yazidis. How do ISIS’ goals differ from those of similar groups, such as al-Qaeda? At the Busboys & Poets event, Phyllis Bennis, a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, explained that ISIS is much more serious about establishing a caliphate than other Islamist groups. “They want to rule now,” she said. Groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood and al-Qaeda, she noted, have spoken of an Islamic state to rally political support, but have never taken practical measures to achieve that goal. Speaking at the CSID event, Georgetown University professor John Esposito noted that ISIS is much more willing to use violence to establish its will and eliminate those who do not agree with its ideology. Citing the group’s brutality, especially its attacks against fellow Muslims, al-Qaeda has denounced ISIS and called on the group to cease its operations in Syria. Where does ISIS get its resources? AcTHE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
cording to multiple news reports, ISIS gets a majority of its money from selling oil on the black market. The Iraq Energy Institute reports that ISIS currently produces about 30,000 barrels per day in Iraq and 50,000 in Syria. Currently working at half capacity, ISIS has the ability to double its output. ISIS is also selling its oil at a dramatic discount, at $25-$65 per barrel, but nonetheless makes an estimated $2 million a day. Who is buying this oil? There are many rumors and accusations, but little proof. At the Busboys & Poets event, Stephen Miles of Win Without War alleged that Turkey is buying oil from ISIS in order to ensure Assad’s demise. “They frankly view ISIS as their bulwark against losing Syria to Assad,” he said. Though denied by Ankara, several outlets have reported that ISIS smuggles its oil to markets in southern Turkey. Other news reports allege that Kurdish traders are purchasing oil from ISIS and shipping it to Pakistan at a discounted rate. Raed Jarrar, policy impact coordinator at American Friends Service Committee (who spoke at the Palestine Center event) and Bennis additionally accuse the Syrian government of purchasing ISIS oil. “They’re powerful because they don’t operate alone,” Bennis said of ISIS. In addition to oil, ISIS receives money from foreign supporters, ransoms, the collection of taxes and even the sale of antiquities. Most of the group’s private donors are wealthy individuals from Gulf countries, said Michele Dunne of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace at the CSID event, who hope their money will spread a more extreme interpretation of Islam and help ISIS defeat Assad, thus dealing a blow to Iran’s regional ambitions. Bennis said the Gulf countries almost certainly know who is channeling money to ISIS but refuse to clamp down on these individuals due to complicated domestic politics. It has been well documented that ISIS has seized a significant number of American weapons from the Iraqi army and Syrian rebels. The group has also taken advantage of the open border between Turkey and Syria to smuggle fighters, weapons and other supplies for its war efforts. Recent reports suggest that Turkey is beginning to tighten its border in an effort to squeeze ISIS. 19
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Why are people choosing to fight for ISIS? According to Esposito, most individuals who decide to fight for ISIS are not particularly religious. He cited a recent study that showed those with well-established religious identities are less inclined toward radicalism. Indeed, Esposito noted, Islam for Dummies and the Qur’an for Dummies are two popular books that young men purchase before joining ISIS. Rather than religion, Esposito said, it is social and political grievances that radicalize individuals. Indeed, he pointed out, in most beheading videos, ISIS jihadists do not speak at length about religion, but rather express moral outrage, or indicate a lack of belonging or purpose in life. Miles noted that there is also an economic incentive to join ISIS: they are the highest paying militia in Syria. It has been reported that ISIS pays its fighters $400 a month. Why are Iraqis and Syrians not fighting back against ISIS? There is no single reason. Many blame former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his highly sectarian Shi’i-majority government. After feeling neglected and abused by Baghdad for much of the past decade, Sunnis in cities such as Mosul and Tikrit “accepted ISIS with open arms initially,” and viewed the group as liberators, according to Iraqi-American activist Yasir Shallal, who spoke at Busboys & Poets. Many Sunni Iraqis “had had enough of an army that abused them, humiliated them, and basically ran amok,” he explained. While ISIS’ human rights abuses are well known, those committed by the Iraqi army and militias affiliated with Baghdad are not, Jarrar pointed out. International human rights organizations have documented multiple war crimes committed by the Iraqi army, such as indiscriminate bombing, he noted, while governmentbacked militias killed 70 Sunnis praying in a Diyala province mosque in August, for example. Similar accusations have been leveled against the Kurdish Peshmerga fighting force, he noted. “There are no good guys left,” Jarrar warned. Bennis noted that some of Saddam Hussain’s former generals have assisted ISIS hoping that they could piggyback on the group’s success and ultimately gain control. Disenchanted since the U.S.-imposed de-Baathification of Saddam’s army, Bennis explained, “They’re angry enough after so many years that they’re willing to fight with anybody.” At the CSID event, Brookings Institution Saban Center fellow Shadi Hamid noted that ISIS has been more effective than the Iraqi and Syrian governments in administering and providing basic services. While 20
most disapprove of its strict laws, he said, people at least appreciate that ISIS makes its red lines clear and offers consistent punishments. This differs drastically from most governments in the region, Hamid noted, which often act indiscriminately and thus leave their populations in constant fear. Despite their initial approval, Shallal said, most Sunnis are now turning on ISIS. “It took no more than a month for them to realize this is not really the kind of crowd they want to hang out with,” he said. Many residents of Mosul and Tikrit are now under self-imposed house arrest, he said, “waiting for the next liberation effort to take place.” Shallal described ISIS as a “parasite organization” that has latched on to the legitimate grievances of the Iraqi people, “feeding off the discontent among the populace.” Why did the U.S. launch airstrikes against ISIS? On Aug. 8, President Barack Obama, citing an impending genocide against the Yazidis on Mount Sinjar and the threat to Erbil, the capital of Kurdistan, announced that the U.S. would begin airstrikes against ISIS in Iraq. President Obama used the “g-word” too loosely when describing the Yazidis, Jarrar said, noting that U.S. special forces who landed on Mount Sinjar determined the situation was not as bad as previously stated. At the Palestine Center, Iraq analyst and commentator Sami Albanna expressed his belief that the president exaggerated the plight of the Yazidis in order to legitimize efforts to protect the U.S.-aligned Erbil. “The real fundamental reason is that Da’ish forces penetrated Erbil,” he said. Bennis warned that the U.S. taking action to save specific groups—the Kurds and the Yazidis—has helped spread the long-existing belief that the U.S. is indifferent to the suffering of Iraq’s Sunnis. Furthermore, she warned, bombing ISIS would not help defeat the group. “You can’t bomb your way out of extremism,” she cautioned. Within several days of launching its “humanitarian” mission, the U.S. turned its attention to the ISIS-controlled Mosul Dam, Iraq’s largest. How should the U.S. respond to ISIS? Needless to say, opinions vary widely. Speaking at the Palestine Center, Adil Shamoo, an associate fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, said he believes it’s “commendable” that the U.S. wants to assist those oppressed by ISIS, but warned that bombing the group would help it gain new recruits. Jarrar was less gracious to Washington. The U.S. has been involved militarily in Iraq since 1991 and needs to stop viewing itself as a bystander to the THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
conflict, he argued. Most of the problems facing Iraq are a direct result of U.S. actions, Jarrar reminded the audience. ISIS is “desperately trying to provoke this fight with the U.S.,” Miles warned. “We have to allow ourselves not to react violently to these kind of provocations [such as the beheading of American journalists].” Several speakers emphasized that the underlying regional issues that gave rise to ISIS and other terrorist groups must be addressed if the U.S. is serious about defeating terrorism. Esposito suggested Washington reconsider its entire Middle East strategy and make its allies—most notably Israel and those in the Gulf—responsible for their actions. However, he added, “I don’t think there’s the will to do that.” Esposito said the U.S. also must work to address the basic grievances of the people of the region—the presence of foreign troops on the ground, U.S. and Western support for repressive regimes and Israel’s ongoing occupation of Palestine—as these issues “alienate significant sectors of Muslim democrats.” Ultimately, Esposito believes the primary responsibility for defeating ISIS lies with the people and governments of the region. Bennis stressed the importance of regional diplomacy—including U.S. engagement with Iran on the issue. (According to the BBC, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has authorized his top commander to coordinate military operations with the U.S.) Questioning talk of a moderate Syrian opposition, she warned that it would be unwise for the U.S. to rely on Syrian rebel groups with questionable backgrounds. Miles added that until the Syrian civil war is resolved, no amount of outside military action can defeat terrorism. Speaking at the CSID event, Brookings colleagues Michael O’Hanlon and Hamid supported a more aggressive international response. “We need to be ready to step up airstrikes,” O’Hanlon argued, suggesting that Washington send U.S. special forces to Iraq to train Iraqi special forces units for an eventual surge against ISIS. He estimated that such an operation would require sending 5,000 to 10,000 U.S. troops to Iraq. O’Hanlon also approved of the administration’s recent decision to send $500 million to “moderate” Syrian opposition groups. Hamid said $500 million is a good start, but if the U.S. is serious about defeating ISIS, it will have to spend much more money. He added that it’s time for the U.S. to get serious about supporting the Syrian opposition. The U.S., he concluded, must develop a cohesive plan for defeating ISIS. As others have pointed out, of course, ISIS is part of the Syrian opposition. ❑ OCTOBER 2014
hanley_21_Special Report 9/11/14 2:50 PM Page 21
From Ferguson to Palestine: “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot!” SpecialReport
By Delinda C. Hanley itnesses say Michael Brown, an un-
Delinda C. Hanley is news editor of the Washington Report. OCTOBER 2014
ABOVE: Ferguson, Missouri police respond to protests with tear gas and rubber bullets on Aug. 11. RIGHT: Israeli soldiers detain Palestinians in Ramallah during a Sept. 5 protest against a massive new land grab in the West Bank. you was probably tested on us first by Israel. No worries, Stay Strong.” Love #Palestine. Sadly, Palestinians were right about the armaments endangering both populations. Since 2006, the Pentagon’s military surplus program has transfered $4.3 billion worth of military gear—including armored vehicles, planes, machine guns, mine-resistant armored trucks, riot gear, night-vision equipment and tear gas—to local and state police departments across the U.S. It turns out that during the height of Israel’s recent attacks on Gaza, its Defense Ministry struck a deal with friends on Capitol Hill and at the Pentagon to use a special stockpile of U.S. military hardware already stashed in Israel. So as the State Department and White House warned Israel to stop using heavy-handed battlefield tactics, the U.S. was supplying illuminating tank rounds, mortar shells and equipment worth between $1 billion and $1.2 billion. It was likely an American shell that struck a U.N. school in Jabaliya, sheltering 3,000 people THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
ABBAS MOMANI/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
can, was shot to death by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson on Aug. 9 after raising his hands and surrendering. The following night a candlelight vigil turned violent and local police responded by sending in dogs and riot squads. Every day it got worse—Americans were horrified to see images of armored vehicles and SWAT teams firing tear gas and rubber bullets at protesters in Ferguson. “Hands up, don’t shoot,” has become a slogan of moral outrage and what it means to be African American—just as Palestinian protesters shout,“No justice, no peace.” The symbol for surrender is now shorthand to protest a long history of police brutality against blacks in American cities. “When their hands are up, you don’t shoot,” the Rev. Al Sharpton told an anguished crowd in Ferguson on Aug. 19. “If you’re angry, throw your arms up. If you want justice, throw your arms up. If you want answers, throw your arms up.” It just so happened that while Missouri protesters faced police in helmets and armored vehicles, Palestinians in Gaza were enduring Israel’s latest attack, “Operation Protective Edge.” Israeli troops and tanks spilled onto Gaza’s impoverished streets as war planes unleashed massive firepower. Protesters in Missouri yelled at police, “You gonna shoot us? Is this the Gaza Strip?” They were right to be concerned. Thousands of U.S. law enforcement officers have trained in Israel or attended Israeli government-sponsored conferences to learn how Israel’s police and security forces prevent “terror attacks.” (Two law enforcement agencies deployed in Ferguson took courses in Israel, according to the Anti-Defamation League.) Israel can teach many lessons on how to dehumanize neighbors and crush dissent. Palestinians sent solidarity messages to Ferguson protesters and tweeted advice on how to deal with tear gas. #Ferguson: “Always make sure to run against the wind/to keep calm when you’re teargassed, the pain will pass, don’t rub your eyes,” #Palestine. Or #Ferguson: “The Tear Gas used against
SCOTT OLSON/GETTY IMAGES
Warmed 18-year-old African Ameri-
on July 30. Since then, according to The Wall Street Journal, the Obama administration has tightened its control on arms transfers to Israel. It’s decided to require White House and State Department approval for even routine munitions requests by Israel. Israel is growing more racist by the day. African refugees are called “infiltrators” or “a cancer in our body” and attacked when they protest on the streets of Tel Aviv. Israel’s racist treatment of Palestinians is well-documented (see pp. 14 and 16). Civilians under occupation are shot, arrested and imprisoned without charge. Their land, businesses and homes are confiscated, bombed or bulldozed. They are denied their human rights, including access to clean water, food, health care, jobs or education. African Americans living in cities like Ferguson and Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza have a lot in common. It’s time for all Americans to say, “Hands up, don’t shoot,” and shame Israelis and Americans who target innocent civilians. q 21
williams_22-23_United Nations Report 9/11/14 4:16 PM Page 22
Will Palestine Transcend Western Pressure And Join the International Criminal Court?
United Nations Report
HAZEM BADER/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
By Ian Williams
Palestinians carry placards, some demanding that Israel be referred to the International Criminal Court (ICC), during an Aug. 1 protest in Hebron against Israel’s assault on Gaza. he Palestinians consider the U.N. to be
Tindispensable for their efforts, but,
like many others, can see it is all too fallible. In the real world of politics, at every level, people have to make compromises. In the face of ubiquitous Israel lobby pressure we see good men and women fall among thieves. Progressive, humanitarian candidates for office do not think they can even begin an electoral race without a pledge of allegiance to a faraway Eastern Mediterranean state that has never once fought by America’s side in any of its wars, takes no notice of U.S. government policy, and yet is the beneficiary of automatic and reflexive diplomatic and military support. Even so, the U.S. State Department does manage to hold on to some policies and principles, if only to whisper in the deepest janitor’s closet in the basement. It has managed to thwart the transfer of the U.S. Embassy to occupied Jerusalem, and has yet to accept the disputed status, let alone Ian Williams is a free-lance journalist based at the United Nations who blogs at <www. deadlinepundit.blogspot.com>. 22
the legality, of the occupation of the territories, let alone of the settlements. So while there was some shock at reports that Ban Ki-moon had colluded with Israel over the terms of a report on Gaza, the U.N. has at no time stinted in condemning the Israeli assault on Gaza, nor indeed on the illegality of settlement activity. Even British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond issued a strong statement on the Israeli confiscation of another 1,000 acres of farmland near Bethlehem. “This is a particularly ill-judged decision that comes at a time when the priority must be to build on the cease-fire in Gaza. It will do serious damage to Israel’s standing in the international community,” he declared, adding with equal clarity, “Our position on settlements is clear: they are illegal under international law, present an obstacle to peace and take us further away from a two-state solution at a time when negotiations to achieve this objective urgently need to be resumed.” However, all such general statements must be considered in the light of the staunch refusal of the international community to take action against Israeli crimes THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
and the pervasive influence of an Israelcentric view in the media. One has only to compare the characterization of the disappearance of an Israeli officer engaged in hostile military operations in Gaza as “kidnapping” with the relative silence about Israel’s “arrests” of dozens of formerly released Palestinian prisoners. No one called that kidnapping, let alone hostage taking, although it clearly was. Under these circumstances, semantics becomes a potent political and diplomatic force. As we go to press U.S. permanent representative to the U.N. Samantha Power was convening a Security Council summit for Sept. 25 on the “growing and dangerous phenomenon” of foreign “terrorist” fighters. Good luck with that. As we know, for years the world’s best diplomatic brains have been working on a definition of “terrorism” which excludes the actions of their friends, but condemns the deeds of enemies. So it has to condemn assassinations by opposition political groups, but exclude drone strikes on individuals condemned behind closed doors by American officials. It must vilify inaccurate and ineffective missile strikes by Hamas, but condone Israeli rocket strikes that blow up entire apartment buildings in Gaza. Lots of Americans went to fight as trainers and supporters of governments and rebels alike across Central America, where they were accessories to unspeakable crimes. We are rightly shocked when ISIS beheads people. But friendly governments in the region also behead people and, unless they have the bad taste to decapitate our citizens, we tend to keep quiet about it. In fact, the whole issue of terrorism is a politically loaded red herring. It is the crime itself, not the allegiance of the criminal, which is wrong—let alone whether the criminal involved has the tacit sanction of the government involved, and whether that government is an ally or not. Possibly the best weapon against such behavior has been the International Criminal Court, whose mandate is non-political. War crimes and crimes against humanity are its remit. Which is, of course, why some of the most notorious practitioners and accomplices in such crimes so far have OCTOBER 2014
williams_22-23_United Nations Report 9/11/14 4:16 PM Page 23
avoided ratifying the treaty setting up the court. China, Cuba, Russia and the U.S., not to mention Syria, Israel, Iran and Iraq, are among the holdouts. Baghdad was going to sign, but came under heavy pressure from Washington to change its mind—perhaps because U.S. forces operating in Iraq would have been open to prosecution. Rumor around the U.N. suggests that Lebanon succumbed to similar pressures—because Israelis committing crimes on Lebanese soil (there have been credible suggestions that this has happened) would be vulnerable to prosecution. Sadly, the most obvious hold out is Palestine—all the odder because the campaign for statehood was largely justified because it would allow Palestine to sign just such international conventions. The Palestinian National Authority had declared on Jan. 21, 2009 that it accepted the Court’s jurisdiction for “acts committed on the territory of Palestine since July 1, 2002.” However, in April 2012 ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo, under heavy scrutiny or pressure, deemed the declaration invalid because the Rome Statute allows only sovereign states to adhere, and Palestine was only an “observer entity” in the U.N. Partially in response to that, on Nov. 29, 2012 the General Assembly recognized Palestine as a nonmember observer state. However, in November 2013 current Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said that the change did not retroactively validate the previously invalid 2009 declaration, but that Palestine could indeed now apply again, successfully. Stung by accusations in newspapers like Britain’s Guardian, Bensouda set the record straight, and threw the ball back to the Palestinian Authority and Abbas. “My office examined the legal implications of this development and concluded that while this change did not retroactively validate the previously invalid 2009 declaration, Palestine could now join the Rome Statute.” She wrote that Palestine’s signature on other international treaties since obtaining this “observer state” status confirms the decision. However, she added coyly, “Nonetheless, to date, the statute is not one of OCTOBER 2014
the treaties that Palestine has decided to accede to, nor has it lodged a new declaration following the November 2012 General Assembly resolution. It is a matter of public record that Palestinian leaders are in the process of consulting internally on whether to do so; the decision is theirs alone and as ICC prosecutor, I cannot make it for them.” One can feel some sympathy for Mahmoud Abbas here. There is almost certainly universal pressure from Europeans, Americans, and of course Israelis, all of whom have discreetly suggested financial penalties. If the purpose of having a state is to pay off your political cronies and feed the forces who keep you in power, then it would not make sense to risk alienating the paymasters. But the very fact that Israel and its protectors fear the move so much should impel a prompt signature on the treaty to ensure that Netanyahu at least faces the prospect of being indicted like Slobodan Milosevic, Ratko Mladic, Charles Taylor and other war criminals. More than most other countries’, Israel’s international lawyers are well aware of the legal implications of their actions and the cumulative effect of interna(Advertisement)
THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
tional tribunals and investigations—but so far they are also aware of the practical impunity offered by European and American reluctance to take action. The power of investigation was revealed by the Israel lobby’s strenuous efforts to vilify Richard Goldstone and the ferocious pressures they put on him personally to persuade him to backtrack afterward. His silence this time around is eloquent of his abdication from international justice. However, the investigation commissioned by the U.N. Human Rights Council is unlikely to have the same effect as the “Goldstone” Commission. Its three appointed members, Judge Mary McGowan Davis (United States), Doudou Diène (Senegal) and William Schabas (Canada), while worthy, do not have the name recognition that Richard Goldstone had. They might not be under the same pressure—although Schabas, as chair, would do well to look over his shoulder often in Harper’s Canada. This brings us back to the “terrorism” equation. It appears that the working definition of “terrorism” is what is done by enemies of Israel and the United States and condemned by the Security Council, where the U.S. has a veto. However, the ICC can investigate and prosecute crimes no matter who perpetrates them. Indeed, it is under heavy global public scrutiny to avoid succumbing to Western prejudices on this matter. Iraq probably would be willing to adhere to the treaty, which would at least render ISIS’ action there open to scrutiny and prosecution. Maybe it’s time for calling bluffs: If the U.S. ratified the ICC treaties it could put pressure on Russia to allow the Security Council to refer Syria to the Court. At the very least, it would remove a valid and potent objection. There is plenty of blame to go around for the growing chaos in the Middle East, but Washington’s spectacular ineptitude and inability to shake off the yoke of AIPAC on its foreign policy certainly inhibit any attempts at a constructive U.S. role in repairing the damage and restoring sanity to the region—which in turn prevents the U.N. from playing the unique, and indeed indispensable, role it has in rescuing the region. ❑ 23
gee_24_Islam and the Near East in the Far East 9/10/14 7:07 PM Page 24
The Ottoman Empire and World War I: It Could All Have Been Very Different…
Islam and the Near East in theFar East
WWW.ALJAZEERA.COM
By John Gee
The secret Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916 divided much of the post-World War I Middle East between victors France and Great Britain. hen ISIS, the extreme Salafist group,
Wseized control of most of northern
Iraq in June, it announced that it was changing its name to the Islamic State, dropping “in Iraq and the Levant,” and defined its territory as the lands it currently held in both Iraq and Syria, regardless of internationally recognized borders. At the same time, it issued a video titled “End of Sykes-Picot” to signal that, as far as it was concerned, colonial-era borders were to be dissolved. “Sykes-Picot” alludes to the secret 1916 agreement negotiated between Sir Mark Sykes and Georges Picot, officials representing Britain and France, respectively, and subsequently ratified by their governments. Under the agreement’s terms, the Ottoman Empire would be partitioned and the great majority of its Arab territories divided between Britain and France. France would take Syria (including present-day Lebanon); Britain would take Palestine, Transjordan and Iraq. With its territorial claims accepted by France, the British government went on to John Gee is a free-lance journalist based in Singapore, and the author of Unequal Conflict: The Palestinians and Israel. 24
issue the Balfour Declaration on Nov. 2 of the the following year, stating that it “views with favor” the establishment of a “Jewish National Home” in Palestine. Indeed, under British rule, Zionist colonization was enabled to reach a point at which the establishment of the state of Israel became possible. The history of the last century would certainly have been very different if neither the Sykes-Picot agreement nor the Balfour Declaration had existed. And they would not have, had the Ottoman Empire refrained from entering the First World War on what turned out to be the losing side, for both were the outcome of Allied deliberations on what would be done with the territories of enemy powers in the event of victory. When the war broke out, it was not certain that the Ottoman Empire would take part. Perhaps the odds were in favor of it doing so, but it wasn’t inevitable. In 1914, it had just lost the last of its European territories (save for the area around Constantinople/Istanbul that remain part of Turkey) in the 1912-13 Balkan Wars. Its people, in general, did not want to become involved in another war any time soon, particularly one in which they did not seem to have any vital interest. However, within THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
the army, there was a strongly pro-German element, and it was in a powerful position. In 1908, the Young Turk revolution brought about the downfall of the autocratic regime of Sultan Abdul Hamid II and opened a period of reform. A vital role in the revolution and subsequent struggles with the Ottoman old guard was played by the army, and in particular, officers who were members of the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP). Germany had built ties with the Ottoman military from 1882, when a German military mission had gone to Constantinople to train and develop the Ottoman army. Consequently, many young officers had a positive impression of Germany. From June 1913, a triumvirate of these officers exercised virtual dictatorship in the Ottoman Empire, even though, formally, a government existed under the Sultan’s Grand Vizier. Enver Pasha, the most influential of the three, had served as a military attaché in Berlin and was the most pro-German of them. From Aug. 2, 1914, only six days after the outbreak of the First World War, he negotiated with the German ambassador in Constantinople for his country’s cooperation with Germany in the war. Britain and France, by comparison, were at a disadvantage. Their influence before the war had been more limited than Germany’s—and, crucially, they had entered the war as allies of Russia, regarded by most Turks as their archenemy. British blunders only made matters worse. The Ottoman Empire wished to develop a modern navy and had ordered two up-todate warships from British shipyards. After war broke out, the British government decided to take over the ships and incorporate them into its own navy. It offered compensation to the Ottoman government, but that was not enough to assuage the anger many Turks felt at the British action. Germany responded imaginatively and quickly. Two of its own ships, the battle cruiser Goeben and light cruiser Breslau, were in the Mediterranean when war broke out. They evaded Allied ships sent to hunt them down and made for Istanbul, where they were formally handed over to the Ottoman Empire as replacements for Continued on page 26 OCTOBER 2014
drake_25-26_Special Report 9/10/14 7:08 PM Page 25
The Barton-Howe “Report” and the Middle East, Past and Present SpecialReport
By Richard Drake rom the beginning of America’s direct
Fstrategic involvement in the Middle East,
immediately following World War I, cogent advice abounded about how the region should be treated. Col. Edward M. House, the close friend and adviser to President Woodrow Wilson, warned that a peace based on the old game of Western imperialism, however artfully disguised rhetorically, would make the Middle East a breeding place for future war. Col. T.E. Lawrence (“of Arabia”) and Gertrude Bell, two of the most informed Middle East experts at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, made the same argument, adding that the Arabs would have to be taken into account in the new dispensation, or there could never be peace. Why their cogent advice and that of many others in the fateful postwar era should have lost out to the policies and strategies that carried the day in the Middle East down to our own time constitutes an historical problem about what, if not cogency, determines policy in foreign affairs. The King-Crane Report of 1919, the most famous document of the postwar era to address Middle East issues (see June/July 2014 Washington Report, p. 18), prophetically warned about permanent war and chaos in the region if the victors at the peace conference ignored the national aspirations of the Arabs. Earlier that year, Wilson had attempted to send another team of investigators to the Middle East, to be led by James L. Barton, a former missionary in Turkey and the head of post-war Near East Relief, and Frederic C. Howe, a former student of the president and a leading progressive reformer of the preWorld War I era. Barton and Howe were supposed to meet in Constantinople and then proceed to Syria and Asia Minor. Their report, however, never materialized. Howe fell ill in Brindisi, Italy, on his way to their rendezvous. Sick and discouraged, he returned to Paris. Barton did not undertake any commission-related investigation on his own. Yet the unsuccessful Barton-Howe Commission had an important afterlife in the Richard Drake is a professor of history at the University of Montana. His most recent book is The Education of an Anti-Imperialist: Robert La Follette and U.S. Expansion (University of Wisconsin Press, 2013). OCTOBER 2014
writings of the two principals. Their reflections on the post-war experiences that they had in connection with the Middle East constitute an important part of the historical record for the background of today’s worsening crises in the region. Unlike the intellectually and politically compatible King and Crane, Barton and Howe held sharply contrasting views about what then was taking place in the Middle East. The imagination falters in trying to envisage any element of agreement that might have emerged in a report written by the two of them. Individually, however, they subsequently made observations about the Middle East important for understanding the first causes of today’s tragedy in the region.
ogent advice lost out to C the policies and strategies that carried the day. Fresh from six months of travel there, Barton in 1920 contributed a largely autobiographical essay to William H. Hall’s The Near East Crossroads of the World. He had nothing at all to say about the two most important post-war Middle East issues, oil and Zionism. Instead, he focused on the manifold glories of Britain’s imperialist record “in organizing, training, and controlling native alien populations.” The British had an enviable record of success in ruling both African and Asiatic peoples. Their achievements as colonial masters made Britain his second choice among all the countries under consideration as the League of Nations mandatory power in the Middle East following the demise of the Ottoman Empire. First place in Barton’s rankings went easily to the United States. On this point, he cited the King-Crane Report, which he praised for its “most painstaking investigation.” King and Crane thought that, ideally, Wilson’s principle about the self-determination of peoples should be the rule for deciding the fate of the Arabs. Having seen enough of the realpolitik of the Paris Peace Conference to understand that an imperialist obsession with territories, markets and resources would trump all ideals about the self-determination of peoples, the commissioners fell back to the American option as the best practical answer to the question THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
of which nation should serve as the mandatory power in the Middle East. Barton, however, viewed the American mandate as the ideal solution for the Arabs. The rival and contending groups in the region, he wrote, “seem to be agreed that America is their friend, has no desire for annexations or permanent control, and no ulterior motives except to serve the people, to secure for them safety, justice, and prosperity, and put them upon the high road to self-government. Their love and confidence in the United States is almost pathetic.” The historical process by which the love and confidence of the Arabs were lost to the American people constitutes the prologue to our present dilemmas in the Middle East. In his 1925 memoir, Confessions of a Reformer, Howe presented a very different assessment of the United States and the Middle East in the postwar period. Indeed, the book is a study of his loss of faith in the progressive political creed. Howe had believed in the power of government to do good for the people and had devoted his life to the exercise of that belief. The Paris Peace Conference, however, shocked him into an awareness of what governments actually did. In Paris he claimed to have discovered the deepest and truest secret about politics—all politics, foreign and domestic, past and present: “The world was ruled by an exploiting class that ruled in the interest of the things it owned.” There really was nothing more complicated about politics and foreign policy than that. Howe had come to Paris still hoping for the triumph of Wilsonian idealism, but the treaty mocked the anti-militarist and antiimperialist values in Wilson’s Fourteen Points. Contrary to various legends about the Paris Peace Conference, the United States had failed to make a valiant fight against the rapacity and cupidity alleged to be peculiarly Old World vices. Howe continued to treat Wilson himself with respect and affection, but “a thousand cross-currents confused and exhausted him,” not all of them coming from the Europeans. New York and Washington contributed as well to his undoing. In Paris, “Our State Department was thinking in terms of oil in Mesopotamia, of oil in Mexico, of gold and railroads in Haiti and Santo Domingo.” American elites conformed to the rule of im25
drake_25-26_Special Report 9/10/14 7:08 PM Page 26
perialist exploitation, when they did not exceed it. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I had seen the government at close range with its mask off,â&#x20AC;? Howe declared; â&#x20AC;&#x153;it existed for itself and the hidden men behind it, as the realists in Paris had said.â&#x20AC;? Of all the lands bartered, sold and soldout at the peace conference, those in the Middle East best justified a feeling of pessimism about the future of peace in the world, according to Howe. He had been an avid student of Middle East affairs ever since his student days at the University of Munich, where he had learned how important the resources of the region were for German industrial might. The BaghdadBerlin Railway had been a major source of discord between Germany and Britain. Their competition in the Middle East seemed to him a prime example of how imperialist rivalries had led to the Great War. Serving unofficially on the American Peace Commission, Howe urged Wilson to treat the issues in the Middle East with extreme care. When the president asked him to undertake a Middle East assignment with Barton, Howe prepared for his trip by studying the secret treaties the Allies had drawn up among themselves as a blueprint for the distribution of spoils at warâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s end. He finished his study of these documents, all utterly destitute of any references to peace or democracy or anti-militarismâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;or to anything non-vendibleâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; firm in the conviction that they contained the fundamental explanation about why the war had been fought: to give the Allies, Britain chief among them, economic control of the world. The Middle East took precedence over all the other places on earth as the centerpiece of the plans not merely outlined in the secret treaties, but lavishly, most tellingly illustrated in them. Howe thought that two documents in particular, both pillars of the post-war establishment in the Middle East, defined the realpolitik limits of the future for the Arabs: the Sykes-Picot Agreement (1916) and the Balfour Declaration (1917), both of which had the effect of arranging land transfers from the Ottoman Empire in flagrant violation of Wilsonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s self-determination-of-peoples principle. He noted the essential points of the new order in the Middle East: â&#x20AC;&#x153;France took Syria, England Mesopotamia. Palestine went to the Jews.â&#x20AC;? The Arabs received nothing. One legacy of the decisions taken at the Paris Peace Conference is on appalling display today in Gaza, which illustrates the continuity and discontinuity of Middle East history. Howeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s insights account for the continuity of Arab exploitation and 26
degradation at the hands of the triumphant imperialist forces in 1919. The almost pathetic Arab love for and confidence in the United States, as reported by Barton, vanished long ago and became its opposite, for reasons exemplified by the Gaza tragedy. In that stricken place, though not for the first time, the star-crossed Palestinian people have found in the United States the ultimate source of their national tragedy. Without the support of its American ally, Israel would lack the military, economic and diplomatic resources needed to maintain its cruel and scandalous occupation of Palestinian territories. The morally bankrupt blockade of Gaza and now Israelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s wanton murder of civilians there could be stopped by a stern word from Washington, if that place were capable of uttering one that seriously presaged an agonizing reappraisal of relations with Tel Aviv. The formerly weak American market for ideas promoting the respectful treatment of the Arabs now, in the wake of the unanimous Senate vote in effect supporting the terror bombardment of defenseless Palestinian civilians, achieves the condition of absolute nullity. q
Ottoman Empireâ&#x20AC;Ś Continued from page 24
the British-built ships. Their crews donned fezzes and ran up the Ottoman flag. As an inducement for the Ottoman Empire to enter the war, Germany said that it would, at the very least, recover control over Egyptâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;nominally still a part of the empire, but in reality under British domination. At the end of October, even while the Ottoman government under the Grand Vizier was still discussing what it should do, the CUP triumvirate and Germans took matters into their own hands and sent ships to bombard the Russian ports of Feodosia and Odessa. The empire formally declared war on the allies on Nov. 1. Defeat in 1918 meant that the Sykes-Picot agreement was implemented, at least in the Arab areas of the empire, and that the Balfour Declaration could be as well. Had Germany and its allies won, or the Ottoman Empire stayed out of the war, Arab nationalism would probably still have brought about the eventual secession of the Arab areas of the empire, but perhaps as a single state. There would also have been no State of Israel. While the Ottoman Empire tolerated the creation of some Zionist colonies, it would not allow the foundations of a Jewish state to be established through largescale immigration and land acquisition: the existing colonies might well have simply beTHE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
come an accepted and integrated part of the landscape of Palestine, given time. Among the main casualties of the empireâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s intervention in the war were the Armenians of Anatolia. In 1915, fearful that they would support Russian forces advancing from the Caucasus, the authorities unleashed a campaign of deportation, starvation and killing that obliterated the Armenian presence across most of its historic homeland. In the aftermath of the war, as a new Turkey emerged under Mustafa Kemalâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s leadership, both the sultanate and the caliphate were abolished; while Turkish nationalists had striven to salvage an independent and viable state from the ruins of the empire, the Ottoman authorities in Istanbul had opposed them, making subsequent coexistence impossible. This too, would not have happened if the Ottoman Empire had stayed out of the war. Instead, the Turkish state might have evolved into a constitutional monarchy, with an Ottoman sultan who also held the title of Caliph, making redundant all recent talk of re-establishing the Caliphate. The rash decision to bring the Ottoman Empire into the First World War has certainly had enduring consequences that those who took it never imagined, and which still haunt us. q (Advertisement)
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Miko Peled
Israeli peace activist; author of "The General's Son"
Kristin Szremski Mohammad Zeyara Abdul Mawgoud Dardery Sana Said Sheikh Zaid Shakir Rafeeq Jaber Dr. Manal Fakhoury Mohammed Abbasi Sheikh Kifah Mustapha Sheikh Amine Al-Ali
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ELECTION WATCH
By Janet McMahon
The Lobby Doesn’t Care if the Senate Stays Democratic or Goes Republican—as Long as It’s Pro-Israel TOP TEN 2014 AND CAREER RECIPIENTS OF PRO-ISRAEL PAC FUNDS Compiled by Hugh Galford HOUSE: CURRENT RACES Royce, Edward R. (R-CA) Engel, Eliot L. (D-NY) Boehner, John A. (R-OH) Deutch, Theodore E. (D-FL) Hoyer, Steny H. (D-MD) Schneider, Bradley S. (D-IL) Lowey, Nita M. (D-NY) Cantor, Eric (R-VA) Granger, Kay (R-TX) Ros-Lehtinen, Ileana (R-FL) House: Career Totals
SENATE: CURRENT RACES $43,450 31,500 28,700 25,500 21,000 19,500 18,150 17,875 17,500 17,500
Begich, Mark (D-AK) McConnell, Mitch (R-KY) Udall, Mark E. (D-CO) Hagan, Kay R. (D-NC) Shaheen, Jeanne (D-NH) Graham, Lindsey O. (R-SC) Landrieu, Mary L. (D-LA) Franken, Al (DFL-MN) Risch, James E. (R-ID) Booker, Cory A. (D-NJ)
$61,798 58,000 58,000 54,300 47,000 45,000 44,829 41,000 38,500 36,500
Senate: Career Totals
Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, who is not even up for re-election this year!), along with open seat candidates in five states (see the August 2014 Washington Report, p. 34, for an overview of the South Dakota race). The Israel lobby also enjoys— and promotes—a reputation for being formidable, if not invincible. However, FiveThirtyEight.com projects Republican victories in all six key Senate races, the closest being Colorado and Iowa. Stay tuned to see how much money proIsrael PACs pour into these states between now and Nov. 4, and whether that money brings the desired result.
Strange Bedfellows?
What does the Israel lobby and the ultraconservative Koch brothers Engel, Eliot L. (D-NY) $340,918 Levin, Carl (D-MI) $729,937 have in common? Why, they’re supRos-Lehtinen, Ileana (R-FL) 291,240 McConnell, Mitch (R-KY) 556,141 porting some of the same candiHoyer, Steny H. (D-MD) 288,025 Harkin, Thomas R. (D-IA) 552,950 dates for U.S. Senate! The most Cantor, Eric (R-VA) 242,605 Durbin, Richard J. (D-IL) 395,421 prominant one being Senate MinorLowey, Nita M. (D-NY) 221,388 Reid, Harry (D-NV) 394,001 ity Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Pelosi, Nancy (D-CA) 149,150 Wyden, Ronald L. (D-OR) 349,462 who hopes to wake up one day next Levin, Sander M. (D-MI) 134,827 Kirk, Mark S. (R-IL) 342,386 January as Senate majority leader Boehner, John A. (R-OH) 129,200 Boxer, Barbara (D-CA) 279,044 (as well as the top career recipient Andrews, Robert E. (D-NJ) 112,025 Landrieu, Mary L. (D-LA) 252,718 of pro-Israel PAC money). McCrowley, Joseph (D-NY) 109,457 Rockefeller, John D. IV (D-WV) 235,700 Connell spoke at Charles and David Koch’s annual summer seminar— ith the House of Representatives be decided in Alaska, Arkansas, Col- described by The Nation as a “highly seexpected to retain its Republican orado, Iowa, Louisiana and North Car- cretive mega-donor conference,” the goal majority—currently 234 seats to Democ- olina. Republicans must win at least half of which was “to raise $500 million to rats’ 201—all eyes are on the Senate to see of these races.” Because pro-Israel PACs take the Senate in the 2014 midterms and if Democrats can hold on to their 8-seat are supporting the Democratic candidates another $500 million ‘to make sure majority (10 seats if one counts Indepen- in those states—five incumbents and Hillary Clinton is never president.’” Also in attendance at the mid-June dant Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Iowa’s Bruce Braley, who is running for Angus King of Maine, who typically cau- Tom Harkin’s open seat—one might con- confab at the opulent St. Regis Monarch cus with the Democrats). As of early Sep- clude that the Israel lobby prefers a De- Bay Resort in Dana Point, CA were Senate tember, however, the website FiveThirty mocratic Senate, which might more challengers Tom Cotton (R-AR) and Cory Eight.com (named after the number of closely reflect the liberal social values of Gardner (R-CO) and open seat candidate Joni Ernst (R-IA). Cotton and Gardner reelectors in the Electoral College) gave De- the majority of Jewish Americans. But the lobby is known for favoring in- ceived token contributions of $5,000 mocrats just a 36.5 percent chance of retaining their majority, and Republicans a cumbents, of either party, who have a from pro-Israel PACs, which like to hedge proven track record of fealty to Israel their bets, and Ernst $3,000. But those 63.5 percent chance of winning it. In late August FiveThirtyEight’s Harry over the best interests of their own coun- amounts are being augmented by sums Enten wrote: “Control of the Senate will try and constituents. And sure enough, it the Koch-founded Americans for Prosperis putting its money where its mouth is ity PAC is spending on ads: roughly $5.3 Janet McMahon is managing editor of the by supporting Republican incumbents in million in Arkansas, $2.2 million in ColWashington Report on Middle East Affairs. eight states (including giving money to orado and $3.4 million in Iowa. q
W
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THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
OCTOBER 2014
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PRO-ISRAEL PAC CONTRIBUTIONS TO 2014 CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATES State Alabama Alaska Arizona
Arkansas California
Colorado
Connecticut Delaware Florida
Office District H H H S H H H H H H H 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 H H H H H H H H H H S S H H H H S H H H H H H H H H
1 2 4
1 2 3 5 7 8 9
2 3 5 7 7 11 12 13 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 23 24 26 27 28 29 30 31 33 33 34 36 38 39 41 46 47 52 53 1 2 5 5
3 4 6 6 8 9 10 11 12
Candidate
Byrne, Bradley R. Roby, Martha Aderholt, Robert B. Begich, Mark* Kirkpatrick, Ann Barber, Ronald Grijalva, Raúl M. Salmon, Matt Pastor, Ed L. Franks, Trent Sinema, Kyrsten Cotton, Thomas*# Pryor, Mark L.* Huffman, Jared Garamendi, John Thompson, Mike Bera, Amerish (Ami) Birman, Igor A. Miller, George Pelosi, Nancy Lee, Barbara Swalwell, Eric M. Costa, Jim Honda, Mike Eshoo, Anna Lofgren, Zoe Farr, Sam Renteria, Amanda McCarthy, Kevin Capps, Lois G. Brownley, Julia Chu, Judy Schiff, Adam Cárdenas, Tony Sherman, Brad Aguilar, Pete Waxman, Henry A. Carr, Elan S. Becerra, Xavier Ruiz, Raul Sanchez, Linda Royce, Edward R. Takano, Mark Sanchez, Loretta Lowenthal, Alan Peters, Scott Davis, Susan Gardner, Cory*# Udall, Mark E.* DeGette, Diana L. Polis, Jared Lamborn, Douglas L. Esty, Elizabeth Coons, Christopher A.* Yoho, Theodore S. (Ted) Crenshaw, Ander DeSantis, Ronald D. Stearns, Clifford B. Posey, Bill Grayson, Alan M. Demings, Valdez (Val) Nugent, Richard B. Bilirakis, Gus M.
Party R R R D D D D R D R D R D D D D D R D D D D D D D D D D R D D D D D D D D R D D D R D D D D D R D D D R D D R R R R R D D R R
Status I I I I I I I I N I I C I I I I I P N I I I I I I I I C I I I I I I I O N O I I I I I I I I I C I I I I I I I I I N I I N I I
2013-2014 Contributions 2,500 2,500 2,500 61,798 2,500 4,000 2,500 2,500 1,000 4,600 3,000 5,000 35,000 1,000 2,000 3,000 3,650 3,000 1,000 16,350 2,000 9,500 3,500 4,000 2,000 3,000 3,000 1,000 5,000 806 8,500 1,000 9,500 6,000 3,000 3,000 5,000 500 1,000 9,000 3,500 43,450 1,000 2,500 3,000 2,000 1,000 5,000 58,000 3,000 1,000 5,000 1,000 31,000 500 3,000 3,500 1,500 4,000 500 1,000 5,000 5,000
Career
Committees
2,500 AS 5,000 A 23,000 A(D) 68,298 A(FO, HS), C, HS 9,500 6,000 AS, HS 12,500 9,000 FR 9,800 A, I 5,600 AS 3,000 7,500 FR(NE) 93,000 A(D), HS 4,500 B 13,500 AS 6,500 I, W 17,350 FR 3,000 14,193 149,150 Min. Leader 4,000 A(FO), B 24,000 HS 27,000 17,500 A 8,750 C 8,250 15,150 A 1,000 14,000 Maj. Leader 36,223 C 12,900 2,000 90,417 A(FO), I 8,600 B 93,430 FR 5,500 57,932 C 500 5,000 W 9,000 26,450 W 52,950 FR 6,000 68,950 AS, HS 13,200 FR 2,400 AS 18,163 AS 5,000 C 106,250 AS, I 7,500 C 1,000 10,500 AS 2,500 50,000 A(FO, HS), B, FR(NE) 500 FR(NE) 3,000 A(D, FO) 3,500 FR(NE) 21,500 5,000 8,000 FR(NE) 3,000 22,100 AS 49,316 C
KEY: The “Career Total” column represents the total amount of pro-Israel PAC money received from Jan. 1, 2009 through July 15, 2014. S=Senate, H=House of Representatives. Party affiliation: D=Democrat, R=Republican, DFL=Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor 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: A=Appropriations (D=Defense subcommittee, FO=Foreign Operations subcommittee, HS=Homeland Security subcommittee, 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, NS=National Security, W=Ways and Means. “–” indicates money returned by candidate, “0” that all money received was returned. OCTOBER 2014
THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
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PRO-ISRAEL PAC CONTRIBUTIONS TO 2014 CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATES State Florida
Georgia
Hawaii Idaho Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Kansas Kentucky
Louisiana
Maine Maryland
30
Office District H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H S S H H S S H S S S H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H S S H H H S S S H S H S S H H H S S H H H H S H S H H H H
13 13 13 14 17 18 19 21 22 23 24 25 26 26 27
4 13 2 2 3 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 13 14 17 18 2 4 6 2
4
1 3 5 1 2 4 5 1
1 4 5 7
Candidate
Jolly, David W.† Sink, Adelaide A. (Alex)† Young, C.W. (Bill) Castor, Kathy Rooney, Tom Murphy, Patrick Radel, Henry J. (Trey), III Deutch, Theodore E. Frankel, Lois J. Wasserman Schultz, Debbie Wilson, Frederica S. Diaz-Balart, Mario Garcia, Jose A. (Joe) Curbelo, Carlos Ros-Lehtinen, Ileana Kingston, John H. (Jack), Sr.*# Nunn, Mary Michelle* Johnson, Henry C. (Hank) Scott, David A. Hanabusa, Colleen Wakako (†)# Schatz, Brian† Gabbard, Tulsi Risch, James E.* Durbin, Richard J.* Kirk, Mark S. Kelly, Robin L. Lipinski, Daniel W. Quigley, Mike Roskam, Peter Davis, Danny K. Duckworth, L. Tammy Schakowsky, Janice D. Schneider, Bradley S. Foster, G. William (Bill) Enyart, William L., Jr. Callis, Ann Davis, Rodney L. Hultgren, Randy Bustos, Cheri Schock, Aaron J. Coats, Daniel R. Donnelly, Joseph S. Walorski Swihart, Jackie Rokita, Theodore E. (Todd) Messer, Allen L. (Luke) Braley, Bruce L.*# Ernst, Joni K.* Grassley, Charles E. Loebsack, David W. Roberts, Pat* Pompeo, Michael R. Grimes, Alison Lundergan* McConnell, Mitch* Whitfield, Edward Yarmuth, John A. Rogers, Harold D. (Hal) Cassidy, William*# Landrieu, Mary L.* Scalise, Steve Richmond, Cedric L. Fleming, John C., Jr. Riser, Hartwell N. (Neil), Jr.† Collins, Susan M.* Pingree, Chellie M. Mikulski, Barbara Harris, Andrew P. Edwards, Donna Fern Hoyer, Steny H. Cummings, Elijah E.
Party R D R D R D R D D D D R D R R R D D D D D D R D R D D D R D D D D D D D R R D R R D R R R D R R D R R D R R D R R D R D R R R D D R D D D
Status I N N I I I N I I I I I I C I P O I I P I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I C I I I I I I I I I O O I I I I C I I I I C I I I I P I I I I I I I
2013-2014 Contributions 3,500 5,500 1,000 5,200 1,000 14,500 6,000 25,500 6,500 3,000 500 14,500 14,445 1,000 17,500 2,000 12,000 4,000 1,000 18,000 30,700 1,000 38,500 20,000 5,000 1,350 500 500 7,000 3,000 2,500 2,500 19,500 4,700 3,500 2,018 800 1,000 3,500 4,000 0 500 9,200 2,000 1,000 26,000 3,000 1,000 3,000 31,300 3,000 5,000 58,000 2,500 3,020 6,700 7,000 44,829 2,500 3,500 2,000 2,000 30,500 3,000 1,000 2,500 2,000 21,000 2,000
THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
Career
3,500 5,500 2,250 27,600 2,000 22,000 8,500 83,350 13,000 77,300 10,000 68,250 33,445 1,000 291,240 7,500 12,000 42,200 14,000 23,000 30,700 1,500 52,000 395,421 342,386 1,350 11,400 2,000 28,750 13,250 19,974 36,645 22,100 23,700 3,500 2,018 1,800 3,000 8,500 24,000 69,060 25,000 9,200 6,500 1,000 43,000 3,000 161,323 19,000 82,300 3,000 5,000 556,141 8,000 18,520 22,700 22,000 252,718 33,000 6,000 14,000 2,000 143,500 8,676 214,099 8,500 11,500 288,025 24,500
Committees
B, C A(FO), I FR(NE) FR(NE) A(FO)
A(FO)
FR(NE) A(D, HS) AS
AS C FR, HS FR(NE), I A(D, FO), FR(NE) A(FO) A W W AS C, I FR(NE) AS
W A(D, FO, HS), C, I AS AS, B B B, FR(NE) B AS
C, I
A(D, FO) C B, C A C A(D, FO, HS), HS C, Maj. Whip HS AS A(D), I A A(D, FO), I A
Min. Whip
OCTOBER 2014
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PRO-ISRAEL PAC CONTRIBUTIONS TO 2014 CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATES State
Office District
S S H H H S Michigan S H H H H H H H S Minnesota H H H H Mississippi S H Missouri H H Montana S S S Nebraska S S Nevada S H H New Hampshire S S H New Jersey S H H H H H H H H H New Mexico S S H H New York S H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H North Carolina S H H H
Massachusetts
OCTOBER 2014
2 6 7 3 5 8 8 9 12 13 2 3 4 5
4 5 7
1 4 2
1 2 3 6 8 9 11 12 12 1 3
4 8 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 18 19 20 23 23 24 2 3 3
Candidate
Gomez, Gabrielâ&#x20AC; Markey, Edward J.* McGovern, Jim Tierney, John F. Capuano, Michael E. Land, Terri Lynn* Peters, Gary*# Ellis, Brian R. Kildee, Daniel T. Rogers, Michael J. Bishop, Michael D. Levin, Sander M. Dingell, John D. Conyers, John, Jr. Franken, Al* Kline, John P., Jr. Paulsen, Erik McCollum, Betty Ellison, Keith M. Cochran, Thad* Palazzo, Steven McCarty Cleaver, Emanuel, II Long, Billy Baucus, Max* Daines, Steven*# Walsh, John E. Osborn, Shane* Sasse, Benjamin E.* Reid, Harry Titus, Alice C. (Dina) Innis, Niger Ayotte, Kelly A. Shaheen, Jeanne* Kuster, Ann McLane Booker, Cory A.* Andrews, Robert E. LoBiondo, Frank A. Belgard, Aimee Pallone, Frank, Jr. Sires, Albio Pascrell, William J., Jr. Frelinghuysen, Rodney P. Coleman, Bonnie Watson Greenstein, Linda Udall, Tom* Wilson, Heather A. Lujan Grisham, Michelle Lujan, Ben R. Schumer, Charles E. Rice, Kathleen Jeffries, Hakeem Nadler, Jerrold L. Grimm, Michael Maloney, Carolyn B. Rangel, Charles B. Crowley, Joseph Serrano, Jose E. Engel, Eliot L. Lowey, Nita M. Hayworth, Nan Maloney, Sean P. Eldridge, Sean Tonko, Paul D. Reed, Thomas W., II Robertson, Martha Maffei, Daniel B. Hagan, Kay R.* Ellmers, Renee Jacisin Griffin, William T. Jones, Walter B.
Party
R D D D D R D R D R R D D D DFL R R DFL DFL R R D R D R D R R D D R R D D D D R D D D D R D D D R D D D D D D R D D D D D D R D D D R D D D R R R
Status N I I P I O O P I N O I N I I I I I I I I I I N O N P O I I P I I I I N I O I I I I O P I N I I I O I I I I I I I I I C I C I I C I I I P I
2013-2014 Contributions 2,500 16,500 2,000 1,000 2,000 10,000 21,000 7,500 3,000 5,000 7,500 1,000 1,000 3,000 41,000 4,500 3,500 3,000 2,000 28,950 6,000 3,000 5,000 10,000 11,500 7,500 5,000 14,000 1,000 2,500 3,500 1,000 47,000 500 36,500 5,000 5,000 7,000 12,500 10,000 2,000 1,000 4,000 500 29,500 -2,000 1,000 3,000 2,000 1,000 2,100 2,500 2,000 1,000 5,000 300 1,000 31,500 18,150 -7,000 5,000 1,000 3,000 1,000 1,000 1,000 54,300 3,000 5,000 5,000
THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
Career
2,500 28,750 12,575 3,000 8,000 10,000 59,500 7,500 30,500 11,000 7,500 134,827 18,700 8,000 46,680 27,500 18,000 11,750 7,500 49,950 8,000 16,000 12,500 362,648 11,500 7,500 5,000 14,000 394,001 16,600 3,500 17,500 89,100 7,000 36,500 112,025 35,750 7,000 101,050 11,000 17,853 13,350 4,000 500 71,000 49,750 2,000 3,000 85,885 1,000 22,400 32,500 2,000 30,970 33,000 109,457 6,750 340,918 221,388 -4,000 10,000 1,000 8,000 2,000 1,000 24,500 62,300 3,000 5,000 5,000
Committees C, FR
C, I
W C
AS W A
A(D, HS) AS, HS
C
HS C Maj. Ldr. AS, B, HS A(FO), FR
C
AS, I
C FR B, W A(D, HS) A, FR
B C B
W W A C, FR A(FO) C W
AS AS C
AS
31
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PRO-ISRAEL PAC CONTRIBUTIONS TO 2014 CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATES State
Office District
H H H Ohio H H H H S Oklahoma S Oregon S S H H H Pennsylvania H H H H H H H Rhode Island S H H South Carolina S S H H H South Dakota S H Tennessee S H H Texas S S H H H H H H H Vermont S H Virginia S H H H H H Washington H H H H West Virginia S S H H Wisconsin H H H H Wyoming S North Carolina
4 5 11 1 8 11 14
1 3 4 2 8 13 13 14 15 17 1 2
1 1 6
At-L. 5 9
12 13 23 25 30 33 35
At-L.
2 6 7 10 11 5 6 7 9 2 3 1 2 7 8
Candidate
Price, David E. Foxx, Virginia Ann Shuler, Joseph H. Chabot, Steve Boehner, John A. Fudge, Marcia L. Joyce, David P. Inhofe, James M.* Lankford, James P.*#† Merkley, Jeffrey A.* Wyden, Ronald L. Bonamici, Suzanne Blumenauer, Earl DeFazio, Peter A. Fattah, Chaka Fitzpatrick, Michael G. Margolies-Mezvinsky, Marjorie Schwartz, Allyson Y. Doyle, Mike Dent, Charles W. Cartwright, Matt Reed, Jack F.* Cicilline, David N. Langevin, James R. Graham, Lindsey O.* Scott, Timothy E.*† Colbert Busch, Elizabeth† Sanford, Marshall C. (Mark), Jr. Clyburn, James E. Rounds, Marion M. (Mike)* Noem, Kristi Lynn Alexander, Lamar* Cooper, James H.S. Cohen, Stephen I. Cornyn, John* Cruz, Rafael Edward (Ted) Granger, Kay Thornberry, Mac Gallego, Pete Williams, Roger Johnson, Eddie Bernice Veasey, Marc A. Doggett, Lloyd MacGovern, John Welch, Peter Warner, Mark R.* Rigell, Edward S. (Scott) Goodlatte, Robert W. Cantor, Eric Wasinger, Robert K. Connolly, Gerald E. (Gerry) McMorris Rodgers, Cathy Kilmer, Derek McDermott, James Smith, D. Adam Capito, Shelley Moore*# Tennant, Natalie* Mooney, Alexander X. Rahall, Nick J., II Ryan, Paul D. Pocan, Mark Duffy, Sean P. Ribble, Reid J. Enzi, Michael B.*
Party D R D R R D R R R D D D D D D R D D D R D D D D R R D R D R R R D D R R R R D R D D D R D D R R R R D R D D D R D R D R D R R R
Status I I N I I I I I O I I I I I I I P N I I I I I I I I N I I O I I I I I I I I I I I I I N I I I I P P I I I I I O O O I I I I I I
2013-2014 Total Contributions: Total Contributions (1978-2014): Total No. of Recipients (1978-2014): 32
2013-2014 Contributions 3,000 2,000 4,000 10,000 28,700 6,700 2,500 2,000 23,500 15,000 1,000 2,000 4,000 3,000 5,000 5,000 2,000 1,500 1,000 1,000 2,500 17,000 3,000 6,500 45,000 23,100 2,000 750 3,500 12,500 2,000 13,500 2,000 3,000 21,100 2,500 17,500 0 1,000 500 3,000 4,100 1,000 1,000 2,000 21,500 2,000 6,500 17,875 1,000 1,000 2,500 3,000 3,000 12,100 8,500 2,500 1,250 1,000 9,700 2,500 3,500 1,000 24,000
Career
63,827 7,000 13,250 30,000 129,200 9,700 4 130,800 23,500 36,600 349,462 9,000 13,000 14,600 6,500 25,000 27,190 66,650 6,000 14,750 2,500 175,850 31,000 39,500 107,500 27,100 2,000 750 24,100 12,500 5,000 21,500 32,250 29,500 88,580 18,500 39,000 0 1,000 500 5,500 5,100 6,500 1,000 11,000 63,000 4,500 11,000 242,605 1,000 17,500 3,850 8,000 9,000 38,425 16,750 2,500 1,250 7,223 31,450 5,000 11,000 2,000 50,250
Committees A(HS)
FR(NE) House Spkr.
A AS B A, B B, I
B, W A
W C A(HS, FO)
A(D), AS FR(NE) AS, I A(D, FO), AS, B C HS
AS A(D) AS AS, C A(D, FO) AS, I AS B
AS W
C B, I AS, B
FR(NE) C AS B, W AS
B, W B B B B, HS
1,986,091 56,730,523 2,459
THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
OCTOBER 2014
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Congress Backs Israel’s “Right” to Slaughter Palestinians in the Name of “Self-Defense” CongressWatch
By Shirl McArthur uring Israel’s July-August onslaught against Gaza, members of Congress D eagerly supported Israel’s “right” to slaughter a couple of thousand Palestinians and level much of Gaza’s infrastructure in the name of “self-defense.” At least eight bills and resolutions were introduced, of which four were passed, and no fewer than seven letters were sent to President Barack Obama or U.N. officials. Legislatively, measures passed specifically supporting Israel’s “right” to “defend itself” included H.Res. 657, introduced July 8 by Rep. Steve Israel (D-NY) and passed July 11 with 167 co-sponsors; S.Res. 498, introduced July 10 by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and passed July 17 with 80 co-sponsors; and S.Res. 526, introduced July 29 by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) with 8 co-sponsors, and passed the same day. Similar measures introduced included S.Res. 517, introduced July 24 by Graham with seven co-sponsors, and S.Res. 537, introduced by Graham on Aug. 1 with one co-sponsor. Measures condemning Hamas’ alleged use of “human shields” were H.Con.Res. 107, introduced July 16 by Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) and passed July 30 with 103 co-sponsors, and S.Con.Res. 41, introduced July 24 by Sen. Ted Cruz (RTX) with 1 co-sponsor. Also, on July 10 Rep. David McKinley (R-WV), with 35 co-sponsors, introduced H.Res. 665 “condemning the murder of Israeli and Palestinian children in Israel.” While the title refers to Palestinian children, the text refers only to the three Israeli “children” who were kidnapped and murdered. (Three bills were introduced July 9 directing the secretary of state to offer a reward of $5 million for information on the kidnapping and murder of one of the three settler “children,” U.S.-Israel dual citizen Naftali Fraenkel. Cruz introduced S. 2577 and S. 2579, and H.R. 5041 was introduced by Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-CO) with seven co-sponsors.) Shirl McArthur is a retired U.S. foreign service officer based in the Washington, DC area. OCTOBER 2014
Letters included the July 23 letter to Obama signed by Sens. Graham, Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Ben Cardin (D-MD) expressing their belief that “any viable cease-fire in Gaza must remove the threat to Israel posed by Hamas rockets and tunnels.” Similarly, on July 31, 149 representatives, led by Rep. Brad Schneider (D-IL), signed a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urging that the U.N. make removal of Hamas’s rocket arsenal a top priority, saying that “Hamas’s massive stores of rockets…are an absolute barrier to any long-term peace.”
wo letters called on the T U.N. to denounce the use of human shields. Accepting at face value Israel’s claim that Palestinian civilian casualties resulted from Hamas using them as “human shields,” two letters were sent to U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay calling on the U.N. to denounce the use of human shields. The House letter, originated by Reps. Israel and Ros-Lehtinen, was signed by 106 representatives. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) sent a similar letter to Pillay on July 18. After Ban had the nerve to call Israel’s destruction of a U.N. school in Gaza an “atrocious action,” five senators, led by Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH), wrote to Ban on July 24 protesting his statement and claiming that an important fact is that “one side is trying to protect civilians while the other is deliberately trying to kill them.” On July 31, 35 senators, led by Boxer, signed a letter to Ban protesting the decision by the U.N. Human Rights Council (UNHRC) to establish a Commission of Inquiry into Israel’s war crimes in Gaza. More responsibly, on July 17 six representatives, led by Rep. Keith Ellison (DMN), wrote to Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry commending their efforts to facilitate a cease-fire agreement and calling on them to use “all diplomatic leverage to work vigorously with U.S. allies to urge for an end to the violence.” THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
Additional Iron Dome Funding Passed, With Heavy Israeli Involvement H.J.Res. 76, appropriating $225 million in FY ’14 supplemental funds to the Defense Department “to assist the government of Israel with procurement of the Iron Dome defense system,” was passed by both the House and Senate on Aug. 1 (the day Congress left on its summer recess) and signed by Obama on Aug. 4. Behind those seemingly simple facts, however, was a series of maneuvers demonstrating Israel’s control over the U.S. Congress. Previously, on July 23, Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) introduced S. 2648 to provide supplemental funds for Iron Dome as well as for several U.S. domestic purposes, including fighting wildfires and responding to the immigration crisis on the Mexican border. But it was blocked in the Senate by Republicans claiming that the funds were not offset by cuts elsewhere (thus leaving dealing with wildfires and the border situation unfunded). So on July 29 Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY) with 21 co-sponsors introduced H.R. 5235, a “clean” bill to provide the Iron Dome funding. But his bill went nowhere, because congressional leaders had decided on a different path. Meanwhile, tensions between Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu increased after White House and State Department spokesmen openly criticized Israel’s tactics in Gaza, especially the massive use of indiscriminate artillery fire, which was responsible for much of the civilian casualties and destruction in Gaza (and which had nothing to do with “human shields”). The White House and State Department were then surprised, and infuriated, to learn that a lower level Defense Department official had “routinely” approved Israel’s request to replenish its munitions, including artillery shells and Hellfire missiles, from “emergency” stocks pre-positioned in Israel. Obama then ordered that every request from Israel for U.S. arms be reviewed individually by higher level officials. It has long been clear that Netanyahu doesn’t much care about good relations with Obama, because he feels he can rely on his many allies in Congress and the in33
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fluential Zionist-American community to overcome any problems with the Obama administration. So, to thumb his nose at Obama and provide an overwhelming show of congressional support for Israel, Netanyahu dispatched Israeli officials to work to get the Iron Dome funding before the congressional recess, even though many experts believe Israel doesn’t need immediate Iron Dome replenishment. The result was the decision by congressional leaders to adopt as a vehicle H.J. Res. 76, originally passed by the House in October 2013 as the “National Security Administration Continuing Appropriations Resolution.” The Senate amended the measure by stripping it of its entire text, including the title, and inserting the Iron Dome provisions. Both the House and the Senate passed the amended version before leaving on their vacation. The House vote was 3958, with 29 not voting. Voting “no” were Reps. Justin Amash (R-MI), Ellison, Walter Jones (R-NC), Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), Thomas Massie (R-KY), Jim Moran (D-VA), Beto O’Rourke (D-TX), and Mark Sanford (R-SC). In a floor statement, Graham made it clear that Congress’ goal in approving the money quickly was to send a message to the administration to stop complaining to Israel about civilian casualties.
Boxer Introduces Revised U.S.-Israel Partnership Bill As reported in previous issues, S. 462, introduced in March 2013 by Boxer, the Senate’s companion bill to the House-passed H.R. 938, the “U.S.-Israel Strategic Partnership” bill, met resistance because of its provision that Israel be included in the visa waiver program. First, it would water down the key requirement of granting full reciprocity to U.S. citizens (Israel routinely refuses entry to Arab Americans and others thought to be sympathetic to the Palestinians). Second, it would relax the requirement for a low nonimmigrant refusal rate. Too many Israelis travel to the U.S. on tourist visas and then stay beyond the permitted time. So, on July 28, Boxer introduced S. 2673, a revised “U.S.-Israel Strategic Partnership” bill with a modified visa provision, which only partially meets the previous objections. It addresses the first objection by requiring that Israel grant full reciprocity to U.S. citizens and nationals “without regard to the race, religion, national origin, or ethnicity” of such persons. However, it still includes a provision allowing for a waiver of the requirement for a low nonimmigrant refusal rate. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) pointed out that the provision would set a 34
They Dared to Vote No These eight House members voted against additional Iron Dome funding: Justin Amash (R-MI) Keith Ellison (D-MN) Walter Jones (R-NC) Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) Thomas Massie (R-KY) Jim Moran (D-VA) Beto O’Rourke (D-TX) Mark Sanford (R-SC) precedent for other countries. But the revised bill quickly gained co-sponsors, and now has 81, including Boxer. One new pro-Israel bill was introduced. On May 30 Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) introduced H.R. 4776 “to prohibit an institution of higher education that participates in a boycott of the Israeli government, economy, or academia from receiving funds from the U.S. federal government.” This expands on the previously described H.R. 4009, introduced in February by Reps. Peter Roskam (R-IL) and Dan Lipinski (D-IL), aimed at the American Studies Association for its decision to boycott Israeli academic institutions, which has made no progress.
Congress Still Obsessed With Iran Negotiations Two new bills were introduced that would provide for congressional veto over any agreement reached with Iran over its nuclear program. The most comprehensive is S. 2650, the “Iran Nuclear Negotiations” bill, introduced by Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) and 10 co-sponsors on July 23. In the House, Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) and 10 co-sponsors introduced H.R. 4967, the “Iran Nuclear Agreement Accountability” bill, on June 25. Both bills would establish a congressional review process, resulting in votes on a joint resolution of disapproval. On July 9, 344 representatives signed a letter to Obama, originated by Reps. Ed Royce (R-CA) and Engel, urging him to consult with Congress regarding any agreement with Iran. It could be read as implying that any nuclear deal with Iran should also include non-nuclear issues. And on July 23 Franks, with nine co-sponsors, introduced H.Con.Res. 109 regarding the extension of the interim agreement with Iran. It would, among other things, request that the administration “begin immediate substantive consultations with Congress concerning what an acceptable comprehensive agreement must include.” Also, on July 16, 28 Republican senators THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
signed a letter to Obama originated by Ayotte expressing “serious concern” about Iran’s development of intercontinental ballistic missiles, and saying that “we believe the administration should not conclude any nuclear accord with Tehran without addressing the threat that Iranian missiles could pose to our nation.” Two bills were introduced that would restrict or eliminate presidential waiver authority regarding Iran sanctions. S. 2667, the “Iran Sanctions Relief Certification” bill, was introduced by Sen. Mark Kirk (RIL) with 11 co-sponsors on July 24. On July 28 Cruz introduced S. 2672, the “Sanction Iran, Safeguard America” bill. One new Iran sanctions bill was introduced. On July 10 Kirk with two co-sponsors introduced S. 2585, the “Iran Human Rights Accountability” bill. It would “impose additional sanctions with respect to Iran to protect against human rights abuses in Iran.” Meanwhile, the previously described far-reaching and problematic S. 1881, introduced in December by Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ), has made no progress, and still has 60 co-sponsors, including Menendez.
Measures Targeting Hezbollah, PA And U.N. Get Some Attention While Congress was mostly preoccupied with the coming elections and events in Gaza and Iran, other pro-Israel measures did get some attention. The previously described H.R. 4411, introduced in April by Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC), “to prevent Hezbollah and associated entities from gaining access to international financial and other institutions,” was passed by the House on July 22. When passed, it had 322 co-sponsors, including Meadows. This farreaching bill is intended to shut down Hezbollah’s global logistics and financial network. Its companion bill in the Senate, S. 2329, introduced in May by Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), now has 55 co-sponsors, including Shaheen. One new anti-Palestinian, and anti-U.N., bill was introduced. On July 31 Sens. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Cruz introduced S. 2766, “to combat terrorism and promote reform in the Palestinian Authority and the United Nations.” In a press release Rubio said its purpose is to “combat PA and U.N. support for terrorism.” It would designate the PA as “Hamas-controlled,” enact far-reaching certification requirements to cut off U.S. funding to UNRWA and the UNHRC, and redirect to Israel any planned U.S. funding to the PA, UNRWA and UNHRC. The previously described H.Res. 542, inOCTOBER 2014
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troduced in April by Rep. Ted Yoho (R-FL), has gained another co-sponsor and now has 11, including Yoho. It would express “the sense of the House of Representatives that U.S. foreign aid to the Palestinian Authority should be suspended until Palestinian Authority Government resolutions relating to providing a monthly salary to anyone imprisoned in Israel’s prisons as a result of participation in the struggle against Israeli occupation are repealed.”
House Passes Bill to Limit U.S. Military Activities in Iraq On July 25 the House passed an amended H.Con.Res. 105, introduced by Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) on July 11. As passed it would prohibit “the president from deploying or maintaining U.S. Armed Forces in a sustained combat role in Iraq without specific statutory authorization enacted after the date” of this measure. As introduced, the measure would have required the president to remove U.S. Armed Forces from Iraq, other than those required to protect U.S. diplomatic facilities. But, considering efforts to counter the threat of the
self-designated “Islamic State,” the measure was amended, adding, among other things, the key (and ambiguous) word, “sustained.” When passed the measure had 10 co-sponsors, including McGovern. It was sent to the Senate on July 28, but has not been acted on. Also, on June 19 Rep. Rick Nolan (D-MN) introduced H.R. 4912 “to limit Department of Defense funds to support U.S. or Iraqi combat activities in or around Iraq.” It has no co-sponsors. Separately, H.R. 4608, introduced in May by Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA), “to repeal the Authorization for Use of Military Force” act passed by Congress on Sept. 14, 2001 following the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, DC, has gained 3 cosponsors, and now has 20, including Lee. And the two previously described bills to “repeal the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002” have also gained co-sponsors. H.R. 3852, introduced by Lee in January, has gained 9 co-sponsors and now has 35, including Lee. S. 2395, introduced by Menendez in May, has gained five co-sponsors and now has eight, including Menendez.
Bill Introduced to Prohibit U.S. Military Aid to Egypt On June 17 Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) introduced S. 2477, the “Egyptian Military Coup” bill. It would suspend the provision of specified defense articles and services to Egypt until the U.S. president certifies that democratic elections have taken place in Egypt. Also, on July 23 Graham and six co-sponsors introduced S. 2649 “to provide certain legal relief from politically motivated charges by the Government of Egypt.” It would declare that, for purposes of U.S. law, “no verdict, order, warrant, or writ” issued by the Cairo Criminal Court on June 4 against 43 staff members of international nongovernmental organizations shall be considered valid. Also, on July 24 retiring Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) with 15 co-sponsors introduced H.R. 5194, the “Muslim Brotherhood Terrorist Designation” bill. The Muslim Brotherhood is not a U.S.-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization. This bill would legislatively treat it as one. q
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THOUSANDS OF C-SPAN VIEWERS and attendees watched the groundbreaking National Summit to Reassess the U.S.-Israel “Special Relationship,” held on March 7, 2014. This DVD contains the presentations of all 24 speakers at the historic event. Distinguished speakers including Stephen Walt, Mark Perry, Geoffrey Wawro, Paul Pillar and Ernie Gallo examined the damage this special relationship causes to American security and prestige. MONTHS BEFORE ISRAEL’S LATEST ASSAULT on Gaza participants sounded the alarm on the impact of U.S. financial, military and diplomatic support for Israel. ORDER THE NATIONAL SUMMIT’S 420-min. DVD for $19.95; institutional rate: $99.95. Visit <middleeastbooks.com> or call Middle East Books and More: 202-939-6050 ext 2. FILMED ON MARCH 7, 2014 in Washington, DC, this DVD presents the summit’s entire proceedings. Military, diplomatic, intelligence, academic and other experts examine the impact of the U.S. - Israel relationship on Americans. Send a copy to a politician, librarian or journalist (visit <natsummit.org> for more information). OCTOBER 2014
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Palestinians and Israelis Tell a New Story Despite the Conflict SpecialReport
PHOTO COURTESY NEW STORY LEADERSHIP
By Clara McGlynn
NSL team on the steps of the Capitol: (back row, l-r) Yehonatan Toker, Daniel Nachum, Lior Yafe, Hamze Awawde, Ahmed Hmeedat and (front row, l-r) Noa Shusterman, Karma AbuAyyash, Ranin Faidi, Nisreen Zaqout and Asi Garbarz. heir countries are at war. For some,
Ttheir families are in peril. The history
of the conflict between them stretches back seven decades. For all intents and purposes, the participants in New Story Leadership should not get along. Five are Israeli, five are Palestinian, and together they spent six weeks in Washington, DC, from June 13 to Aug. 3, sharing their stories, listening and learning. New Story Leadership (NSL) was founded in 2009 by Paul Costello, who worked on peace programs in Northern Ireland and South Africa, and Joyce Schwartz. The two were determined to build a similar program for Israelis and Palestinians using a successful model of storytelling and diverse activism. For the past five summers, the organization has brought together young Palestinian and IsClara McGlynn was a summer intern at the Washington Report in 2014. She is a senior at the University of Minnesota/Twin Cities. 36
raeli leaders to share their experiences in the hopes of creating a new story: a story of peace. This year’s NSL participants took part in workshops and discussions, and also interned at a variety of organizations around Washington, DC. Eloquent speakers each and every one, they spoke at several locations in the capital area, including the Woodrow Wilson Center, the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and at a congressional forum on Capitol Hill. Here are excerpts from their remarks. Both nations have a valid claim to this land. Both nations believe they are victims of history. —Hamze Awawde Hamze Awawde is the grandson of a Palestinian freedom fighter. As a child, he, too, dreamed of using violence to defeat the Israelis. But now, age 24 and a leader of the YaLa Young Leaders Facebook Movement, a project of the Peres Peace Center and the U.S. State Department, he works to THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
create peace by listening to both sides of the story. For Awawde, the answer to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is deceptively simple: conversation. “How do we fix this problem?” he asks. “Both sides need to talk.” The obstacle to this solution is the barrier—physical and mental— between Israelis and Palestinians. “Both sides do not trust each other. How could they, with walls separating them?” he says. Undeterred, however, Awawde encourages young people to communicate via social media, which breaks down the walls between them. Awawde’s grandfather dreamed of peace but never saw it achieved using violent resistance. Two generations later, his grandson works for the same peace by way of sharing and understanding, so that Israelis and Palestinians no longer will be victims of history.
You can never cross the ocean unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore. — Asi Garbarz For Asi Garbarz, a 27-year-old Israeli with a degree in Middle East history from the University of Haifa, this was a summer of many firsts. Above all, it was the first summer he had experienced a war while away from his homeland, and the first war he had experienced through the eyes of a Palestinian, fellow NSL participant and congressional intern Nisreen Zaqout. In his remarks, Garbarz recounted a Cherokee fable: An old man tells his grandson, “Inside every person there are two wolves fighting, a good wolf and an evil wolf.” “Which wolf will win?” asks the grandson, to whom the grandfather replies, “The one that you feed.” This fable, says Garbarz, “teaches us that we can decide what kind of person…we want to be.” The question he struggles with, however, is how to do that. “NSL has provided me with a window OCTOBER 2014
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into the lives of Palestinians and a mirror into my own,” Garbarz explained. “Sometimes looking into the mirror is the hardest part.” What does the right of return mean to Palestinians? What does Zionism mean to Palestinians? The answers are not easy to find or understand. But in Garbarz’s words to Zaqout, “Your sorrow is our sorrow. Your happiness is our happiness.” That is the person he wants to be. We are not terrorists. We are not extremists. We are not anti-Semitic. We are normal people, looking for freedom and equality.” —Ahmed Hmeedat Ahmed Hmeedat, 22, is a refugee with a dream. He is also a student at Al-QudsBard College (AQB), an artist, and a resident of the Dheisheh refugee camp in the West Bank. The refugee camp is crowded. There are no parks for children and the houses are concrete, “in the shape of boxes all packed together,” hot in the summer, cold in the winter, and frequently invaded by Israeli soldiers. To Hmeedat, however, appearances tell only part of the story. “Yes, it’s crowded, but it’s also a community, steadfast and determined,” he explains. Those concrete
houses are homes where children play. Murals on the walls keep alive the “dream of every refugee: to go home.” Hmeedat wants to create his own art to “encourage people to do good things and to think optimistically.” He has already painted posters that show his vision for the future, such as a Palestinian family having a picnic on the grass near a dismantled checkpoint. Hmeedat has political ambitions. “The war is going to repeat itself again and again if Israel doesn’t end its siege,” he says. In the meantime, “Lead from where you are.” Everyone can make a change, but courage is needed. “Courage is not the lack of fear,” he maintains, “but the ability to defeat it.” Conquering that fear may lead to the realization of Hmeedat’s dream: “that all refugees, all over the world, will have the right of return.” It’s all fun and unicorns onstage, but actually it’s really hard. —Lior Yafe Lior Yafe, a 27-year-old Israeli from Jerusalem, studied law and political science at Tel Aviv University and served in the Israel Defense Forces. To understand a conflict, he believes, you must understand both sides. That is why he decided to par-
ticipate in NSL. Yafe’s time in Washington was not easy. At the beginning of the latest war, when three Israeli boys went missing and were found dead, “it felt like a national disaster was taking place in Israel.” It was easy to be angry. But the Palestinians in the program showed compassion, and changed his mind. “There is no difference between blood and blood,” he concluded. “There is no forgiveness and redemption for any type of murder.” Yafe wants to engender compassion and understanding. “Moderate and pragmatic voices do not control the reality on the ground,” he says. “Extremists do.” He and his colleagues are committed to working together to change that, despite the war. It is hard, but there is hope. I am a human being that chooses to live in Palestine in spite of the inhumane living conditions. —Karma AbuAyyash Karma AbuAyyash, 22, had a hard time writing her NSL speech. Why, she wondered, did she get to tell her story while her fellow Palestinians did not? “I am a single drop in their ocean of stories,” she said. AbuAyyash lives in Ramallah, Palestine,
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and has a degree in marketing from Birzeit University. It was difficult for her to be in Washington while war raged in her homeland. “Bottom line,” she says, “I really want to go home.” But she did not. She has a project to help Palestinian women market their handmade embroidery and crafts, providing them with an income, a livelihood, and a sense of worth. She did not go home, because she was in Washington to change reality.
tinians have been trying to gain their human rights,” she says, and those rights need to be respected. For there to be peace, Israel must dismantle its settlements and respect international law. Palestinians must be able to trust Israel. “I’m standing before you not as a victim, but as a fighter,” she says. Nevertheless, hope remains hard to come by. “For me to be hopeful again, the rights of my people need to be respected.”
You can be sure you’re right, but all someone else might see is a bastard. So you have t o t a l k — s o o n e r r a t h e r t h a n l a t e r. —Yehonatan Toker Yehonatan Toker, a 28-year-old literature student at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, thinks everyone should read more poetry, because by reading poetry one learns to understand what is unspoken. In the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, much is unspoken and, as a result, much is misunderstood. Because he counts himself among those who misunderstand, Toker decided to participate in NSL. “I came here to meet myself. I came here to struggle with myself,” he explains. His daily challenge: “Can I hear someone else’s story?” Can he allow his paradigm to shift? Can he acknowledge that someone else’s version of events may have equal merit to his own? “It’s a struggle for us,” he admits. Yet every struggle is a learning experience. “I kept on talking about the Palestinians. This is the first time for me talking with the Palestinians,” he continues. Talking with Palestinians has given him a deeper understanding of the conflict and hope for a solution. He quotes one of his favorite Israeli poets: “‘Both of us together, and each of us apart.’ This is the recipe.”
There is a difference between sympathy and empathy… Things will get better, we can say. But does that help? —Daniel Nachum Daniel Nachum, 24, studies government and society at the Academic College of Tel Aviv Yafo. Several weeks into his stay in Washington, the young gay man received a message from his boyfriend back in Israel: they were breaking up. Understandably upset, he turned to his Israeli friends for comfort, to no avail. Then he arrived at that day’s NSL meeting. There, when Karma AbuAyyash and Nisreen Zaqout learned of what had happened, they told him, “We’re going out tonight.” The young Palestinian women took Nachum to his first gay bar, where they had fun and helped him to forget his sadness, despite the fact that their two countries were at war. “My suffering was important to them,” the Israeli says. This empathy, he believes, is what is needed to end the conflict. “You don’t judge. You seek to understand,” he explains. “What Karma and Nisreen did for me is what I want to do for them.”
To be honest, I see no hope. I see no hope for peace when Palestinians are being murdered.—Nisreen Zaqout Nisreen Zaqout is half pessimist and half cynical. She is a realist refugee from Gaza, where Israeli bombs and missiles endanger her family and her friends. Zaqout, a 21-year-old student at Illinois College, has difficulty discussing these issues. “To me, talking about the conflict becomes irrelevant when your family is being bombed,” she says. However, she has a larger goal, one that compelled her to stay in Washington while war raged back home. She wants her rights. To some, Zaqout says, Gaza is “a mere representative of terror, darkness, and death.” But she shows another face of Gaza, a human face. “For 68 years Pales38
I still believe in the power of education and the importance of amplifying the voice of the Palestinians in Jerusalem.—Ranin Faidi Ranin Faidi, 23, is from Jerusalem, and loves her city: its many faces, its clean West side and its real East side. She loves seeing tourists visiting and enjoying her city—but her grandmother does not. “How can everyone enjoy this beautiful city except the Palestinians?” she asks. It’s true, Faidi’s life is made much more difficult by the partition of the city and her Palestinian heritage. Her grandfather built a house in Jerusalem, hoping to provide a good home and a potential source of income to future generations. That home is now located next to Israel’s illegal separation wall, which Faidi had to cross to get to school, formerly five minutes away. Now, she recalled, “It usually took me more than an hour to pass that checkpoint.” Nevertheless, she persevered in going to THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
school. Like her parents, she believes Palestinians must “fight the occupation with education.” Today she attends Al Quds-Bard College in East Jerusalem, where she studies international law and human rights. In Washington, she used her education and her platform to raise the stories of all the Palestinians who do not have the opportunity to tell them—so that one day, Jerusalem can be enjoyed by all. My mother always said, ‘In life, you shouldn’t be right. You should be smart.’ —Noa Shusterman Noa Shusterman, 26, is an Israeli student of politics, philosophy and economics at Hebrew University. Her ancestors are from Eastern Europe, and to her family Israel has always represented freedom and the chance for a normal life: to prove oneself outside of religion and ethnicity. Yet as Shusterman grew older, she realized that her daily life—terrorist attacks at school, checking for suspicious packages in public places, wars and intifadas—did not resemble the lives of people elsewhere. “I started realizing that my normal is an anomaly,” she said, and began wondering why. For Shusterman and everyone else who lives in Israel or Palestine, war is not a sterile abstraction. Every person and every family has lost someone to war or terror attacks. The resulting impulse, she says, is to shout, blame, point fingers and accuse, not to love. In such circumstances, kinship and consideration are difficult. Fear rules the conversations, the “fear of realizing that the other side, the enemy, might have a valid claim, too.” Fear and the refusal to listen lead to a cycle of action-reaction, “all in the name of justice and fairness.” On the contrary, Shusterman says, “Fear is a reason to be courageous.” The “true moments of leadership” occur “when you can criticize your own paradigms…The first step to making a difference is looking at yourself.” Then, in life, you find you do not have to be right. You can be smart. The century-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict often seems intractable. To search for answers requires unimaginable bravery. Those who leave their homeland to come to Washington, DC and meet the enemy epitomize that bravery. For that reason, despite all the hopelessness that the conflict engenders, listening to the NSL participants renews hope that one day, Israelis and Palestinians will not have to come all the way to Washington, DC to meet each other. They will simply have to walk down the same street to tell a new story. q OCTOBER 2014
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Foreign Journalists Face Growing Obstacles in Yemen SpecialReport
MOHAMMED HUWAIS/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
By Kevin A. Davis
A member of Yemen’s Shi’i Huthi movement reads a newspaper inside a tent at an encampment erected the previous day in northern Sana’a, the capital, by Zaidi rebels demanding that the government resign, Aug. 23, 2014. n May 8, 2014, two prominent Amer-
Oican journalists were deported from
Yemen—the latest event in a continuing trend to limit the activities of foreign journalists in the country. Adam Baron, a reporter for the Christian Science Monitor and McClatchy, had been in Yemen since 2011, when he came to report on the Arab Spring uprising. Baron was instructed to report to immigration to resolve a paperwork discrepancy, but when he did he was told he was “no longer welcome” there. After 24 hours, he was sent on a flight to Cairo. Tik Root, another longtime journalist in Yemen who has written for numerous American publications, also was deported. Root, who had resided in Sana’a off and on since 2010, had been returning there after short stints covering the Olympics in Sochi, Russia for NBC and then working on a project on unemployment in Spain. Upon his latest arrival, he was denied entry with no explanation. He then flew to Istanbul to attempt to acquire further documentation. Kevin A. Davis is director of the Washington Report’s Middle East Books and More. 40
While there has still been no clear official explanation of these actions, they represent continuing steps backward for a country that is being hailed by some in Western political circles as an example of a post-uprising success story. Speculation persists that Yemen’s decision to deport Baron, in particular, was based on his coverage of terrorism in the country. He reported on a conversation between two al-Qaeda leaders—a conversation which likely led to the closing in 2013 of 21 U.S. embassies around the world. Baron wrote the report for McClatchy and was also interviewed on CNN. This angered U.S. officials, who had attempted to keep details of the conversation secret. Perhaps the greatest losers of these deportations are the Yemeni people. Baron and Root represented a small group of journalists living in Yemen and providing quality reporting to a Western audience, writing with a nuance seldom seen in more mainstream news sources, which rarely have correspondents in the country. They not only covered such critical issues as prison conditions, political infighting, corruption and agriculture, but wrote many THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
positive and informative stories about Yemeni artists and activists. Most newspapers in Yemen are run by government or elite business interests. For years now, journalists have required permission to travel outside the capital, with that often contingent on pre-approval of their stories. Such restrictions limit critical coverage of Yemen’s tenuous situation. While the Arabic-language Ma’arib Press and English-language Yemen Times are evidence that Yemeni reporters and news organizations are producing good journalism, these two papers remain the exception rather than the rule. Since the 2011 uprising that rocked the country and led to the resignation of Ali Abdullah Saleh, the head of state for three decades, Yemen has suffered from a number of maladies. Poverty, unemployment and water shortages continue to plague the country and affect the vast majority of Yemen’s citizens. At the same time, political instability and the uneven results of Yemen’s post-Arab Spring transitional period have resulted in a security vacuum that has yet to be filled. As a result, the Houthi movement based in the northern city of Sa’ada has continued to clash with government forces, pro-independence resentment in the south has gained steam, and the presence of extremist groups has increased substantially. With the exception perhaps of the latter topic, these issues are severely underreported outside the country. Coverage within Yemen is often biased at best, and factually incorrect at worst. Even the subjects of extremism and security, which are reported in the West, usually are short on details and void of context, contributing to images of Yemen as nothing more than a lawless al-Qaeda hotbed. It is in this regard that the deportations of Baron and Root are most damaging. Both journalists spent years at a time in Yemen, learned Arabic there, and were part of the local communities, forging relationships and reputations that provided them unparalleled insight into contemporary issues. Yemenis and foreign consumers of Yemenrelated news alike now find themselves held hostage to shallow and inaccurate reporting based on second-hand sources. OCTOBER 2014
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Not Just in Yemen… In recent months, both domestic and foreign journalists have come under attack in a number of Middle Eastern nations. Below are some recent incidents involving foreign journalists. Syria and Iraq: The Committee to Protect Journalists estimates that 20 journalists currently are missing in Syria. The missing include free-lance American journalist Austin Trice, who has contributed to The Washington Post and not been heard from since August 2012. The Islamic State, whose members can move freely between Syria and Iraq, is believed to be holding 5 of the 20 journalists who went missing in Syria. This summer, the group executed via beheading two Americans: James Foley in late August and Steven Sotloff in early September. Foley went missing in Syria in 2012 while on assignment for Agence France-Presse and GlobalPost, a Bostonbased media company. Sotloff, who wrote for Time and Foreign Policy, was abducted near the Syrian-Turkish border in August 2013. In August, American photojournalist Peter Theo Curtis was freed by Jabhat al-Nusra, an al-Qaeda affiliate. Curtis, whose release was negotiated by the Qatari government, was kidnapped in 2012 in Syria. His cellmate, fellow photojournalist Matthew Schrier, escaped in July 2013, after punching a hole in the wall and standing on Curtis’ back to escape. Egypt: Three Al Jazeera English journalists—Australian Peter Greste, Canadian Mohamed Fahmy, and Egyptian Baher Mohamed—were given prison sentences ranging from 7 to 10 years in June. Charged with aiding the Muslim Brotherhood and reporting
The deportations also represent an unfortunate new trend in the country’s politHaical leadership. Despite the long transitional period and the hosting of the National Dialogue Conference, a supposedly representative conference to peacefully address issues of Yemen’s past and move the country into a post-Saleh era, restrictions on journalists represent a step backward, rather than a path of progress based on political freedoms and stability, as demanded by the Yemeni people in 2011. For now at least, these developments leave only one known foreign journalist in Yemen. While foreign correspondents may continue to fly in for important stories, the fact that they stay in 5-star hotels and may or may not speak the language means the depth of coverage is sure to decrease. It is also an indication that labeling Yemen as an Arab Spring success story is premature. In fact, by most accounts, life for most Yemenis has become significantly worse than it was under Saleh’s long reign. Freedom of the press, while understandably limited in conflict zones, is a necessary part of a stable political society. As long as Yemen is considered a “success,” pressure and criticism on its press restrictions will be minimal. Deporting journalists is just one example of a country heading in the wrong direction. ❑ OCTOBER 2014
false news, the journalists steadfastly maintain their innocence. Iran: On July 22, Iranian authorities arrested American citizen and Washington Post Tehran bureau chief Jason Rezaian, his Iranian wife, Yeganeh Salehi (herself a journalist for a UAE-based newspaper), and an unnamed American photojournalist (who has since been released). Authorities in Tehran have yet to announce the reason for their arrests. Israel: In late July, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman told local media his country will work to prohibit Al Jazeera from operating within Israel, and accused the network of encouraging terrorists. The day after his announcement, Al Jazeera’s 11th-floor Gaza bureau was hit by Israeli gunfire as crewmembers prepared to broadcast from their balcony. Elsewhere in Gaza, Associated Press video journalist Simone Camilli, an Italian, was killed in August when an unexploded Israeli missile blew up in the city of Beit Lahiya. Afghanistan: Matthew Rosenberg, an American journalist for The New York Times, was ordered to leave Afghanistan on Aug. 21 after he wrote an article on the country’s contested presidential election. A spokesman for President Hamid Karzai called the article a threat to national security and accused Rosenberg of being an agent of American interference. Interestingly, Adbullah Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani, the two men involved in the electoral drama, both vowed to reverse the decision upon assuming the presidency. —Dale Sprusansky
Block the Boat, Oakland… Continued from page 18
workers who refused a job for any reason other than a union-sanctioned strike could not claim another job for 24 hours, thus impacting their pay even beyond the initial refusal. Apparently the union had waived this rule in light of the protests. Following that announcement, most protesters left, assuming their work was successful. However, there were still dockworkers across the street waiting to decide whether or not to work on the ship. This writer was one of only two people left to hold the line. Having spoken all morning about Palestine to the police, some of whom were receptive, I crossed the street to talk to the dockworkers. I briefly outlined the history and current political situation. I informed them of the extent of U.S. aid to Israel, coming from their tax dollars. I also told them how crucial ILWU Local 10—their union, their local—had been in putting an end to South African apartheid. They then told me that so many dockworkers worldwide refuse to work on Israeli ships that Zim ships often sail without markings to ensure their reception in port. THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
We all agreed to go home. The ship was not unloaded. All through the 18th and 19th, waves of activists journeyed to the docks to hold the line. On the night of the 19th came conflicting reports that the ship had been unloaded. Apparently workers were moved from another ship in an attempt to avoid the picket line. Some reports said that the ship was 2 percent unloaded, others that it unloaded entirely. According to eyewitness accounts, the Piraeus was not unloaded, and certainly it was not unloaded entirely. Maritime site trackings showed the Piraeus engaged in maneuvers intended to evade protesters. Finally, in the early morning of Aug. 20, the Piraeus left Oakland, bound for Russia. Tacoma, Seattle and Long Beach actions succeeded in delaying various Zim ships and costing the company thousands. Apparently the movement is picking up steam and spreading to other U.S. cities. This is especially important in light of a recent article on TruthOut.org. Their research of shipping manifests reveal that Zim carries small arms and ammunition for sale in the U.S., as well as transporting arms for repair—making the Block the Boat Oakland victory even more significant. ❑ 41
lippman_42-43_Special Report 9/11/14 5:02 PM Page 42
Bosnian National Elections to Take Place Amid Flood Damage, Political Indifference SpecialReport
EELVIS BARUKCIC/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
By Peter Lippman
A man carries a refrigerator in an attempt to save some belongings from his home in the northern Bosnian town of Bosanski Samac, May 21, 2014. nce again, Bosnia-Herzegovina will be
Oholding national elections, this time
set for Oct. 12. After a year of political upheaval and devastating floods, the question is whether the upcoming contest can bring desperately needed change. Recently certified electoral lists show that in the campaign for top officials for state, entity, Canton, and Brčko District positions, 7,743 candidates are competing. Alongside two dozen independents, the candidates represent 65 parties and 24 coalitions. For voters, the trick will be to sift through the lists and find honest candidates whom they can trust to fight for the interests of ordinary people, rather than simply working to plunder Bosnia’s socially created wealth. In the 19 years since the war ended, it has been easier to find a needle in a haystack. While the Dayton agreement succeeded in ending the 1992-1995 war, it also installed a constitution where people’s rights are based on their ethnicity rather than their citizenPeter Lippman is an independent human rights activist based in Seattle. 42
ship, and it created a political system where the warlords and their political heirs were allowed to run a dysfunctional state via the method of divide-and-conquer. The result has been the ongoing enrichment of the politicians—in all three of the constitutionally recognized ethnic groups—and their cronies. Meanwhile, the ordinary people have become ever poorer over the years. The result of the top-to-bottom corruption in Bosnian politics, in concrete terms, has been the discouragement of foreign investment; stagnation in economic recovery and trade; high unemployment; and miserly pensions. Young people, skilled workers and intellectuals have steadily streamed out of the country. Discussing the nepotism, cronyism and dishonesty of most of Bosnia’s leaders, one commentator stated that after the upcoming elections, “those who win will have to make arrests.” But, he continued, the “big fish” have overly strong influence in the police departments, the courts, and among the prosecutors. Such conditions present a bulwark against the creation of an honest government. Another commentator deTHE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
scribed Bosnia’s political leadership as a “constellation of oligarchs in an accountability-free pseudo-democracy.” The post-war constitution drafted as part of the Dayton agreement essentially enshrined the warlords and their ethno-nationalist parties as the rulers of BosniaHerzegovina, and most of the new parties that have arisen in the last 19 years have competed to pursue the same goals as their predecessors. Thus, after a half-dozen national elections in the post-war period, it is an exercise in fantasy to expect a turnaround in the functioning of the country as a result of the upcoming election. At the same time, the past year’s dramatic events have underscored the need for a restructuring of Bosnia’s dysfunctional government into an apparatus that costs less, works more efficiently, and strives to answer the urgent needs of the mass of ordinary people. Mid-2013 saw the eruption of protests in Sarajevo and a few other cities over the government’s poor handling of an identity-card law (see Oct./Nov. 2013 Washington Report, p. 34). And far larger demonstrations, breaking out into violence, took place in late winter of this year throughout the Federation (one of Bosnia’s two “entities,” controlled by Croats and Muslims) and spilling over into the other entity, the Republika Srpska (RS). The people’s assemblies known as plenums that arose as a byproduct of these demonstrations were an exercise in intensive grassroots democracy, bearing some parallels to the Occupy movement in the United States (see June/July 2014 issue, p. 32). During the springtime, the plenums developed a network of communication and cooperation among activists, giving ordinary people and intellectuals a chance not only to express their pent-up outrage and frustration at their leaders, but also to propose some concrete steps to make their government more honest. The elite waited out this process, however, and it lost momentum after a few months. Then in the middle of May, large swaths of Bosnia-Herzegovina were struck by the worst floods in 120 years of weather recording, providing a stark example of the government’s dishonesty and ineffiOCTOBER 2014
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ciency. In some parts of the country, effects of the disaster rivaled the damage caused by the war that took place 20 years earlier. It will be many years before Bosnia recovers from the latest, natural catastrophe. Around a fifth of the country, primarily in the northern and eastern areas, was affected, with farmlands sloughed away, thousands of houses destroyed, and tens of thousands of people displaced. Whole roads were torn up and rendered useless. In some cities, towns and villages, people had minutes or even seconds to clear out and get to dry ground—or at least to the roofs of their houses, where they waited for boats and helicopters to rescue them. The flooding began on May 14; a few days later it was reported that three months’ worth of rain had fallen in three days. The news was gripping; it was distressing to watch the center of Doboj, a mid-sized town in the northern part of the country, fill up with water—to the point where cars were inundated—in a matter of six minutes. Other footage showed a bridge over the River Bosna dislodged and swept downstream near Maglaj, one of the most seriously afflicted cities. Added to the destruction caused by water, the slopes of this mountainous country became unstable and landslides—several thousand—proliferated. The worst danger, certainly, was to ordinary people and their homes. Houses that had been spared flooding were then buried by tons of earth. Others were filled with mud, destroying the furniture, appliances and flooring. In a matter of days thousands of people, from Zvornik to Bijeljina and from Prijedor to Tuzla, lost all of their possessions. Many of these flood victims were people who had already been displaced during the 1992-1995 war; some had returned to their pre-war homes and scratched out a postwar existence, only to see their new security once again swept away. Along with damage to houses and farms came destruction of the industrial plant. In Lukavac, near Tuzla, hundreds of workers had to be laid off from the Šikulje mine after it was flooded. Local workers said that “the mine no longer exists; now it is a lake.” In the same region, a lumbermill was forced to lay off 150 workers due to plant damage. This, in a country where the official unemployment rate already was near 40 percent. Not only were thousands of people put out of work by the calamity, but the entire economy has been set back, and economic growth will be in the negative zone for this year. OCTOBER 2014
As people tried to dig out from the mud and rubble, in towns and countryside alike, an urgent task was to dispose of the carcasses of thousands of farm animals that had not been saved in the rush to escape the flooding. And, in a grim reminder of the war, minefields were displaced. Signage warning of the presence of mines was uprooted and lost, as floodwaters swept some of the mines themselves downstream to unknown locations. Thus, there were renewed dangers both from possible epidemics and from dislocated mines. All told, during the floods some 950,000 people had to evacuate their homes temporarily. Shortly after the end of the flooding, personal statements from survivors about the experience sounded apocalyptic. One person said, “I feel like it’s the day after the end of the world.” Another: “This all reminds me of Hiroshima.”
Attempt to Rebuild Hampered Damage from the May floods has been estimated at two billion euros. While a donor conference in Brussels collected promises for 800 million euros in donations, the aid response from Bosnia-Herzegovina’s government was sluggish. The clumsy geographical divisions in governmental structure—and apparent lack of will and agility on the part of Bosnian leaders—hampered quick allocation of resources for reconstruction. Meanwhile, ordinary people mobilized to help each other across entity boundaries and regardless of ethnicity. But it was not until mid-August—fully three months after the floods—that a coordinated fund for allocation of donations was established in the Federation. By then, another shorter spate of flooding had hit Bosnia. It resulted in 119 million KM (Bosnian marks) in damage in Tuzla Canton alone. In Gračanica around a thousand houses and other buildings were damaged. Bridges were again destroyed, rural roads obstructed, and hundreds of jobs were threatened. In the electoral campaign season, it has come to seem that both elections and floods are periodic insults that happen to the ordinary people. These events come and go, either leaving things the same or making them worse. People in stricken locales have become sensitive to the opportunism of the politicians, as candidates arrive in flood zones, obviously wishing to be seen as responsive. But the message is that flood victims are seen exclusively as voters. While the Federation recently allocated 3.5 million KM to recovery, just four political parties are on record as spending THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
an equivalent sum on their campaigns. In late August roads remained cut off, leaving bus stations inaccessible and preventing those few who have jobs from getting to work. It was becoming certain that dozens of damaged schools would not be repaired in time to open in early September— and even worse, hundreds of flood survivors are still living in tents, with colder weather approaching, and without a hint of aid from emergency management agencies. In several devastated locales citizens have mobilized to block highways in protest of the neglect by state officials. One activist said, “I no longer have anyplace to live. This is the sixth flood here. Let someone just pay some attention to us.” And in the village of Željezno Polje one flood survivor’s tent was swept away, along with the incipient attempt to reconstruct his nearby ruined house. “Now all I have is an umbrella,” he lamented. Grassroots activists are training election monitors and calling on people to vote carefully, not just select an entire political party across the board. It has come to pass that campaign promises by politicians wishing to preserve their income and their positions of power cannot overshadow the damage from nature and neglect from on high. However, while there are a few innovative, and perhaps responsible, candidates, there is not great hope that the October elections will produce a historic turnaround in Bosnian politics. ❑
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Rally to Stop Ongoing War Crimes Against the People of Gaza
New York City and Tri-StateNews
STAFF PHOTO J. ADAS
By Jane Adas
Speakers and organizers at the Aug. 14 Cooper Union rally. dozen diverse and outstanding speakers addressed the urgent need A to “Stop Israel’s Ongoing War Crimes Against the People of Gaza!” The World Can’t Wait organized the event, which was held in the historic Great Hall of Cooper Union on Aug. 14 and was simultaneously live-streamed. It can be viewed on <www.worldcantwait.net>. Historian Ilan Pappé, via Skype, gave the historical context for the present carnage. After the 1967 war, he explained, Israel decided not to expel the Palestinians, as it had done in 1948, but not to give them citizenship, as it had to Palestinians who remained in Israel. Israel treats Palestinians under occupation as prisoners—an open prison if they behave, a maximum-security prison if they resist. Israel eventually tamed the West Bank, Pappé continued, by dividing it into two parts: an Israeli part with settlements that is to be annexed, and a Palestinian part that they can even call a state. When Gazans tried to resist, Israel ghettoized them. When Gaza refused to accept the siege, Israel launched Operation Protective Edge. The aim, Pappé asserted, Jane Adas is a free-lance writer based in the New York City metropolitan area. 44
is to silence Gaza and send it to oblivion so Israelis can forget about it. Recognizing this racist policy, he concluded, would open discussion to regime change in Israel and a different ideological model: one genuinely democratic state. As was unanimous among the presenters, Pappé sees “BDS as the means to a better future.” Miko Peled, author of The General’s Son (available from Washington Report’s Middle East Books and More), sent a statement urging non-cooperation with Israel. He insisted that it is not about Hamas—Israel has been attacking Gaza since the 1950s, and Palestinian resistance has never posed a military threat to Israel. Rather, Peled asserted, it is an existential threat: “Israel is the result of an unholy union between racism and colonialism, and Palestinians are a reminder of this.” Therefore, he concluded, “Ending this is the call of our time. Criticizing Palestinian resistance is unconscionable. Israeli diplomats must be sent home in shame.” Palestinian attorney Jonathan Kuttab addressed Israel’s battles in the legal and public domains. There are, he explained, specific applicable rules and laws during war, regarding such practices as the destruction of civilian infrastructure and the use of certain weapons like Dime, where THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
shrapnel melts in the body. Both are war crimes and have no statute of limitations. And there is the International Criminal Court, which Israel is working hard to avoid. We must fight now, Kuttab urged, so Israel does not have immunity and impunity. In the public domain, Israel’s main tactic is to demonize Hamas, which then exonerates anything Israel does. Kuttab observed that Israel had done the same to the PLO until it got domesticated. Israel has great power at the top of media—including The New York Times and CNN—but it is losing at the bottom with social media. He concluded by saying that it is important that courageous Jewish voices take positions of integrity as Jews. This is the best way to prevent real anti-Semites from taking advantage of what is happening. There were personal testimonies as well. Refaat Alareer, editor of Gaza Writes Back (see June/July 2014 Washington Report, p. 42), whose brother Mohammed was killed along with five other family members, his family house destroyed and Islamic University, where he teaches, bombed, spoke by audiotape. He urged the free people of the world to stop sending money and weapons to Israel. “If this time Israeli criminals are not brought to justice, what do people expect Palestinians to do?” he asked. “Wait for the next one?” Part of Jen Marlowe’s film, “One Family in Gaza,” was screened. It shows how the Awajah family dealt with the murder of their 9-year-old son and the demolition of their home during Cast Lead. Marlowe then gave an update. The family lived in tents for three years. They completed their new home this past February. Two weeks ago it was destroyed again. She telephoned the father asking if he had any message. He did: “I ask that all of you hold in your hearts the children.” After showing scenes from the eloquent film “Where Should the Birds Fly?” (see September 2013 Washington Report, p. 18), director Fida Qishta generously shared her eight minutes with a friend from Rafah, Anis Mansour, who had arrived in New York five days earlier. He does not remember sleeping during “30 days of genocide.” Israel ordered the only hospital in Rafah to evacuate, then shelled it. “Imagine—a city under bombs without a hospital.” Gazans OCTOBER 2014
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[This elicited a few noisy departures.] This is true not only in the West Bank, Ruebner calmly continued, but also within Israel itself, where Palestinians—20 percent of the population—are subjected to more than 50 discriminatory laws and attend separate schools, as in Jim Crow America. This applies also to Palestinian refugees, who are prevented from returning to their homes because they would be “a demographic threat to Israel’s artificially constructed Jewish majority,” while New York Jews can immediately become Israeli citizens. Gaza, he added, is not even on the agenda. The only silver lining Ruebner finds is that the more brutal Israel’s policies, the harder to hide. With cellphones, Israel can no longer control the narrative. Moreover, Israel’s supporters are a shrinking demographic: older, white, male Republicans. And BDS, a nonviolent strategy to make Israelis pay a cost, is rising. “We are in the dying gasp of Israel’s apartheid policy,” Ruebner concluded. “Only then will there be a just peace.” [This received huge applause.]
now say, “if you want to live, stay away from children.” Mansour is in his twenties, and has experienced six wars, but this one was the worst, he said. He saw rockets vaporize bodies. “I don’t know how to tell you—I’m still in shock. But here, so many people give me hope. No matter what Israel does, they will not destroy Palestinian smiles.” The audience responded with a standing ovation.
Josh Ruebner Discusses Israel’s Operation Protective Edge
STAFF PHOTOS J. ADAS
On July 31, the 23rd day of Israel’s Operation Protective Edge assault on Gaza, Josh Ruebner gave a long-scheduled talk at the Mid-Manhattan Library about his latest book, Shattered Hopes: Obama’s Failure to Broker Israeli-Palestinian Peace (available from Washington Report’s Middle East Books and More). The day before, Ruebner reported, Israeli tanks had shelled an UNRWA school in Jabaliya refugee camp, killing 17, and after declaring a 4-hour cease-fire, Israeli planes bombed a crowded market in Shejaiya, killing Palestinian Graduate Student another 17. Israeli forces killed more Describes “What Gazans Endure” than 2,000 Palestinians during Operation Protective Edge, at least 500 of Amer Shurrab, a graduate student from them children. Khan Younis who currently attends the To move beyond statistics, Ruebner Monterey Institute of International urged members of the capacity audience Studies in California, discussed “What to look at the website <humanizePalesGazans Endure” at an event in New tine.com>, which has photos and memYork sponsored by Jewish Voice for ories of individuals submitted by their Peace on Aug. 7, the 30th day of Operafamilies and friends. He gave two exam- TOP: Author Josh Ruebner. ABOVE: Graduate tion Protective Edge, just as a 72-hour ples. Shayma Sheikh Qanan, age 23, was student Amer Shurrab, from Khan Younis. cease-fire had ended. By that day, eight months pregnant with her first baby obligation to extend Iron Dome protection Shurrab reported, the Palestinian death toll when an Israeli tank shell hit her home in to areas where Bedouin live, suggesting in- had reached almost 1,900, more than 80 Deir al-Balah on July 26. Doctors delivered stead that “they should lie flat on the percent of whom were non-combatants. her baby girl by Caesarean section 10 min- ground if a missile is incoming.” Ruebner Shurrab quoted an Israeli air force officer utes after the mother died. Named after her added that Israel killed more Palestinians saying, “We have no targets. The ‘terrormother, Shayma was considered a miracle in the Gaza Strip in one day—38 on July ists’ are all underground.” The point is that baby. On July 30, the hospital lost power, 12—than all Israeli civilians killed by the resistance fighters are in tunnels so as shutting off the incubators, and baby Palestinians in the previous 5 years—28 not to give Israel a target. Why then, Shayma died. On July 26, an Israeli from 2009-2014, according to B’Tselem. Shurrab asked, is Israel bombing so many airstrike killed Mohammed Alareer in his Since, in addition to footing the bill for civilians above ground? By Aug. 7, Israel home in Shejaiya. The 31-year-old father of Iron Dome, the U.S. gives Israel $3.1 billion had destroyed 10,000 Palestinian homes, 33 two was well known to the children of in military support every year, Ruebner hospitals and clinics, factories, shops, trees, Gaza as Karkour, the mischievous chicken asked, “Don’t Palestinians need some sort tens of mosques—including the oldest in in need of socializing on the TV program of Iron Dome to protect themselves against Gaza, the Omari or Great Mosque of “Tomorrow’s Pioneers.” He was the 26th U.S.-supplied weapons?” [At this point a Gaza—2 churches, cemeteries (“even the small ruckus broke out. Ruebner told the dead have no peace”). Shurrab concludes martyr in his extended family. Ruebner also provided details about the indignant few they were free to leave.] that to Israel, “everything and everyone in What is happening in Gaza is the Gaza is a legitimate target.” three civilians killed by rocket fire from Gaza. One was an Israeli voluntarily deliv- evitable consequence of another U.S. failContrary to what the media tell us, ering treats to IDF soldiers in a war zone. ure to broker peace, Ruebner maintained. Shurrab continued, this latest assault did Another was a Thai guest worker. The U.S. peace talks always fail because, he ex- not start with the kidnapping and murder third was a Palestinian Israeli citizen, a plained, they are “designed not to lead to a of three Israeli teenagers. Nor is it the reBedouin. Ruebner noted that Israel’s just peace, but to deepen Israel’s apartheid sult of centuries of animosity. Shurrab Supreme Court had ruled that Israel has no grasp on Palestine: separate and unequal.” Continued on page 47 OCTOBER 2014
THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
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pasquini_46-47_Northern California Chronicle 9/10/14 7:15 PM Page 46
Emotional Ceremony Marks Dedication of Oakland Palestine Solidarity Mural
STAFF PHOTO PHIL PASQUINI
By Elaine Pasquini
Northern California Chronicle
The Oakland Palestine Solidarity Mural.
ject, was formally dedicated in an Aug. 10 public ceremony. Spanning 157 feet along 26th St. between Telegraph and Broadway and reaching a height of 22 feet, the mural pays homage to the history of Bay Area public art while expressing solidarity with the 1.8 million Palestinians trapped in Gaza while Israel dropped bombs on their homes, schools, mosques, hospitals and infrastructure, killing more than 2,000, injuring thousands and violently displacing 540,000 from their demolished homes. Using the image of a tree as the central motif, the mural comprises nine separate panels on which each artist or team of artists has painted an interpretation of a tree to address social and political issues. Twelve artists from California, Palestine and Jordan created the mural to emphasize the power of art to affect social change. A few of the artists spoke at the dedication ceremony. Susan Greene, a resident of the Bay Area for 25 years, is a social art practitioner, educator and clinical psychologist. Calling herself a “Jewish anti-Zionist,” she told the Elaine Pasquini is a free-lance journalist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. 46
crowd: “Israel does not speak for all Jews,” evoking thunderous applause. Nidal El-Khairy traveled to Oakland from his home in Amman, Jordan, where he creates cartoons and other artwork for Jadaliyya and the Lebanese newspaper asSafir. He told the crowd that his deJordanian artist sign was inspired Nidal El-Khairy. by Syrian songwriter Sameeh Shuqair, whose lyrics “we die like trees standing up” reflects “the resilience of people, their steadfastness, and their pride as well.” El-Khairy previously worked with Greene in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Lebanon and traveled there in 2012 for the 30th anniversary of the massacre. Oakland street artist VYAL dedicated his mural panel to the Palestinians he met in Gaza during his visit there in 2011. “I’ve never met such a warm group or culture,” he told his audience. “After witnessing the occupation firsthand, I’m compelled to STAFF PHOTO E. PASQUINI
he Oakland Palestine Solidarity Mural,
Ta public works and community pro-
THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
give my support to them.” Due to the Israeli blockade and Israel’s refusal to grant her permission to leave, Gaza-born artist Dina Matar was unable to travel to Oakland to personally paint her mural panel. However, Greene and a team of volunteer artists from the Bay Area painted Matar’s original design on her designated panel. The other artists included Chris Gazaleh, SPIE, Fred Alvarado, IROT, Deadeyes, Miguel Bounce Perez, Erin Yoshi, executive director of the Estria Foundation—one of the project partners—and Emory Douglas, known for the iconic images he created depicting the African-American struggle for civil rights in the 1960s and 1970s. The mural idea came about in 2011, when Art Forces (formerly Break the Silence Media and Arts Project) and the Estria Foundation (a non-profit organization that creates art in public spaces, locally and globally, to educate and engage youth on the interworking of art and social justice movements) worked with the Middle East Children’s Alliance (MECA) on the Maia (Arabic for water) Mural Brigade in Palestine. A group of American youths, artists, trauma therapists and activists traveled to the West Bank and Gaza to paint OCTOBER 2014
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“From Gaza to Oakland”
murals about compromised water quality at schools and youth centers to raise awareness of the basic human right to clean water. The murals were painted at the sites of water purification systems installed by MECA in 2009 that provided clean water to more than 54,000 children and their families. Water purification sites and other infrastructure were destroyed by the Israeli military in its latest, 50-day assault on Gaza, Operation Protective Edge. Additional organizations contributing to the Oakland mural project included the Northern California Friends of Sabeel, Akonadi Foundation, Left Tilt Foundation and People’s Life Fund.
New York City… Continued from page 45
noted that Arab Muslims, Christians and Jews lived for centuries in harmony under Muslim rule while Jews in Europe were subjected to the Spanish Reconquista and pogroms. Rather, Shurrab explained, it began at the end of the 19th century with the Zionist movement to establish a Jewish state, which required pushing out the indigenous population. This, he observed, is similar to what happened in North America, with indigenous tribes of once proud people now living in reservations. “Maybe,” he observed wryly, “that’s the special bond between Israel and the U.S.” Since 2005, when Israel removed settlers and soldiers from Gaza but retained full control of the enclave’s borders, air space and coastline, Shurrab described normal life as impossible: “If you’re in, you can’t get out; if you’re out, you can’t get back in.” During his time as a student in the OCTOBER 2014
STAFF PHOTO E. PASQUINI
ABOVE: A panel of the Oakland Palestine Solidarity Mural designed and painted by Palestinian American artist Chris Gazaleh. RIGHT: Nidal El-Khairy’s cartoon “Palestine on World Water Day” on display at Oakland’s Uptown Body and Fender gallery.
U.S., he has lost, to natural and unnatural causes, two grandmothers, his father, two brothers and six cousins. He was never able to attend their funerals or pay his last respects. He has been able to go to Jerusalem, a mere hour from Gaza, only once in his life. Students trapped in Gaza cannot accept full scholarships to top universities. Israel’s siege on Gaza affects everyone. Shurrab’s family has a farm close to the border with Israel. The farmhouse is full of bullet holes, he said. It is so normal for the IDF to shoot at homes within 3,000 feet of the border that such incidents don’t even get documented. If Palestinians did this to Israelis, Shurrab asserted, it would be all over the news. A few days before his talk, the IDF destroyed the farmhouse. In 2009, during a cease-fire in Operation Cast Lead, Shurrab’s father and two of his brothers were driving home from the farm at 1 p.m. when Israeli soldiers occupying a Palestinian home shot at them. The car careened into a wall and THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
work was from the portfolio Justice Matters, a project in collaboration with the Middle East Children’s Alliance, Alliance Graphics and the Berkeley Art Center.
Rally for Gaza
STAFF PHOTO PHIL PASQUINI
STAFF PHOTO PHIL PASQUINI
During August and September, the Uptown Body and Fender gallery, located directly across the street from the Oakland Palestine Solidarity Mural, hosted an art exhibition titled “From Gaza to Oakland” to accompany the mural project and bring attention to the Palestinians’ ongoing struggle to live a dignified life on land that should be their sovereign homeland free of Israeli occupation. The exhibit featured original work by Palestinian artists, as well as historical photos of al-Nakba, the ethnic cleansing of Palestine that began in 1948. Some of the art-
Holding signs reading “Boycott Israeli Goods,” “This is Criminal, Who Wouldn’t Resist,” “The World Knows You are Stealing Land” and “Lift the Siege on Gaza,” members of 14 Friends of Palestine rallied Aug. 14 in support of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza suffering under Israeli occupation and the brutal seven-week military assault on Gaza. One demonstrator (pictured) held a homemade sign bearing the names of Mohammed, 11, Ahed, 10, Zakaria, 10, and Ismail, 9, the four young Bakr cousins murdered by the Israeli air force while they were playing soccer on a Gaza beach July 16. “I have an 11-yearold son, and these deaths hit me really hard,” she told the Washington Report. Many of the motorists passing the protesters at the busy corner of Third and Irwin during the afternoon commute honked their horns in agreement. q the soldiers ordered the men out of the car. The soldiers proceeded to fire 18 bullets at his older brother, Kassab, killing him immediately. Shurrab’s 17-year-old brother, Ibrahim, received a bullet in the left leg. A resident in the occupied house who knew Hebrew later told Shurrab’s father he heard, “Shoot to kill.” The medic in the army unit offered to help, but the commander said, “No. They are civilians. We don’t want the story to get out.” Ibrahim bled to death in his father’s arms at midnight. It wasn’t until noon the next day that the soldiers allowed an ambulance through. The father wrote down all the details from his hospital bed and told Amer Shurrab to get the story out because Israel should be held accountable. Shurrab urged people to call on Congress and the administration to support the U.N. Human Rights Council’s investigation into what has happened in Gaza. “Tell them what they tell us about the spy program: if Israel has nothing to hide, there is nothing to worry about.” q 47
twair_48-49_Southern California Chronicle 9/11/14 4:23 PM Page 48
Experts at Levantine Center Assess Damage From Israel’s 50-Day Rampage on Gaza
Southern California Chronicle
STAFF PHOTO S. TWAIR
By Pat and Samir Twair
(L-r) Rabbi Aryeh Cohen, Dr. Laila Al-Marayati, Prof. Mark LeVine and Estee Chandler. he anger was palpable in the Levantine
TCultural Center Aug. 27 as panelists
discussed the aftermath of Israel’s 50-day rampage across Gaza. Audience members visibly shared a respite from the resentment which had built up over nearly seven weeks of watching a one-sided war as they listened to speakers Dr. Laila Al-Marayati, co-founder and president of KinderUSA, Estee Chandler of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), UC Irvine Professor Mark LeVine and Rabbi Aryeh Cohen. UCLA law professor Asli Bali was the moderator. “Two thousand Gazans are dead, 10,000 homes are unlivable and 190 mosques have been destroyed,” stated Dr. Al-Marayati. “Palestinians feel victorious simply because they are alive. Survivors, especially the wounded, are facing possible infection, disease or death due to the lack of potable water and are exposed to sewage as well as the danger caused by a lack of healthcare. There are no psychological facilities to treat children suffering from trauma. Palestinians are not allowed to access Israel’s healthcare system, one of the best in the world. “There will be more attacks,” she predicted, “and each new attack on Gaza will be increasingly more deadly.” After briefly describing JVP’s mission, Chandler noted, “People are always asking Pat and Samir Twair are free-lance journalists based in Los Angeles. 48
‘Where is the Palestinian Gandhi?’” Her answer: “The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement is the Palestinian Gandhi.” Professor LeVine commented that large parts of Gaza now look like Dresden of 1945. Noting that the Israelis cruelly described the bombing of Gaza as mowing the lawn, LeVine said an American general had commented that this wasn’t just mowing the lawn, it was more like uprooting the top soil. LeVine, author of One Land, Two States (available from Middle East Books and More), does not envision a onestate solution, but instead suggests a shared overlapping state. Rabbi Cohen pointed out that most Israeli government ministers are secular, but have chosen to use religious rhetoric to explain actions in Gaza. “We need to start thinking outside the war,” he said. “We need to pressure Congress that the first reaction shouldn’t be a military one. We need to emphasize diplomacy based on human rights.” Professor Bali said the U.S. and Israel will neutralize any criminal court venues that attempt to try Israel for war crimes. “BDS is the final and best option,” she opined. “Voting with dollars is just as effective as a political vote, if not more so.”
L.A. Activists on the Go Israel’s relentless Ramadan assault on Gaza mobilized a broad spectrum of Los AngeTHE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
les progressive groups to stage protests on the travesty of justice and human rights. On Aug. 15, they met on the steps of Los Angeles City Hall for a press conference to protest a meeting of the L.A. City Council’s intergovernmental relations committee to consider a resolution that recognized Israel as a victim of Hamas’s rockets. After the conference some 15 irate activists testified on the absurdity of the resolution. In the meantime, phone calls and e-mails objecting to the resolution had flooded council members, and the resolution was indefinitely postponed. On Aug 16, Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS)-L.A. hosted a gathering of local progressive organizations to begin a united campaign to boycott Hewlett Packard (HP). The assembled representatives of 16 groups agreed that HP was a perfect candidate for a coalition action. Not only does the technical giant provide most computers to the Israeli military, but its biometric identity cards also track movements of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. In the U.S., HP provides the same technology for the prison system, immigration enforcement and surveillance of civilian populations. The new coalition includes BDS-LA, alAwda, American Muslims for Palestine, Jewish Voice for Peace and Students for Justice in Palestine, along with Stop the LAPD Spying, the Anti-Racist Network, Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace (ICUJP) and the Long Beach Network. For more information: visit <www. israeldivestmentcampaign.org/hp-boycottcampaign-socal>. On Aug. 18, activists from JVP, CODEPINK, Friends of Sabeel and American Muslims for Peace simultaneously protested at the Los Angeles offices of California Sens. Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein to object to the Senate’s unanimous support for Israel. In Feinstein’s office four were arrested for refusing to leave until their demands were met to join the U.N. and its call for a full investigation of Israel’s brutal Operation Protective Edge. On Aug. 23, the Israeli-owned Zim vessel Haifa approached the Port of Long Beach. Earlier that week another Zim ship, the Piraeus, wasn’t able to unload its cargo in Oakland for three days (see p. 18). The OCTOBER 2014
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STAFF PHOTO S. TWAIR
was cast as Fattouh, Bellâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s guide in the Arab world. He was set to work on location in Morocco in December, but the Syrian dissident was unable to obtain a visa. Herzog sadly told Abdo he would have to re-cast the role if he didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t get the visa. At the last minute, Abdo met a Moroccan diplomat who was familiar with his acting stardom in the Arab world and granted him a courtesy visa. The actor had similar visa problems in June, when he was assigned to location in Jordan for the same film.
Haifa was greeted at 6 a.m. by hundreds of Block the Boat Coalition protesters objecting to any Zionist boat unloading its cargo at a U.S. port. As in Oakland, the Longshore and the Warehouse Union (ILWU) stood in solidarity with Palestinian unions.
At Last, a Gaza Lawsuit
receiving critical medical treatment. The complaint states that Kerry and Hagel have repeatedly violated laws including the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, a measure that bans military equipment transfer to nations that grossly violate human rights. Orange County court officials sent Kerry and Hagel a 60-day summons requesting they reply to the complaint. A trial date has not been set, but the lawsuit has been assigned to U.S. District Court Judge Andrew J. Guilford.
STAFF PHOTO S. TWAIR
Actor Jay Abdo Needs Help
Attorney Akram Abusharar. Orange County attorney Akram Abusharar filed a lawsuit Aug. 5 in Santa Ana against Secretary of State John Kerry and Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel to â&#x20AC;&#x153;cease all military aid to the Israeli government.â&#x20AC;? The Anaheim-based lawyer further asked that Kerry and Hagel â&#x20AC;&#x153;deny Israeli military officers entry by declaring them persona non grata.â&#x20AC;? Earlier that week, Israel had bombed Abushararâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s family home in Gaza and nearly 30 of his family members barely missed being killed by U.S.-supplied munitions. His father died April 20 as a result of the Israeli siege, which prevented him from OCTOBER 2014
After a rough first three years in the U.S., Syrian actor Jay Abdo is achieving remarkable success in Hollywood. He just finished hefty roles in two major feature films but fears his good luck will run out if Homeland Security doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t grant him an extended travel document. He arrived in the U.S. months after the Syrian revolution began in March 2011 to join his artist-attorney wife, Fadia Afashe, who was studying on a post-graduate grant in Minneapolis. The two applied for political asylum and settled in Los Angeles. It was touch and go financially in the U.S. In Syria, Abdo was one of the countryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s top 10 actors, under the name Jihad Abdo, starring in 43 films and countless soap operas. In Hollywood, he didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t get a call back for more than 100 auditions. Finally, he was delivering pizzas for a living. At that time, Abdo met Nick Raslan, a producer who recognized his talent. Raslan was making a film with Werner Herzog titled â&#x20AC;&#x153;Queen of the Desertâ&#x20AC;? starring Nicole Kidman as the early 20th century archaeologist Gertrude Bell. Miraculously, Abdo THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
STAFF PHOTO S. TWAIR
Block the Boat Coalition members prevent an Israeli ship from unloading cargo Aug. 23 at the Port of Long Beach.
Actor Jay Abdo and his artist-attorney wife, Fadia Afashe. More recently Abdo was cast as Dr. Haddad in â&#x20AC;&#x153;A Hologram for the King,â&#x20AC;? starring Tom Hanks. Both films will be released in 2015. His breakthrough included two roles for films on location in China and South Africa, but he was unable to accept the jobs because he did not have a travel document from Homeland Security. Asked what it was like to work with Kidman and Hanks, Abdo replied, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Both were down to earth, filled with positive energy, professional at all times and wanted to know more about Syria.â&#x20AC;? â?&#x2018; (Advertisement)
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burge_50-51_Christianity and the Middle East 9/10/14 7:18 PM Page 50
Are Evangelicals Abandoning Israel?
WWW.CHRISTATTHECHECKPOINT.COM
By Gary M. Burge, Ph.D.
Christianity and the Middle East
More than 600 Christians from more than 20 countries attended the third biennial “Christ at the Checkpoint” conference in Bethlehem from March 10 to 14, 2014. screed is a lengthy bit of writing that
Amost readers generally find tedious.
And tendentious. But today this has become a common genre among evangelicals of a certain tribe who are keen to shore up Christian support for the state of Israel at all costs. John Hagee is joining voices with Glenn Beck, and a host of evangelical bloggers who might benefit from a graduatelevel course in theology or a refresher on the current political scene has joined in. But today they are raising a new alarm: Evangelicalism’s historic support for Israel is slipping. This is such a concern that they’ve seen fit to name names and condemn institutions that apparently are contributing to this slippage. The well-known Willow Creek Community Church is on their list. But so are World Vision, Youth With a Mission (YWAM), the Mennonite Central Committee, the Telos Group in Washington, DC, Sojourners and Relevant magazines, Eastern University (Philadelphia), and my own Gary M. Burge, Ph.D., is professor of New Testament at Wheaton College in Chicago. He is the author of numerous books and articles on biblical theology as well as the Middle East. His recent publications on Israel/Palestine include Jesus and the Land: The New Testament Challenge to Holy Land Theology (available from Middle East Books and More) and Whose Land? Whose Promise? What Christians Are Not Being Told About Israel and the Palestinians. See <www.garyburge.org>. 50
Wheaton College (Chicago). And that’s just the beginning. Popular conferences such as Catalyst and Q are also indicted, not to mention Christian groups like Evangelicals for Middle East Understanding. Anyone who simply raises troubling questions about Israel’s 47-year military occupation of millions of Palestinians (including many Palestinian Christians) is suddenly labeled “anti-Israel” or in some cases “antiSemitic.” And their institutions are condemned in a convenient gesture of collective incrimination. Consider the case of Tom Getman of Washington, DC, an evangelical who was a legislative aide to the late Sen. Mark Hatfield (R-OR). Getman has worked tirelessly for the cause of justice for Israel/Palestine for decades. But you can’t be the country director of World Vision in Israel/Palestine, see what the Israeli occupation is really doing, and not ask tough questions. So what do we know? First, it is clear that a robust community of evangelicals is firmly and inflexibly in support of the state of Israel. This is easy to demonstrate simply through polling in the last 12 years. In 2006 the Pew Forum found that 70 percent of white evangelicals agreed with the statement, “Israel was given by God to the Jews.” In 2013 that same question yielded 82 percent agreement. In 2005 the forum asked, “Has Israel fulfilled Biblical Prophecy?” Sixty-three percent said yes. In July thousands of evangelicals gathered in Washington, DC for the annual summit of Christians United For Israel THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
(CUFI). Speakers include pastors, senators, and yes, Binyamin Netanyahu. In the words of one of my students now home for the summer: “I struggle to discuss theology with my family members who grew up and still reside in a very conservative town. I have tried to discuss Israel-Palestine with them but it’s like talking to a brick wall.” I hear dozens of variations of those sentences from people all over the U.S. Or you could just follow the money. Israel is easily the largest recipient of American foreign aid. By some estimates, Israel has received a whopping $193 billion since 1951, according to USAID’s Green Book—more than any nation on earth. And evangelicals have followed suit: John Hagee’s Cornerstone Church in San Antonio has donated over $50 million from 2006 to 2010, according to the Nov. 17, 2010 issue of The Christian Century. And churches in the U.S. have donated countless millions in the same spirit. On the other hand, we know that there is a measurable shift in thinking about Israel. In 2005 and 2010 the Pew Forum investigated the sympathies of American evangelicals in this conflict. Their simple polling questions and the results: 2005 2010 Do you sympathize with Israel? Do you sympathize with the Palestinians? Do you sympathize with both sides equally?
55% 30% 12% 13% 26% 49% OCTOBER 2014
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The 2010 polling took place at the Third Lausanne Congress of World Evangelization in Cape Town, South Africa. This shift has some evangelicals worried, and the hand wringing hasn’t stopped since. The problem as many saw it was erosion: equal sympathy for these two warring communities was unacceptable; unequivocal support for Israel was slipping. Many younger evangelicals, such as Todd Deatherage and Shane Claiborne, echoed the language of Lynne Hybels and Brian McLaren: It is time to be pro-Israel, pro-Palestine, and pro-peace. But to hear their critics, this is simply a cover for those who want to subvert evangelical support for Israel. Those who are worried about this slippage are partly correct. There is a shift at work and it has a number of dimensions. Evangelical publishing (in text and film) tells the story. Since about 1985 evangelical scholars and pastors have critiqued unequivocal support for Israel and worked toward a more balanced view. These are political analyses, theological studies and personal testimonies. And the list of titles is long. These opinionshapers are generally younger, well educated and ethnically diverse. And they come from the evangelical mainstream. But also it takes little effort to listen to younger evangelicals such as those on college campuses and hear this change. I have been doing this for 25 years and two things are clear. First, young women are in the forefront, with an ethical passion we’ve never seen before. The older cohort of stereotypically white, middle-class males from conservative churches doesn’t even know this wave is on the horizon. Second, this younger generation is more troubled by injustice than they are inspired by prophecy. They want to devote their lives to the common good, and this includes direct participation in ethically troubling contexts such as Israel/Palestine. Their parents were shaped in the 1970s and 1980s by an evangelicalism that was tonedeaf to cries of injustice. The apartheid struggles in South Africa or the civil rights movement in the U.S. are textbook examples. This new generation finds such ethical disengagement incomprehensible. They also believe that the Israel-Palestine conflict has theological dimensions. Religion (Jewish, Muslim and Christian) has actually exacerbated this conflict. Fervent believers in these different faiths take their preferred views to be God’s view; this includes Christians who insist Scripture is clear on contemporary Israel despite the theological complexity of the issues and the Church’s historic lack of consensus. As a Christian OCTOBER 2014
scholar, I have tried to address this issue (see Whose Land? Whose Promise? and Jesus and the Land). And for these explorations we receive remarkably harsh criticism. Our critics have difficulty understanding that those who do not promote Israeli exceptionalism are not budding anti-Semites. It is flatly untrue that these more progressive evangelicals deny that Israel has a right to exist or that they “hate Israel.” Its six million Jewish citizens deserve secure borders and a hopeful future. This is particularly true considering the centuries of anti-Semitism Jews have endured. But they also believe that all 6 million Palestinians deserve a secure and hopeful future. Jews are not to be expelled from the Holy Land, but neither are Palestinians to be held in a hopeless and violent captivity. This issue is further complicated when some unfortunate evangelicals conflate Biblical Israel with modern Israel. The former was a theocracy centered on temple worship. The latter is an intentionally secular state. The “Thomas Jefferson” of Israeli Zionism, Theodore Herzl, was an avowed atheist with marginal respect for Arabs. His vision of a Jewish state contributed to the founding of the nation we see today. But the confusion is understandable, because these early Zionists tried to exploit the Bible for their political aims. Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, also an atheist, was fond of studying the Bible, especially the book of Joshua, so he could use it to argue for Jewish chosenness and justify Israel’s “divine” claim to the land (see his Dec. 6, 1967 letter to Charles de Gaulle). He even preferred that his generals adopt Old Testament names. On early maps towns were renamed: Beirut, for example, on early Israeli maps of Lebanon became Be’erot (the Biblical name) rather than the usual French Beyrouth or Arabic Bayrūt. Today’s new voices calling for a new political order that sympathizes with both sides are not persuaded that modern, secular, multi-religious Israel is the direct fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies that God made to Biblical Israel. Nor are they persuaded that Israel is entitled to divine privileges other nations may not claim. Israel is morally obligated (just as all people are) to promote justice and fairness for all people under its rule. The Old Testament prophets made this perfectly clear. But here is something else. This passion for justice in Israel/Palestine among younger evangelicals is mirrored by the same call among younger Jews in the U.S. THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
When my students are signing petitions at Jewish Voice for Peace or Peace Now or telling me about Open Hillel, well, you know that something remarkable and unprecedented is afoot. They tell me: The world is a mess. It’s time to fix it and not support ideologies or theologies that have inflamed prejudice and conflict. We want to bring the mercy of God to the world. Indeed. It is easy to hear the shrill voices defending religious exceptionalism and nationalism among Jews, Christians and Muslims. Some evangelical bloggers sing in this choir regularly. Perhaps they should pause and consider if what they are doing genuinely contributes to peace in the Middle East. One student told me: The arc of history always bends toward justice. And that is what is happening now. The sanitized narrative we have heard about Israel for a generation is wearing thin. Indeed it is time to be pro-Israel, proPalestine, and pro-peace. This is not an empty cliché. This is the heartfelt belief of a rising new generation and we would do well to listen to them. q (Advertisement)
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brownfeld_52-53_Israel and Judaism 9/10/14 7:19 PM Page 52
Jewish Moral and Ethical Values Also a Victim Of Israel’s Assault on Gaza Israel andJudaism
By Allan C. Brownfeld
MANDEL NGAN/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
Kirshner, an executive of the New York Board of Rabbis, suggested that Palestinians who voted for Hamas are combatants who deserve to be targeted by Israel. He said: “When you are part of an election process that asks for a terrorist organization which proclaims in word and deed that their primary objective is to destroy their neighboring country...you are complicit and you are not a civilian casualty.” The crowd cheered, and Kirshner went on to claim that the Israeli army is “the most moral army in the history of civilization.” He ended his remarks with the word “Amen.” Philip Weiss, reporting on this event on Mondoweiss, pointed out that, “The rabbi did not make clear how he would sort out Palestinians who voted for Hamas.” Rabbi Menachem Creditor of Berkeley, California is a well-known liberal, an advocate of gay rights, Protesters demonstrate against Israel’s latest assault on Gaza, Aug. 10, 2014, in front of the gun control, abortion rights and granting refuge to illegal aliens. He Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC. was named by Newsweek as one of srael’s assault on Gaza has taken a terri- once Israel felt secure. That belief began to America’s 50 most influential rabbis. When ble toll in human lives, the majority of wane in the past eight years when Israel, it comes to Israel, he has defended the them Palestinian civilians, many of them faced with a Palestinian Authority that bombing of civilians in Gaza, declaring: “I women and children. Sadly, the organized promoted nonviolence and sought recon- am done trying to apologetically explain American Jewish community has em- ciliation and peace, ignored the Saudi Ara- Jewish morality. I am done apologizing for braced this attack, held rallies in its de- bian-led peace initiative that would have my own Jewish existence.” Although osfense, and raised money for the Israel De- granted Israel the recognition that it had tensibly an American, he was referring to fense Forces. The indifference to the loss of long sought, an end to hostilities, and a Israeli soldiers when he said, “I have lost civilian life has shocked many Jews who recognized place in the Middle East, re- 20 of my sons in the last 3 days.” lament the manner in which, for the Jew- fused to stop its expansion of settlements Even J Street, promoted as a “liberal” ish establishment, Israel has become an ob- in the West Bank and imposed an econom- Zionist voice, has embraced Israel’s actions ject of worship, much like the idolatry of ically crushing blockade on Gaza.” in Gaza. In 2008, the group publicly opthe golden calf in the Bible. Now, notes Lerner, “It is the brutality of posed Israel’s Operation Cast Lead assault Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor of Tikkun, this assault that has broken me into tears on Gaza. During subsequent crises, howwrote: “My heart is broken as I witness and heartbreak...The worship of power is ever, the “pro-Israel, pro-peace” group has the suffering of the Palestinian people and precisely what Judaism came into being to declined to criticize Israeli actions. In the the seeming indifference of Israelis. All my challenge...It is this love, compassion, jus- face of mounting civilian casualties in life I’ve been a champion of Israel...I always tice and peace-oriented Judaism that the Gaza, J Street has joined the organized told myself that the dominant humanity of State of Israel is murdering.” Jewish community in its uncritical supthe Jewish people and the compassionate Within the organized American Jewish port. strain within Torah would reassert itself community, and in Israel, there has been In Israel itself, there has been almost little sympathy expressed for the nearly unanimous support for the war on Gaza Allan C. Brownfeld is a syndicated colum- 1,500 civilian victims. The strident voices and some calls for even harsher steps to be nist and associate editor of the Lincoln Re- of support for the assault on Gaza are in- taken. Ayelet Shaked, a Knesset member view, a journal published by the Lincoln In- structive with regard to what the Jewish from the Jewish Home Party, a member of stitute for Research and Education, and edi- establishment holds dear. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s govtor of Issues, the quarterly journal of the At a pro-Israel rally of 10,000 people in erning coalition, issued on Facebook what American Council for Judaism. New York on July 28, Rabbi David-Seth amounts to a call to commit genocide by
I
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THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
OCTOBER 2014
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deliberately killing Palestinians, including women, children and old people. “The entire Palestinian people is the enemy,” she posted. “In wars, the enemy is usually an entire people, including its elderly and its women, its cities and its villages, its property and its infrastructure.” She went on to say that mothers of Palestinians should follow their dead sons to hell: “They should go, as should the physical homes in which they raised the snakes. Otherwise, more little snakes will be raised there.” The Aug. 1 edition of The Times of Israel published a blog by Yochanan Gordon with the headline, “When Genocide Is Permissible.” Gordon contended that, “Nothing can be considered disproportionate... Hamas has stated forthrightly that it idealizes death as much as Israel celebrates life. What other way is there to deal with an enemy of this nature than obliterate them completely?...If political leaders...determine that the only way to achieve its goal of sustaining quiet is through genocide is it then permissible to achieve those responsible goals?” (After objections, The Times of Israel withdrew the material, but the point was made.) According to the London Daily Mail of Aug. 4, Knesset Speaker Moshe Feiglin posted a message on his Facebook page calling for concentration camps in Gaza and “the conquest of the entire Gaza Strip and annihilation of all fighting forces and their supporters.” In a letter addressed to Prime Minister Netanyahu, Feiglin lays out a detailed plan for the destruction of Gaza, which includes shipping its residents across the world. Nor is it only right-wing spokesmen in Israel who express contempt for the rights and lives of Palestinians. In an interview with The Jerusalem Post, published in its Aug. 8-14 issue, the widely respected Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz, who after 45 years of work translated the entire Talmud from archaic Aramaic into modern Hebrew, said that the West Bank cannot be considered “occupied.” According to the Post, the rabbi “sees no moral necessity to give Palestinians full political rights.” Although Steinsaltz described the murder of Palestinian teenager Mohammed Abu Khdeir as “a horrible thing,” he went on to explain that, in his view, the murder “should be condemned not principally because what they did was morally abhorrent…but because their despicable act endangered the lives of Jews by generating a backlash of Arab fury.” Killing a Jew, Steinsaltz declared, is considered much more severe than killing a non-Jew according to Halacha, or Orthodox Jewish law. When interviewer Matt Wagner told Steinsaltz he found this “immoral,” Steinsaltz replied: “I OCTOBER 2014
do not see things in your light...Morality is such an ephemeral phenomenon...” There is growing evidence, however, that the support of the organized American Jewish community for Israel’s latest assault on Gaza does not represent the thinking of all American Jews. Rabbi Henry Siegman, president of the U.S./Middle East Project and for many years national director of the American Jewish Congress, states: “When one thinks that this is what is necessary for Israel to survive, that the Zionist dream is based on the repeated slaughter of innocents on a scale that we’re watching on television, that is really a profound, profound crisis— and should be a profound crisis in the thinking of all of us who were committed to the establishment of the state and its success.” The widely read author Naomi Wolf writes: “I mourn genocide in Gaza because I am the granddaughter of a family half wiped out in the Holocaust and I know genocide when I see it. People are asking why I am taking this ‘side.’ There are no sides. I mourn all victims. But every law of war and international law is being broken in the targeting of civilians in Gaza. I stand with the people of Gaza exactly because things might have turned out differently if more people had stood with the Jews in Germany. I stand with the people in Gaza because no one stood with us.” New York Times columnist Roger Cohen, a long-time Zionist, is dismayed with Israel’s conduct toward the Palestinians: “I am a Zionist because the story of my forebears convinces me that Jews needed the homeland voted into existence by U.N. Resolution 181 of 1947. What I cannot accept, however, is the perversion of Zionism…Jews, above all people, know what oppression is...No argument, no Palestinian outrage or subterfuge, can gloss over what Jewish failure the killing of children in such numbers represents...Hamas is vile. I would happily see it destroyed. But Hamas is also a product of a situation that Israel has reinforced rather than sought to resolve...This corrosive Israeli exercise in the control of another people, breeding the contempt of the powerful for the oppressed, is a betrayal of the Zionism in which I still believe.” Even so strong a supporter of Israel as Leon Wieseltier, literary editor of the New Republic, has expressed concern about the “indifference in the Jewish world” to the slaughter in Gaza as well as the wholehearted Israeli support for it. “There are no concepts that can catch up with the murder of children,” he states. “After all, even Satan has not yet devised the proper vengeance for the death of a child. I have THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
been surprised by the magnitude of the indifference of the Jewish world to the human costs of Israel’s defense against the missiles and the tunnels. Some of the emails I have received have been lunatic in their lack of compassion.” According to Rabbi Alissa Wise, co-director of the Jewish Voice for Peace Rabbinical Council, “Every time Israel engages in high-profile repression of civilians, we get inundated. But we have never seen anything like this. Our mailing list grew by 50,000 in 3 weeks and we can’t keep up with the demand for new chapters. This is the final straw for many Jews, who have decided that their silence implies consent.”
AIPAC in Decline? Polls show that younger American Jews are increasingly alienated from Israel and from an American Jewish establishment which seems totally focused on the Middle East, rather than on Judaism. And on Capitol Hill, there is evidence that AIPAC may finally be in decline. A poll conducted by Zogby Analytics for Avaaz, an online activist organization that supports Jewish peace groups, indicates that “a growing number of the Washington establishment see a damaging, partisan lobby on the decline.” The poll quizzed Capitol Hill staff members, NGO and think tank leaders, journalists and government officials. More insiders thought the influence of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is falling than rising. The survey found that of those expressing an opinion, three times as many believe that AIPAC has more influence than it should—a possible indicator, writes Paul Bedard in the March 6 Washington Examiner, “that Washington may be tiring of decades of hard-line negotiating tactics on behalf of Israel...The group’s influence has been questioned.” About 45 percent of poll respondents said they have at least once seen a member of Congress take a position that was not in the public interest because of AIPAC. More than 50 percent agreed with the statement, “AIPAC is the NRA of Middle East policy.” Israel’s conduct in Gaza has, it seems, made clear to an increasing number of American Jews that Israel’s policies and conduct are in contradiction to the humane Jewish moral and ethical tradition. What is also clear is that the American Jewish establishment does not represent the views—and the moral values—of those in whose name it speaks. It is clear that not only Palestinians were assaulted in Gaza, but also Judaism and the Jewish belief that men and women of every race and nation are created in God’s image and deserve to be treated humanely, Palestinians no less than Jews. q 53
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pecting more than 241,000 students to at- Muslim-American volunteers assembled tend 252 schools this year. Most schools will and distributed backpacks, lunchbags and be run on a double-shift basis because there kits full of school supplies to 500 children Muslim Relief Organizations are insufficient buildings. As the displaced living in Washington, DC’s Ward 7 as they Pledge to Help UNRWA in Gaza return to their homes—or what remains of headed back to school. American Third Pilthem—UNRWA is sweeping lar Charities (ATPC), a DC-based non-profit through each of their 400- organization, joined DC Councilwomen 500 properties (some of Yvette Alexander and Muriel Bowser (a which housed hundreds of candidate for mayor) at the Fort Davis families), cleaning, looking Recreation Center on Aug. 23. The funfor unexploded ordnance filled day included hamburgers, hot dogs, and replacing damaged glass popcorn and icecream to fortify students for and water tanks. the following Monday’s start of the new Nearly 100 percent of school year. Gaza’s population of 1.8 milThe day ended with a raffle in which 50 lion people depend on U.N. lucky children walked away with brand food rations now, Reynolds new bicycles donated by NBA superstar continued. UNRWA is send- Thomas Robinson, who grew up in Ward 7. ing more than 30 truckloads The Portland Trail Blazers basketball hero (L-r) Sulaiman Ghanem, executive director, Baitulmaal, Inc.; of vital supplies to Gaza and his friends Marcus and Markieff MorAbdallah Boumediene, CEO, Life for Relief and Development each day and will also need ris of the Phoenix Suns gave back-to-school (LIFE); Matthew Reynolds, director, UNRWA representative funds to provide psychoso- advice and posed for pictures with eager office; Dr. Abed Ayoub, CEO/president, United Muslim Re- cial support for the trauma- kids and parents—not to mention the Mustized children there. lim-American volunteers! lief; and Saif Ahmad, CEO, Islamic Help. There is good news, —Delinda C. Hanley Representatives of a coalition of Muslim re- Reynolds added: most of the 21 UNRWA lief organizations gathered at the Washing- health centers are open for business again. KARAMAH Hosts Panel on Torture ton, DC offices of the United Nations Relief Since the start of the 50-day war, UNRWA Imam Talib M. Shareef welcomed guests to and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in health centers recorded a total of 566,150 Masjid Muhammad in Washington, DC on the Near East (UNRWA) on Aug. 27 to patient visits. July 20 for KARAMAH’s annual commuThe international organization Shelter nity iftar. Prior to the Ramadan fast-breakpledge $500,000 in support of UNRWA’s urgent humanitarian work in the Gaza Strip. Cluster issued a report on Aug. 29 stating ing meal, KARAMAH (Muslim Women Representatives from the coalition, which that 17,000 Gaza housing units were de- Lawyers for Human Rights) hosted a speincluded United Muslim Relief, Islamic stroyed or severely damaged during this cial panel, “Exposing the Truth of U.S. Help, Life for Relief and Development summer’s war. Norway and Egypt plan to Torture: Restoring Human Dignity,” co(LIFE), Baitulmaal and the Muslim Commu- co-host a donor conference to try to raise sponsored by the Constitution Project and nity and Education Center (MCEC), signed the estimated $6 billion needed to recon- National Religious Campaign Against Torstruct the Gaza Strip. Muslim-American ture. the agreement. UNRWA lost 11 personnel during Israel’s charities are going to do what they can to KARAMAH chair Dr. Azizah al-Hibri “Operation Protective Edge,” Matthew help this effort, the coalition promised. and her fellow panelists, Ambassador —Delinda C. Hanley Thomas R. Pickering, former U.S. under secReynolds, head representative of UNRWA’s Washington, DC office, told his guests. retary of state for political affairs, and Rev. “UNRWA is a lifeline to over 1.2 million DC Muslims Join Back-to-School Ron Stief, executive director of the National Drive Gazan refugees,” he said, Religious Campaign Against many of whom are now Torture, gave horrifying dehomeless. In fact, he noted, scriptions of forcefeeding, wa1,000 families were still waitterboarding and other mething for housing after Israel’s ods of torture. They urged Operation Cast Lead in 2008President Barack Obama to 09. Now many more families declassify the Senate Select are living in makeshift shelIntelligence Committee’s reters or tents, he said, warning, port on the CIA’s detention “We have to work quickly to and treatment of suspected get ready for winter, espeterrorists after 9/11. Stating cially if it’s harsh like last that Americans need to know year.” about their country’s brutal Reynolds is also concerned use of torture, panelists called that as the new school year on the president to reconsider should have begun, nearly redactions to the 6,000-page 300,000 people were still shelreport proposed by his adtering in 85 UNRWA schools American Third Pillar volunteers, including Deedee Musa (r), had as much ministration. and facilities. UNRWA is ex- fun giving out school supplies as the kids who received them. —Delinda C. Hanley STAFF PHOTO D. HANLEY
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When his mother, Suha Abu Khdeir, arrived at the hospital, she could not believe her eyes. “When I looked over at him, it was like looking at someone I did not know. His face was distorted. He did not look normal,” she said. According to Suha, Israeli officials handPanelists (seated, l-r) Imam Talib M. Shareef, Rev. Ron Stief, cuffed her son to the hosAmbassador Thomas Pickering and Dr. Azizah al-Hibri. pital bed, told her she could not touch or talk to her child, and attempted to prevent a repHuman Rights resentative from the U.S. Embassy from visiting the young American. American Teenager Beaten by Israeli Despite having never been charged with Police Speaks on Capitol Hill a crime, Tariq was rushed back to prison Tariq Abu Khdeir, a 15-year-old Palestin- after a short stint in the hospital. This ocian American from Tampa, FL, appeared at curred despite the objections of a doctor the Rayburn House Office Building on employed by the Israeli police who said Capitol Hill Aug. 1 to discuss the vicious that Tariq needed to remain in the hospital beating he received July 3 at the hands of for observation due to the fact that he had Israeli police while visiting his family in blood in his urine. “I cannot describe the pain I felt seeing East Jerusalem. The event, sponsored by the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occu- my beloved son being held in an Israeli pation, also featured Khdeir’s mother, his prison without charges, denied medical attorney and several human rights ob- care and suffering from a brutal beating,” his mother said. The fact that he was in the servers. From the moment he arrived at the Tel custody of the same people who attacked Aviv airport to begin his summer vacation, him made the situation even more unbearKhdeir said, Israeli authorities treated him able, she added. “He was in the jail with unequally. “They kept me in the airport for the same people, the Israeli police who 10 hours,” he recalled. Palestinians and their beat him,” she explained, “so I didn’t supporters often receive such “special at- know what to expect from them next.” After several days, Tariq was released tention” upon entering or departing Israel. Khdeir’s vacation took a tragic turn on and placed under house arrest until his deJuly 2, when his 16-year-old cousin and parture back to the U.S. All is not well with the Khdeir family in close friend Mohammed Abu Khdeir was kidnapped and brutally killed by three Jerusalem, however. “The day that I left young Israelis. Mohammed’s murder Palestine, they raided my family’s house, sparked protests the following day. According to Khdeir, while he was watching these protests he suddenly heard people screaming and saw Israeli police firing rubber bullets. As the crowd and police moved toward him, Khdeir said he attempted to flee the chaos by jumping over a fence. Suddenly, he recalled, “the Israeli police grabbed me from behind, slammed my face into the floor, zip tied my hands behind my back and started to kick and punch me in my face and in the ribs.” Eventually, Khdeir fell unconscious. This, however, did not stop the beating, as video shows that Israeli police continued to kick the unconscious teenager’s body. “I woke up blindfolded in the jail,” Khdeir recalled. It was another six hours before he was taken to the hospital for Tariq Abu Khdeir tells congressional staff about his beating and arrest in Israel. medical treatment. STAFF PHOTO D. SPRUSANSKY
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they took my uncle and my [male] cousins into custody with no charges,” Tariq noted. “They’re still in jail [un]til now because they’re not American like me.” Back from his hellish summer trip, Khdeir says he has a better idea of what Palestinians face on a daily basis. “What I’ve been through is just a small taste of what they all go through,” he said. “When I visited over there, I actually forgot that I had freedom. For my cousins I really wish they had the same freedom that I have living in America,” he said. Added his mother: “In Jerusalem we felt treated worse than second-class citizens by the Israeli government who treated us differently because we had a different religion and ethnicity.” Hassan Shibly, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ Tampa office and the Khdeir family’s attorney, said the police who attacked Tariq must be held accountable. This, however, is unlikely to happen, he noted, as only one officer has been punished, and even he received merely a 15-day suspension. This is typical, as Israeli police and soldiers rarely face serious consequences for their actions against Palestinians. “What kind of message does that send when Israeli officers can brutally attack one of our own citizens, and it shouldn’t matter whether he’s a citizen or not, he’s a child, and yet none of those officers, or maybe one of the officers, faces repercussions?” Shibly asked. “It gives the green light for the police to continue to treat the Palestinian people in such an inhumane way….This will only escalate the violence, because the Palestinian people will see that Israeli officers can do whatever they want to them; There’s no constructive means of engagement.” Shibly called on the American government to demand that Israel treat Jews, Christians, Muslims and all others equally. “Our government cannot continue to fund Israeli police and military so long as Israel continues to engage in gross human rights and civil rights violations,” he said. Brad Parker, staff attorney at Defense for Children International-Palestine, said Israeli soldiers must no longer be allowed to act with impunity against Palestinians, especially children. “You have a system that provides very little legal protection, very little legal rights to children,” he noted. “It’s not a justice system, it’s a system of control, and you see that in the way arrests are carried out.” Sunjeev Bery, Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa advocacy di55
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arm,” Mohamed wrote from rector, said that Israel’s recent prison, referring to the two assault on Gaza shows that offinails in his left arm that were cials in Tel Aviv believe they removed by a fellow prisoner will not be held accountable by because authorities would not Washington. “It’s ridiculous grant him access to a doctor. that U.S. Secretary of State John Mohamed went on to lament Kerry [was] talking about a that he is frequently mocked cease-fire while simultaneously about U.S. inaction. “I often get the U.S. government [was] reasked sarcastically by judges, leasing more artillery shells and officers, and even inmates, other forms of munitions to the ‘Where is this First World Israeli government,” he said. country that takes such pride The U.N., Bery stressed, must in defending human rights and impose an arms embargo on all freedoms? Where are they now parties—including the Isto help you?’ Of course, I am raelis—involved in the conflict. Laila El-Haddad, author of Supporters of Mohamed Soltan, including his brother Omar (l), left speechless every time. “The only sensible, yet unacGaza Mom and The Gaza gathered at Secretary of State John Kerry’s Washington, DC home ceptable conclusion that I can Kitchen (both available from to demand Mohamed’s release from an Egyptian prison. come up with is that the U.S. Middle East Books and More), began her remarks by sharing devastating in the Rabaa Square sit-in, which took government’s protections of political internews: eight members of her family had place last year after the coup that ousted ests is more important and takes precebeen killed in Gaza earlier that day. While President Mohamed Morsi from power. dence over the protections of its citizens’ many often refer to Gaza as the world’s Ten days after authorities violently dis- rights, freedoms, and safety abroad,” he largest open-air prison, she said such a persed the demonstration, Mohamed was said. “No American should have to come to characterization is inappropriate, as it im- arrested during a raid on his family’s home. that conclusion, and no human should explies guilt. “Gaza is more like an intern- According to Omar, authorities were look- perience the inhumane circumstances I ment camp,” she opined, “a holding pen ing for their father, Salah Soltan, a member and 15,000 other political prisoners are fac—Dale Sprusansky for animals where it’s open season 24/7, of the Muslim Brotherhood, but arrested ing.” where the question of the freedom of the Mohamed when they realized Salah was inhabitants is never raised.” not home. Waging Peace Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), the only Even after arresting Salah several days member of Congress to attend the briefing later, authorities refused to release his son. (although at least 47 Congressional offices Instead, they charged the 26-year-old Ohio Can the U.N. Bring Peace and Justice sent interns or staffers), concluded with State University graduate with associating To Palestine? short remarks. He commended the Khdeir with the Brotherhood and misinforming “International Organizations: A New family for their courage and urged mem- the media. Mohamed has denied both Forum for Discussion?” was the title of an bers of the public to make sure their voices charges. Unlike his father, he said he has Aug. 5 discussion held at the Palestine are heard in the halls of Congress. never been a member of the Brotherhood. Center in Washington, DC. Panelists Phyl—Dale Sprusansky Mohamed and his family believe the latter lis Bennis, a fellow at the Institute for Polcharge is retribution for the many inter- icy Studies, and Nidal Sliman of AlProtesters to John Kerry: Help Free views he gave to members of the media Shabaka Palestinian Policy Network, disAmerican From Egyptian Prison during the Rabaa sit-in. cussed the role of the U.N. and other interMohamed’s family and supporters main- national organizations in the Palestine-IsSupporters of Mohamed Soltan, an Egyptian American who has been imprisoned in tain that the Obama administration has not rael conflict. Bennis began by lamenting that the Egypt for more than a year, gathered at dedicated adequate time and resources to Secretary of State John Kerry’s Georgetown secure his release. The U.S., which sends U.N.—an organization created to “end the home in Washington, DC on Aug. 25 to de- $1.5 billion in annual aid to Egypt, must scourge of war”—does not play a more acmand that the U.S. government do more to have some degree of leverage with Cairo, tive role in Israel-Palestine peace talks. secure his release. The demonstration took they reason. They also are unhappy with This is bizarre, she said, as the United Naplace on the one-year anniversary of Kerry’s recent comment that Egypt is tions created Israel, divided historic Pales“transitioning to a democracy.” tine and called for the creation of an “Arab Soltan’s arrest. In a letter to President Barack Obama State.” She describes Palestine as “the The rally began with an emotional speech by Mohamed’s brother, Omar. Not- earlier this year, Mohamed expressed his longest running problem that belongs to ing that Mohamed has been on a hunger frustration with the man he passionately the United Nations, and it is at the same time the greatest failure of the United Nastrike since late January, Omar expressed campaigned for in past elections. “Your abandonment of me, an American tions.” fear that his brother will not survive much According to Bennis, the U.N.’s inability longer without U.S. diplomatic interven- citizen who worked tirelessly toward your tion. His brother, Omar said, is strong- election, and a staunch supporter and de- to rectify the conflict can largely be exwilled and is prepared to die of starvation fender of your presidency, has left a sting plained by Washington’s unwavering proin me that is almost as intense as the sharp tection of Israel in the international comif he is not granted his freedom. Mohamed was a well-known participant pain emanating from my recently sliced munity. “The State Department, the White 56
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powered to do that.” lapse of peace talks, Israel is becoming an Sliman began his remarks by apartheid state. In Abdelnour’s words, noting that international advo- “Without the distraction of a two-state cacy is just one aspect of the peace process, the nature of Israel’s Palestinian national liberation apartheid becomes starkly evident in a way struggle. “We have to remem- that is indefensible and intolerable.” The ber that law is a tool for the term “Israeli apartheid” is an appropriate struggle for justice and human term to use to describe the “racial violence rights and it cannot be the an- and segregation that is enshrined in Israeli swer to all problems and chal- institutions and state practices,” he stated. lenges,” he said. Apartheid in Israel today is more sophisHe also noted that it will be ticated and complex than it was in South difficult to bring Israel to the Africa, Abdelnour continued. For one Phyllis Bennis (l) and Nidal Sliman note the obstacles to International Court of Justice, thing, South Africa was dependent on ina U.N.-brokered peace agreement. as Israel has not recognized the digenous labor. In contrast, since the second House, the Congress, those are the forces court’s jurisdiction. “However,” he ex- intifada Israel employs very few Palestinithat determine how the United Nations plained, “it will be possible to bring cases ans. A boycott of Israeli goods by West charter is to be defined and how it is or is against other states that are complicit, sup- Bank Palestinians would be difficult, benot allowed to be implemented,” she said. porting or in violation of their interna- cause Palestinians are captive markets for Is“Let’s look at the history of the United tional obligations if they filed that declara- raeli goods and also because they are deStates veto [at the U.N],” Bennis continued. tion accepting the jurisdiction of the pendent on Israel for facilitating their own —Dale Sprusansky trade activities. If you count all the U.S. vetoes at the U.N., court.” Another difference is that the interna“you will see that two-thirds of those vetional community exerted extreme pressure toes were in defense of apartheid policies Understanding Israeli Apartheid either in South Africa or in Israel,” she Samer Abdelnour, co-founder of Al- to end apartheid in South Africa. In the case noted. “Two-thirds of United States vetoes Shabaka Palestinian Policy Network, gave a of Israel, however, although EU countries were cast in defense of apartheid.” This, thought-provoking lecture on Israeli are moving toward settlement-related sancBennis added, makes the U.S. complicit in apartheid on Aug. 14 at the Palestine Center tions, most trade with Israel will continue, Israeli violations of international law. in Washington, DC. He compared apartheid especially U.S. trade and financial support Furthermore, Bennis argued, the U.S. as practiced in Israel and South Africa to a of Israel’s military. An additional difference framework for peace has proven to be in- packed audience—many of whom had par- is homeland. “Under apartheid in South effective and biased in favor of Israel. “I ticipated in U.S. efforts to end apartheid in Africa,” Abdelnour explained, “Bantustans can promise you, somebody will be back at South Africa. Before defining apartheid and were established as a means to register and the [peace] table and it will fail again…be- describing how the system works to segre- confine the work and activities of people to cause it is going to be based on the failed gate and marginalize people, Abdelnour ‘homeland’ areas.” Palestinians today are acdiplomatic approach of the last 23 years,” read a prescient quote by then Israeli Prime tively denied homeland anywhere, as Israel she said. “Going from 23 years of failed Minister Ehud Olmert, published in a No- continues its land grabs. The final difference is military brutality. diplomacy to 24 years is not my idea of vember 2007 Haaretz interview: likely success.” “If the day comes when the two-state “The violence and segregation directed Instead of more of the same, Bennis be- solution collapses, and we face a South against Palestinians during the first and seclieves “you answer the question the way African-style struggle for equal voting ond intifadas certainly compared with the the United Nations should have answered rights (also for the it years and years ago: on the basis of Palestinians in the terhuman rights, international law and equal- ritories), then, as soon ity for all.” as that happens, the While the U.N. must play an elevated State of Israel is finrole in enforcing peace, Bennis stressed ished.” Olmert continthat arrangements such as one state or two ued, ”The Jewish orstates must be decided by Israel and Pales- ganizations, which tine. “That’s not the business of the United were our power base Nations,” she stated. “It’s not the business in America, will be of us in this room, except for those of us in the first to come out this room who happen to be Israelis or against us...because Palestinians. People who live there get to they will say they choose the arrangements.” cannot support a state Turning closer to home, Bennis empha- that does not support sized that civil society organizations must democracy and equal work to keep the U.N. and the U.S. ac- voting rights for all its Several hundred individuals gathered at the White House on countable. Doing so, she believes, will residents.” Aug. 9 to demand an end to U.S. aid to Israel and to voice their allow the “United Nations to be able to act Secretary of State support for the growing BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sancon behalf of its charter that says its role is John Kerry has admittions) movement. The peaceful demonstration was countered by a significantly smaller pro-Israel rally. to end the scourge of war. It has to be em- ted that with the colSTAFF PHOTO D. SPRUSANSKY
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Samer Abdelnour describes the result of Israeli apartheid—the end of support for Israel. brutality of the South African apartheid regime,” Abdelnour observed. However, he noted, the immense level of destruction aimed at a population crippled by occupation and siege in Israel’s bombardments of Gaza in 2008-2009, 2012 and 2014 is perhaps unprecedented. Next Abdelnour turned to the physical aspects, ideology and architecture of Israel’s brand of apartheid. Israelis have erected physical divisions: checkpoints, prisons, settlements, settler roads, walls, “security zones,” tanks, tractors, bulldozers, drones and bombs. Israel also uses physical means to classify and categorize, including “permits and applications, ID cards, databases, surveillance systems, evacuation orders, legal notices and so on.” The ideology that produces and sustains this apartheid system fall under many labels and “-isms,”Abdelnour said: racism, colonialism, Christian Zionism, Zionism, religious fundamentalism and neo-liberalism. Israel promotes fear to justify racial violence and segregation, Abdelnour continued. Israel is fixated on its own “security,” and for many Israelis violence is necessitated by the existential “threat” that Palestinians pose. “Ideology also enables millions of people to accept myth and hypocrisy as truth,” he added. For example, millions believe Arabs might drive “Israelis into the sea.” In truth, “No Palestinian is actually ever known to have done so. Rather, during the Nakba upwards of 25 percent of Palestinians were forced to leave Palestine by boat.” Israeli apartheid ideology also dehumanizes Palestinians, Abdelnour charged. Common anti-Arab rhetoric (mothers don’t care about the lives of their children and Palestinians are raised in a culture of hate) render Palestinians inhuman and thus unworthy of freedom, citizenship and self-determination. Abdelnour described the architecture or 58
framework of apartheid, which includes the regulatory, economic and institutional systems associated with apartheid. He also described Israel’s shocking treatment of nonJewish African migrants and refugees, which “exposes the racism embedded within segments of the Israeli society and its institutions.” In conclusion, Abdelnour noted that, just as Olmert warned, increasing numbers of Israelis, Jews and Christians—including formerly devout Zionists—are distancing themselves from Israeli state policies and propaganda. Exposing Israeli apartheid will make the self-proclaimed Jewish state even more vulnerable to international criticism. —Delinda C. Hanley
Holocaust Survivors Call for Justice in Gaza Forty Jewish survivors of the Nazi Holocaust and 287 descendants of survivors and victims issued a letter printed in the Aug. 23 New York Times condemning Israel’s actions in Gaza. The letter’s signatories, from 26 countries, represented four generations of survivors and their descendants. Some of the signatories from around the world spoke at a “virtual” press conference on Aug. 25, explaining what prompted their letter. The letter’s initial signatory, Hajo Meyer, an Auschwitz survivor, was outraged by the racism and dehumanization of Palestinians in Israeli society. Meyer, 90, who died the day before the letter ran in the Times, was upset by the misuse of his history and the betrayal of Jewish values. Edith Bell’s parents died in separate concentration camps, and she herself was liberated from Kurzbach camp by the Soviet army in 1945. She condemned Israel’s assault on Gaza, saying that by now people should have learned that “military might doesn’t end wars.“ Suzanne Weiss, whose mother died in Auschwitz, said she was hidden and saved by French peasant solidarity. Weiss was infuriated by Elie Wiesel’s ad, published Aug. 1 in major American publications, condemning Hamas for using children as human shields. “He pretends to be the voice of Judaism,” Weiss exclaimed. “I say, ‘Not in my name.’ I stand in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.” Israel is carrying out a holocaust, she charged. It’s absurd to blame all the people of Gaza for resisting Israel. They’re deprived of liberty and life in a “large concentration camp.” Liliane Kaczerginski’s father was a prominent Jewish fighter against the Nazis in Lithuania. She is now an activist with the THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (IJAN). “Zionism dishonors the genocide of European Jews,” Kaczerginski fumed. “Occupation is a crime. Invasion is a crime. Genocide is a crime....We say ‘no’ to the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.” Maia Ettinger came to the U.S. with her mother and grandmother, who escaped from the Warsaw Ghetto. She was a strong supporter of Israel until her mother visited a West Bank checkpoint during the first Gulf war. She phoned her daughter to tell her, “Maia, it was the Ghetto.” Both women became disillusioned, Ettinger explained, saying, “Jewish values are violated in Israel.” Israel has exploited their family’s experience, she emphasized. “It would be easy to avert our eyes, but it is imperative for Jews to denounce Israeli violence in Gaza and the occupation.” Raphael Cohen’s grandparents survived the genocide along with dozens of others hidden by a non-Jewish Pole. “I am outraged by the State of Israel,” he stated. Cohen also is outraged that his U.S. government in Washington is paying more than $3 billion a year to Israel to continue its “collective punishment of Palestinians.” Dr. Hani Jamah, a Palestinian dentist living in California, said he lost 30 members of his family, including two pregnant mothers and a 3-month-old, in a single air strike. “I know they were not terrorists,” he said. “There were no rockets fired from their neighborhood. I know this from my daily calls [before the bombing]. This was a clear genocide. I add my voice to Raphael’s...no more blank check to Israel.” Dr. Jamah added that while teachers and police in his own San Jose, CA neighborhood are facing pay cuts, “we always have funds for killing overseas.” Monadel Herzallah, a San Francisco Bay Area activist who also has family in Gaza, said, “Our children and grandchildren inside Gaza deserve a life of believing that ‘Never Again’ means Never Again for Anyone, Anywhere, Anytime.” During a question-and-answer period, signatories were asked if there had been any pushback since their letter was published. There has been an extreme e-mail reaction, including threats of violence, but few thoughtful criticisms, they agreed. There has also been an incredible amount of support, including 35,000 “likes”after a report in the Israeli daily Haaretz. There is virulent effort to shut down any discussion in the mainstream American community, Ettinger added. If a Jew questions Israel he or she is a “self-hating Jew,“ and if you’re not Jewish you’re “anti-SeOCTOBER 2014
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BDS: A New Path to Peace “Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions: A New Path for Peace,” was the subject of a July 24 lecture organized by Palestine Center summer interns in Washington, DC. More than 700 Palestinians had been killed in the two prior weeks during Israel’s “Operation Protective Edge” and many in the room wondered what they could do to support Palestinians. Andrew Kadi, a member of the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, pointed out that Israel has been “displacing, dispossessing, discriminating and otherwise oppressing Palestinians for over seven decades now.” After describing Israel’s seven-year siege and current attacks on Gaza, he noted that even “Palestinian citizens of Israel lack equality and face over 50 discriminatory laws...Altogether these policies are tantamount to ethnic cleansing and apartheid.” Kadi then read an excerpt from the Goldstone Report (available from Middle East Books and More) describing the death of Khaled Abed Rabbo’s two young daughters in the northern Gaza town of Jabalya on Jan. 7, 2009. After bulldozing Rabbo’s garden, two Israeli soldiers sitting on a tank—eating chips and chocolate—ordered his family to leave their home. They exited carrying white flags. A third soldier emerged from the tank and started shooting for no reason at Rabbo’s children, Amal, 3, and Samar, 4, and later Souad, 8, and Rabbo’s mother. The family called for an ambulance but Israeli soldiers demanded that the rescue workers undress, then bulldozed the ambulance with a tank, as well as Rabbo’s home. “Why do I mention that story?” Kadi asked the stricken audience. BDS looks at who provided the snacks Israeli soldiers munched as they killed Rabbo’s two children (Samar survived with spinal injuries). An Israeli food services company, Osem, supplies the Israeli army with chips, Kadi said, and chocolates are provided by OCTOBER 2014
Strauss and an Israeli chocolate company, Elite. The Strauss Group also sponsors the Golani Brigade, which is at the forefront of every incursion into Gaza and has a despicable record of human rights abuses. Sabra hummus, found in nearly every American supermarket, is made by Strauss, and Tribe hummus is owned by Osem. The Max Brenner choco- Lena Ibrahim and Andrew Kadi discuss the power of BDS. late company is also owned by the Strauss group. These are just the Israeli boycott, they have no idea what they are in for now. BDS is unstoppable.” a few of the products BDS targets. Ibrahim added, ”Palestinians have an inPalestinians have used BDS and other nonviolent tactics since the Palestinian credibly strong voice that reflects more general strike, part of the Arab Revolt of than 66 years of resilience against oppres1936-1939, Kadi continued. In 2005 more sion. They need someone to empower their than 170 organizations, including trade voice, and that’s what BDS does.” SJP is a world-wide movement, she conunions and political coordinating committees, called for BDS of Israel similar to tinued. “There’s a National SJP, there’s an SJP-West, an SJP-Midwest and an SJPthose carried out against South Africa. The three tenets of that call include East.” SJP takes a firm stance against “norequality for Palestinian citizens of Israel, malization,” Ibrahim elaborated. Students an end to Israel’s military occupation (and do not engage in dialogues, panels or other dismantling of its illegal wall), and pro- public forums in which participants do not tecting the rights of Palestinian refugees to recognize BDS tenets. “A solution that does return to their homes and properties, as not recognize equal rights, an end to the stipulated in U.N. Resolution 194. That occupation, and the right of return is no boycott includes an academic and cultural solution at all,” she emphasized. We can’t host “hummus nights” with Israeli student boycott of Israel, Kadi added. “What is the value of BDS as a tactic?” associations and talk about coexistence he asked rhetorically. BDS is an awareness- when their apartheid laws stop Palestinians raising tool, a human rights-based dis- from living next door or prevent “someone course, he explained. It’s not about solu- like me, a Palestinian-American, from tions or states, which are up to Palestini- being treated equally when I go back ans, not the international community, to home.” “As students, I think we have a respondecide. Kadi concluded by describing recent successful BDS campaigns (watch the sibility to not only hold our universities event or read transcripts at <www.the accountable for injustice but to lead our jerusalemfund.org> for details) and suc- generation into a society that is fearless in cessful performance cancellations resulting a fight against oppression,” Ibrahim concluded. “We have to be the most critical, from the cultural boycott. Heartbroken by the “deliberate destruc- the most aware, and the most passionate tion and massacre” in Gaza, Palestinian- for social change. This is really the essence American Lena Ibrahim, an organizer with of Palestine student solidarity work that is, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) of course, being led by BDS.” —Delinda C. Hanley groups in DC, Maryland and Virginia (DMV), stated, “I can promise one thing. All of our pain, all of our anger, will be in- Palestine and Israel Following vested in our global solidarity movement. “Operation Protective Edge” There will not be a single campus, organi- What impact did this summer’s conflict bezation, or place in the DMV area that will tween Hamas and Israel have on Israeli and not be discussing the BDS of apartheid Is- Palestinian domestic politics? Were war rael. If Zionist organizations in America crimes committed during the 50-day conwere worried before about the strength of frontation, and will those who carried out STAFF PHOTO D. HANLEY
mitic.” Ettinger said she abhors any attack on her right to free speech or her right to hear a diversity of opinion. Asked how they raised money for the $18,000 ad, participants said grassroots donors gave from $5 to $300, and a single donor came up with the last $2,000 to make it happen. Ettinger added that reading Wiesel’s ad advocating barbaric collective punishment for Palestinians “made me literally sick to my stomach.” It didn’t take long, she said, to find others who feel the same way. —Delinda C. Hanley
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divisions hinder both groups. rightward trend in my view is not going to Hamas has splits between its leader- be a blip,” he said. In the near term, Koplow expects Neship inside and outside the Gaza Strip and between its military and tanyahu to do what he can to appease the political wings, he noted, while far right, including members of his own Fatah is in “disarray” as a result of Likud party, of which “as odd as it seems…Netanyahu actually anchors the “chronic dysfunction.” Arguing that the Palestinian na- left flank.” This might explain why Israel tional movement is in crisis, Elgindy recently announced its biggest West Bank stressed the importance of a na- land grab in three decades, he said. In the opinion of Joe Stork of Human tional consensus being reached. Hamas and Fatah no longer can af- Rights Watch, both Hamas and the Israeli ford to carry out vastly different government likely committed war crimes policies, he stated. This is particu- during the conflict. While most of Hamas’ larly true given the current condi- rockets were intercepted by Israel’s U.S.tion of Gaza, where, Elgindy be- funded Iron Dome system, they were lieves, the PA must return to assist nonetheless fired indiscriminately, which is illegal under international law. with rebuilding efforts. In an effort to show their solidarity with As in previous conflicts, Stork noted, Dr. Michael Koplow of Israeli InGazans attempting to rebuild their lives after stitute, a DC think tank founded in there are documented cases of Israel tarthe latest Israeli military operation, CODE2012, noted that Israeli Prime Min- geting civilians. When asked by Human PINK held a “rubble bucket challenge” at the ister Binyamin Netanyahu has seen Rights Watch to explain attacks on White House on Aug. 28. The challenge was a his approval decline dramatically schools, residences and other locations, the play off the ALS Association’s “ice bucket chalsince the beginning of July. During IDF often provided answers that conflicted lenge,” in which a bucket of ice-cold water is the first few weeks of the conflict with witness accounts or were insufficient, dumped on individuals in order to raise awareNetanyahu’s approval rating he said. ness about the devastating ALS disease. Stork also noted that Israel has denied reached 82 percent, he said, while recent polls show the prime minis- Human Rights Watch access to Gaza since such crimes be held accountable? These ter is now supported by only 30 percent of mid-2009. While the group has been able to reach Gaza through the Rafah crossing were the questions addressed at a Sept. 5 the population. Koplow attributed this precipitous drop along the Egyptian border, its deterioratMiddle East Institute (MEI) event held at the Carnegie Endowment for International to three factors: the war lasted longer than ing relationship with Egypt’s military govmost expected, the operation did not pre- ernment (see p. 62) has made gaining acPeace in Washington, DC. Khaled Elgindy of the Saban Center for vent Hamas from firing rockets, and the cess difficult. While he believes both Hamas and Israel Middle East Policy at the Brookings Insti- sense that Netanyahu has no long-term should be held accountable for their actution began by arguing that Hamas has strategy. Frustration with Netanyahu has given a tions, Stork said this is unlikely to happen become stronger domestically in the aftermath of the latest conflict. Many in both boost to Israel’s growing far right, Koplow under the current international order. —Dale Sprusansky the West Bank and Gaza now believe that said, especially to Economic Minister Nafthe de facto Hamas government is more ef- tali Bennett’s Jewish Home party. Noting fective than Fatah at resisting occupation, that current polls suggest that 70-80 of the DC Mourns Dead in Palestine and Knesset’s 120 seats would go to right-wing Israel he said. This view has caused the popularity of parties if elections were held today, Koplow The pews were full at the Calvary Baptist the Palestinian Authority (PA) and, in par- believes this is not a short-term shift. “The Church in Washington, DC for a “National ticular, President Mahmoud Service of Mourning in rememAbbas to decrease, he added. brance of those who have died According to Elgindy, leaderin Palestine and Israel,” on Sept. ship in the West Bank “was 3. It was a somber yet uplifting marginalized throughout the event for Christians, as well as process and seen as ineffective.” Jews and Muslims, who joined Hamas’ increased popularity together to lament the killing of is largely Israel’s doing, he said, more than 2,100 Palestinians and as the group was at its weakest 68 Israelis during Israel’s recent point ever prior to the launchOperation Protective Edge. ing of Operation Protective Edge Calvary Baptist Church’s pasin July. tor, Rev. Allyson Robinson, welWhile internal dynamics have comed mourners and began a shifted somewhat, Elgindy bewell-organized and deeply movlieves that both Hamas and ing service, featuring readings Fatah remain broadly unpopular from Scripture, hymns, a prayer among Palestinians. Further- Michael Koplow (l) and Khaled Elgindy assess the domestic Pales- of confession, assurance of parmore, he pointed out, internal tinian and Israeli ramifications of this summer’s violence. don and the reading in English 60
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sides for their con- thanked HCEF and the patriarch for “buildstructive input in a ing up those bridges we need so desperately —Delinda C. Hanley just resolution to this today.” conflict.” Patriarch Twal said Iowa City Rallies for Gaza he represents not only Continue the 160,000 Roman About 25 people holding signs and a PalesCatholics living in Jor- tinian flag gathered at the Pentacrest in Iowa dan, Palestine and Is- City on the afternoon of Aug. 14 to show rael, but also Chris- support for the captive population of Gaza tians of all denomina- under siege and attack by Israel. tions in those holy “We are here today to urge our governlands. The Patriarch’s ment to put pressure on Israel to end the main concern during massacres in the Gaza Strip and ask that we his July visit was the work for a lasting peaceful solution to the Mourners offer flowers and prayers for Palestinians and Israelis. dire situation in Gaza. Palestinian issue,” said Yaser AbuDagga of “Both Christians and Coralville. Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine perand Arabic of Mahmoud Darwish’s power- Muslims alike are being traumatized by the excessive use of force,” he told diners. “The sists after more than 60 years, said ful poem, “I Come From There.” Mourners filed to the front of the his- result is that many civilians, including AbuDagga, who characterized the siege of Gaza as but one aspect of that larger, origitoric church to offer a prayer and place a women and children, are suffering.” Twal is also worried about Israel’s confis- nal problem and the ethnic cleansing of flower in a basket as jazz vocalist Lena Seikaly’s soaring voice filled the church cation of Catholic Church lands, including Palestinians from their land. “Gazans have been suffering for more singing the African-American spiritual, the Salesian Monastery of Cremisan; the ef“There is a Balm in Gilead,” referring to fects of Israel’s Separation Wall; and free- than eight years under the crippling siege. medicine that can heal Israel, and the Ap- dom of movement for priests traveling be- The bombardment has been going on for palachian spiritual “Bright Morning Stars.” tween Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian ter- more than a month. The situation is really The service was coordinated by the ritories. Israel is also trying to divide the terrible, so we wanted to bring the humanFaith Forum on Middle East Policy, a net- Palestinian community by introducing a itarian side of the issue to the forefront,” exwork of national Christian denominations separate Christian ID and expanding the Is- plained AbuDagga, a Palestinian-American who grew up in Gaza and has lost several and organizations working for a just peace raeli draft to include Christians. “A whole generation of young Christians family members to Israeli military actions in the Middle East, with a primary focus on Israel and Palestine. Eighteen religious has been denied the freedom of movement there. “I’m tired of our government supporting organizations co-sponsored the event, with or access to their holy places and freedom of support from sixteen others (including, prayer,” Twal said. They “don’t know the actions that are self-defeating. Our tax dolChurch of the Holy Sepulchre [in lars could be better spent. If we used onewe’re proud to say, this magazine). —Delinda C. Hanley Jerusalem]. They’ve never been allowed to tenth of what we spend on our military and reach it. They were born and raised in this tried to solve this in a more peaceful way, Latin Patriarch: Christians Under country but they’re unable to work or the goodwill of that would go a lot farther Occupation Face Dire Situation move.” Twal implored his audience: “Please than our constant military actions,” said Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem Fouad Twal up- don’t leave us alone; please come to the Holy Mike Rasmusson of Iowa City. “I’m out here because I’m outraged by dated guests about the grave challenges fac- Land. With your solidarity,” he concluded, ing Christians in the Holy Land during the “our people will have the courage to stay.” the military action against Gaza. It will not Cardinal Donald Wuerl, the Archbishop lead to peace, and I think U.S. politicians Holy Land Christian Ecumenical Foundation (HCEF)’s dinner in his honor at Mag- of Washington, prayed for a cease-fire and who support it are deeply misguided and giano’s Little Italy Restaurant in Washing- an end to “Operation Protective Edge” and racist,” said Jason Weeks of People for Justice in Palestine (PJP), which orgaton, DC on July 23. The previous day nized the rally. the Patriarch and HCEF board mem“Save the Children, a respected inbers had met with the United States ternational NGO, says that one in 10 Commission on International Relichildren in Gaza suffer from permagious Freedom (USCIRF). nent growth stunting as a result of In his welcoming remarks and inexposure to malnutrition caused by troduction of the Patriarch, HCEF Israel’s siege. It’s the use of hunger as president Rateb Rabie pointed out, a weapon to break people’s will so “The Christians of the Holy Land that they will accept colonization of could be a bridge of peace in a trouwhat little is left of their country. It’s bled land. They can do this because unconscionable and it’s wrong,” dethey share the Old Testament in comclared Weeks. mon with the Jewish people, and yet “It upsets me when I hear only they are one people—culturally— with the people of Palestine. We Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem Fouad Twal (l) greets Cardinal that ‘Israel has a right to defend itshould count on the moderates of all Theodore McCarrick, archbishop emeritus of Washington. self’ and there is no mention of IsSTAFF PHOTO D. HANLEY
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About 25 people rallied in Iowa City Aug. 14 in support of Gaza. Party, at its Washington, DC headquarters on July 22 to hear his views on the current challenges facing NGOs, the media and political parties in the Arab’s world’s most populous country. In the opinion of the journalist-turned-activist, the current realities in Egypt are not as promising as they were in early 2011. “As a [Washington-based] journalist, one of the things that encouraged me to go back to Egypt after the January 25 revolution was thinking that the media would open up,” Dawoud said. “We had a revolution against [former President Hosni] Mubarak, and the first thing you’d think gets affected would be the media…but in terms of government newspapers, things didn’t change a lot,” he said. The exception to the rule, Dawoud noted, was television. The array of TV channels that emerged following the ouster of Mubarak and the election of Islamist President Mohamed Morsi was unprecedented. From liberal to Islamist channels, everyone seemed to have found their voice on a TV channel.
Is Space for Free Speech Shrinking in Post-Coup Egypt? The Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East hosted Khaled Dawoud, spokesman for Egypt’s Al-Dostour 62
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raeli aggression against Gaza,” said Dennis Bricker of Iowa City. The retired university professor noted that he has traveled to the West Bank five times, including four trips with Christian Peacemaker Teams. “I hope Israel ends this siege soon,” he said. “We need to start focusing on human rights,” said Pat Minor of Iowa City. “Americans don’t understand how Palestinians’ human rights are being violated. We need to reframe the discussion. People like to call it a war, but war implies two equal sides, and there is certainly no equality between the power of Israel and the power of the Palestinians.” We need to counter Israel’s hasbara, or propaganda campaign, in the U.S., Minor added. “Last week there was the tragic irony of the U.S. government condemning Israel’s attack on a United Nations school in Gaza that killed many Palestinian children, and on the same day our government turned over to Israel U.S. military munitions that are stockpiled in Israel,” said Ed Flaherty of Iowa City, a member of Chapter 161 of Veterans For Peace. “We don’t really need new legislation,” he argued. “We should simply enforce the Arms Export Control Act. Let’s not be hypocrites.” “Gaza is a perpetual sore and an icon of what the whole world might become,” said David Smithers of Wellman. “More and more the three-letter word for capitalism is war, whether in Ukraine or Ferguson, Missouri.” The weekly Thursday rally in Iowa City for Gaza has drawn as many as 75 supporters. PJP organizers say it will continue as long as necessary. —Michael Gillespie
That, however, changed following the military coup that led to Morsi’s ouster. With the Muslim Brotherhood no longer in power, Islamist channels were immediately shut down, Dawoud explained. Today, ultranationalist, anti-Brotherhood rhetoric is flooding Egypt’s airwaves, Dawoud said, adding, “I am not a welcome voice anymore.” Turning to NGOs, Dawoud expressed fear that a new draft law places heavy restrictions on their work and could render them dysfunctional. While some choose to blame the Egyptian opposition for not standing up to the growing military-authoritarian tide, Dawoud said that weakness—not the lack of will—is to blame. “For us, liberals, leftists, central parties…we were all new parties, we all started from scratch. Back then [in 2011], the atmosphere was positive,” he recalled. According to Dawoud, at the moment it is more difficult for political parties to function than it was under Mubarak, who ruled Egypt for nearly 30 years. “For 60 years we [Egyptians] have been told that political parties are bad, symbolizing division,” he explained. “Today, there is a lot of propaganda against political parties.” Dawoud concluded by saying that while international pressure could be of use, there is no way for it to remove the increasing limitations on the work of Egypt’s media and NGOs. Change, Dawoud believes, will have to come from within, just as it did in January 2011. —Dina Salah ElDin
Khaled Dawoud argues that press freedom has regressed in Egypt since last year’s coup. THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
Egyptian Americans and other concerned individuals gathered at Franklin Square in Washington, DC on Aug. 14 to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the Rabaa Square massacre in Cairo. Following the coup that ousted democratically elected President Mohamed Morsi, tens of thousands of his supporters filled the Egyptian square to express their objection. According to a recently released Human Rights Watch report, at least 817, and likely more than 1,000, people were killed when security forces violently cleared the square. The report also found that very few of the protesters were armed, contradicting claims made by the Egyptian government. Human Rights Watch called on the U.N. Human Rights Council to investigate the incident and asked foreign governments to end military assistance to Egypt. In a statement, the Egyptian government OCTOBER 2014
Protesters gather in Washington, DC on Aug. 14 to remember those killed in Cairo’s Rabaa Square last year. slammed Human Rights Watch, calling its August 2014 report a “flagrant intervention in the work of the national investigative and judicial authorities, and an attempt to impinge upon the independence and integrity of the Egyptian judiciary.” Furthermore, the statement said Human Rights Watch “does not enjoy any legal status...to operate in Egypt.” Days before the report was set to be released, two senior Human Rights Watch officials were denied entry upon their arrival at the Cairo airport. —Dale Sprusansky
Study: When Informed, Americans Support Diplomacy With Iran
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Sixty-one percent of Americans favor striking a deal with Iran that would limit the capacity of its uranium enrichment program in exchange for the lifting of some economic sanctions, according to a new study conducted by the Program for Pub-
lic Consultation (PPC) and the Center for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland. The survey results were announced at a July 15 press briefing at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, DC. While the results are illuminating, the study’s creators say it revealed another important piece of information: The degree to which the American people are uninformed about the nuclear negotiations. “Right from the beginning, it was clear there is an information gap,” PPC director Steven Kull noted. Because of this, the survey chose a rather innovative method of data collection. Instead of simply asking people for their opinions, the survey offered a policymaking simulation process. Respondents were provided with a briefing on the issue, a presentation of options and an evaluation of those options, then asked to provide a final recommendation. Brookings Institution Iran specialist Suzanne Maloney found the process more revealing than the results. “When Americans are presented with information, they favor the pragmatic process,” she observed. On the other hand, Maloney continued, “I wonder to what extent public opinion matters [to policymakers]…What this survey suggests is Obama now has a good argument to make [in favor of negotiations].” George Perkovich, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment, confessed to a certain amount of cynicism: in his opinion, political decision-makers do not take public opinion into consideration. Kull found that unfortunate, arguing, “It is key to consult the American people as to what the American policy toward Iran should be.” Kull concluded by pondering how much richer foreign policy debates would be if the American people were better informed. “What [this survey] tells us,” he said, “is what would happen if we had a bigger debate…if people had more information.” —Dina Salah ElDin
Steven Kull presents the findings of a new study on American attitudes toward Iran. OCTOBER 2014
Samir Altaqi Urges NonSectarian Diplomatic Solution for Syria The Washington,DC-based Middle East Institute (MEI) held a July 16 discussion with veteran Syria researcher and activist Samir Altaqi, who discussed the demise and collapse of the Syrian state, the status of the ongoing civil war and po-
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Samir Altaqi says military intervention is not the solution for Syria. tential resolutions to the conflict. Altaqi started his professional life as a surgeon. He then became a Syrian politician, defected from the regime as the peaceful protests began in 2011, and fled the country. Currently based in Dubai, Altaqi runs a research center focusing on issues of the Middle East in general and Syria in particular. MEI vice president and discussion moderator Kate Seelye began by noting that Altaqi’s talk originally was titled “The Black Hole of Syria,” given how bleak the current situation is. In an attempt to find solutions, however, Altaqi opted for a more open-ended title: “The Collapse of Syria.” In his remarks, Altaqi argued that military intervention has not been and will not be the solution to the current crisis. “Syria doesn’t need more weapons,” he stressed. Altaqi insisted that the only way out is through a non-sectarian diplomatic solution. “At the end of the day, [Syrian President Bashar al-Assad] was the one who turned it into a sectarian conflict,” he said. “I just discovered I was Sunni. Before, I was just a human being living in Syria. “We are now living the worst-scenario case,” Altaqi added. “We are in a situation where we have to reform the state from scratch.” Altaqi also argued that the international community, including the EU, the rising BRICS nations and even the GCC should all work together, along with the moderate Syrian opposition, to assist Syria’s beleaguered citizens. In particular, he said, the international community should pay attention to poverty, water security, health issues and illiteracy. On the political side, Altaqi argued that Washington has not done enough to prevent Assad from carrying out crimes 63
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function properly. Robert Wexler, president of the S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace and a former congressman from Florida, sharply disagreed with Taspinar’s assessment. Erdogan has made Turkey Under President Erdogan liberal advances, he arThe Brookings Institution held a Sept. 4 gued, such as bringing event at the Carnegie Endowment for In- the country’s long powerternational Peace in Washington, DC to ful military under civilian (L-r) Hillary Clinton, Madeleine Albright, Henry Kissinger, John discuss the results of Turkey’s recent pres- control. He lamented that Kerry, James Baker and Colin Powell break ground for the U.S. idential election. Not surprisingly, former the former prime minister Diplomacy Center in 90-degree heat. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan won never receives credit 52 percent of the vote to become Turkey’s when he acts liberally and democratically, Henry Kissinger (91), James Baker (84), but always gets slammed when he acts un- Madeleine Albright and Colin Powell (both first elected president. Brookings fellow Omer Taspinar does not democratically. 77), and Hillary Clinton (66)—spoke at the Wexler believes the presidency will pro- groundbreaking ceremony for the United consider Erdogan’s election a shining moment for Turkish democracy. As prime vide Erdogan a second chance to show his States Diplomacy Center (USDC) on Sept. 3. minister, Erdogan placed restrictions on ability to govern Turkey responsibly and (Not attending were Condoleezza Rice and human rights, censored media outlets and inclusively, both domestically and interna- George Shultz.) The $25 million privately engaged in divisive politics, he noted. tionally. In particular, the pro-Israel former funded pavilion will become a new public Taspinar believes this will continue to be congressman said Erdogan must tone- entrance at the Department of State’s headthe status quo under President Erdogan, down his criticism of the self-proclaimed quarters on 21st St., NW in Washington, even though he officially has seen his Jewish state and refrain from over-the-top DC. Only two blocks from the National power diminish given that Turkey remains attacks against its leaders. Mall, where tourists flock to memorials and Taspinar responded to Wexler’s remarks museums, the Center’s three exhibit halls (at least for the time being) a parliamentary by arguing that just because Erdogan’s will be free and open to the public. system. Turkey is not as illiberal In a time that calls for more and better as past governments uses of diplomacy, the goals of the U.S. does not mean that he Diplomacy Center are to: has made admirable ad• Promote understanding of U.S. diplovances. While Turkey macy and the work of the Department of was governed by the State as the lead federal agency for foreign tyranny of the minority affairs; under the Kemalist • Promote understanding of the imporregime, he acknowl- tance of diplomacy to each individual; edged, today it is under • Reveal how diplomacy has shaped our the tyranny of the ma- nation’s history; jority, as Erdogan and • Honor the service and sacrifice of U.S. his AKP party have diplomats, past and present. used their power to siAccording to Dana Milbank in the next lence minority voices. day’s Washington Post, the six secretaries in Despite wielding this attendance “dug up about a tablespoon Moderator Kemal Kirisci (l) and Omer Taspinar discuss the out- power, Taspinar said, apiece of earth in the 90-degree heat and come of Turkey’s first presidential election. Erdogan continues to then were promptly relieved of their digplay the victim card ging implements as they exited the conKadir Ustun, research director at the whenever he finds himself in trouble. struction site via a carpeted walkway. ‘They —Dale Sprusansky wouldn’t even let us keep the shovel,’ SETA Foundation, agreed with this assessment. “Erdogan will remain a powerful figgroused Baker.” —Delinda C. Hanley ure in Turkish politics,” he said, although Diplomatic Doings Tunisia’s President Asks for Increased Turkey is entering “unchartered waters.” Economic and Security Assistance Going forward, Taspinar believes a system of checks and balances must be insti- Groundbreaking Ceremony for Tunisian President Mohamed Moncef Martuted in Turkey, since elections alone do U.S. Diplomacy Center zouki delivered a public address at the Atnot make a country democratic. He de- There are more than 300 museums honoring lantic Council in Washington, DC on Aug. scribed Turkey today as an “illiberal the U.S. military, but no museums or na- 5, urging the United States and Europe to democracy” given Erdogan’s authoritarian tional education centers dedicated to U.S. provide adequate support to his country so tendencies and the inability of the coun- diplomacy—until now. Secretary of State it does not fall prey to what he described try’s judiciary and legislative bodies to John Kerry (70) and his predecessors— as a growing terrorism threat. STAFF PHOTO D. SPRUSANSKY
PHOTO COURTESY USDC
against Syrians. “The U.S. is not using its strong diplomacy, and what we need is diplomacy…Nobody is asking the U.S. to intervene,” he added. Altaqi also called Russia’s role in the situation unhelpful, noting that the country has protected Assad at the U.N. —Dina Salah ElDin
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OCTOBER 2014
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STAFF PHOTO D. SALAH ELDIN
democracy].” Calling Tunisia the only Arab Spring success story, Marzouki said his fellow citizens are proud of what they have achieved since 2011.“Every Tunisian feels the new constitution is his,” he said. Reasonably stable politically, Marzouki said, Tunisia must now face other pressing tasks. “The political challenge is behind us,” the president concluded, describing the security challenge as a much bigger worry for the country.—Dina Salah ElDin
the types of crowds Souleyman has attracted in the U.S. and in the UK. “Wenu Wenu” was even reviewed in Pitchfork magazine, a temple of indie music for hipsters worldwide. Part of Souleyman’s rise in the Englishspeaking world can be credited to his Syrian background. Despite not knowing much about dabke, Arabic, or the finer points of Syrian-Kurdish politics, the fact that a Syrian wedding singer is being appreciated in Western music circles highlights a desire to appreciate more about Syria beyond the ongoing war and media depictions of extremism. Souleyman is known for his eccentric image—a long thobe, a red-checkered Syrian headscarf, and 1980s-style sunglasses, an image once associated with racist depictions of Hollywood villains from the East. Audience members agreed on one thing, however: his music is fantastic. Souleyman’s upbeat rhythms, whimsical synth lines and his captivating voice all contribute to his acceptance in indie music circles. One need not speak Arabic to appreciate his addicting music. One hopes Souleyman’s popularity is a positive sign for music from the Middle East, which has seen little crossover success in the Western music world outside of expat communities. —Kevin A. Davis
Music & Arts Tunisian President Mohamed Moncef Marzouki called his country a political success story.
Kurdish Performer Omar Souleyman Dazzles Washington, DC Audience
STAFF PHOTO S. TWAIR
PHOTO COURTESY WAMU 88.5
Omar Souleyman is not the kind of artist one “We have an obligation. We must be a would expect to be a big hit in Washington, success story,” Marzouki stressed. “But DC. Born in Ra’s al-‘Ayn in Kurdish-domiTunisia is not an island…There is a border nated northern Syria, Souleyman became crisis with Libya, Mali, and there are the well-known in Syria after releasing hunjihadists going to Syria…The challenge is not only national, it is regional.” Marzouki urged the international community not to neglect his country amid the various global crises capturing headlines. “If you do not bet on Tunisia, if you do not give us what we need to fight terrorists, if you do not invest, you can say goodbye to democracy in the Arab world “May in the Summer” for a century,” Marzouki warned. Screening He specified that Tunisia needs funds to train its security forces Omar Souleyman performs at the historic Howard Theatre in The independent film “Amand purchase advanced arms, Washington, DC. reeka,” which premiered at the ammunition, helicopters and 2009 Sundance Film Festival, is communication equipment. dreds of tapes of his performances at wed- about a Palestinian family who moves to Following the president’s visit, the U.S. dings. His style is a fairly classic dabke music Illinois. Cherien Dabis’s follow-up film, announced it is giving Tunisia $60 million played on keyboards, usually reserved for “May in the Summer,” is about a Palestinin military aid for training purposes and to weddings and other celebratory occasions. ian American who returns to her childpurchase new boats and devices for de- His songs reflect his northern roots, com- hood home in Jordan. It was screened Aug. tecting explosives. bining both Arab and Kurdish elements. Marzouki also expressed disappointYet on Aug. 6, thousands of miles away ment with the lack of economic support from his birthplace, Souleyman was playfrom the West. Tunisians expected ample ing to a substantial crowd of hipsters and support from the U.S. and France to help other existential middle-classers at the sustain their economy throughout the slow Howard Theatre. Most of the audience had transition to democracy, he said, but these no background in Arab music and could hopes were never fulfilled. not understand a single word of his songs. “We didn’t get the support we expected Since 2006, Souleyman has been workfrom the West…they wished us good luck, ing with Sublime Frequencies, a Seattlebut we expected more,” Marzouki stated, based record company that specializes in adding that the Tunisian economy is still “world music.” In 2013, he released his struggling, as businesses shy away from in- first official studio album, “Wenu Wenu,” vesting in an uncertain environment. with Ribbon Music, a UK label known for “This is dangerous,” Marzouki cau- releasing such heavy-hitting indie artists as tioned. “Democracy without employment Pavement and Animal Collective. With Filmmaker Cherien Dabis and Jordan Elwill make people regret [bringing about such support, it is perhaps unsurprising grably. OCTOBER 2014
THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
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Artist Helen Zughaib.
For the first time in nearly 80 years, a woman has won the world’s most prestigious mathematics prize, the Fields Medal. Maryam Mirzakhani, a 37-year-old mathematics professor at Stanford University, was awarded the “Nobel Prize of math” at a ceremony in Seoul on Aug. 13. Born and raised in Iran, Mirzakhani attended Sharif University in Tehran and Harvard University. Christiane Rousseau, vice president of the International Mathematics Union, said: “It’s an extraordinary moment. Marie Curie had Nobel prizes in physics and chemistry at the beginning of the 20th century, but in mathematics this
Photographer Laura Boushnak.
COURTESY OF MARYAM MIRZAKHANI
Women in the News
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COURTESY LAURA BOUSHNAK
Mathematician Maryam Mirzakhani.
is the first time we have a woman winning the most prestigious prize there is. This is a celebration for women.” Helen Zughaib’s solo exhibit, “Fractured Spring,” opened at the Jerusalem Fund Gallery in Washington, DC on Sept. 5 and will run until Oct. 17. Her stunning new works include paintings, calligraphy and installations, many of them multiple pieces, “fractured” in some way to indicate her concern with the consequences of ongoing conflicts in Arab world. Using gouache and hand-inked repetitive calligraphy, Zughaib takes on Western misperceptions of Middle Eastern women. Her “Generations Lost” painting depicts veiled women wearing bright patterned dresses, holding photos of their lost loved ones. An installation piece, “Spring Memorial 3,” shows a chalk outline of a victim at a crime scene. Zughaib has inserted dozens of white ceramic poppies into her outline, bringing to mind her previous memorial installations, in which she used silk flowers to cover a dishdasha and a keffiyeh to immortalize the dead in the Arab Spring. Below the “body” are broken traditional Syrian tiles. Born in Beirut, Lebanon, Zughaib’s work has been widely exhibited in galleries and museums around the world. Her paintings have hung in the White House, World Bank, Library of Congress, and the Amer-
ican Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq. The Arab American National Museum in Dearborn, Michigan will exhibit her remarkable series,“Stories My Father Told Me,” in November. Kuwaiti-born Palestinian photographer Laura Boushnak was awarded the first Getty Images/lean-in editorial grant for her ongoing series focusing on the education of women in the Middle East, featured on The New York Times photojournalism blog “Lens” in 2013. Her project, “I Read I Write,” is chronicled on her blog. Boushnak received the Peace Media Award from the international organization Peace X Peace in Washington, DC in 2011. Her work ranges from conflict photography to pictorial storytelling, and her photos have been exhibited at museums and galleries around the world. Visit her website to see her stunning photos, <www.lauraboushnak.com>. Tayyibah Taylor, founder, publisher and editor-in-chief of Azizah Magazine, died of cancer on Sept. 4. Through Azizah Magazine, Taylor provided a vehicle for the voice of Muslim-American women, shattering commonly held stereotypes. Named one of the 500 Most Influential Muslims in the world by the Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Center, a Jordanian think tank, Taylor and her magazine received many awards. In 2013, CAIR presented her with its Excellence in Media Award. “She inspired us with her leadership and commitment to inclusiveness within our community,” said CAIR Board Chair Roula Allouch. Born on the Caribbean island of Trinidad, Taylor grew up and studied biology and philosophy in Toronto, and Arabic and Islamic studies in Jeddah. A tireless advocate for Muslim women, a mentor and role model to countless Muslims in America and abroad, Taylor is survived by five children and several grandchildren. —Delinda C. Hanley
COURTESY AZIZAH MAGAZINE
STAFF PHOTO D. HANLEY
14 at the Pacific Design Center under the auspices of the Levantine Cultural Center. Dabis cast herself as the lead character May Brennan, a beautiful successful author in New York. The Arab-American May is engaged to a Palestinian Muslim, Ziad (Alexander Siddig). The couple decides to have a wedding in Amman, with his family. The problem is that May’s mother, Nadine (Hiam Abbass), is a born-again Christian who is against her daughter’s decision to marry a Muslim. Also traveling to Jordan for the vows is May’s father, Edward (Bill Pullman), long ago divorced from Nadine. Their daughters (Nadine Malouf, Alia Shawkat) are caught between their parents and the countries they represent. The family starts off on their best behavior, but soon the characters completely unravel. Dabis was on hand to answer questions after the screening. “In ‘May in the Summer,’” she explained, “I wanted to show my American self in an Arab land as a follow-up to my first film, where I portrayed my Arab self in an American space.” Dabis admitted she was able to draw Pullman into the cast because he wanted to see Petra. She declined to answer a question about the film’s budget, but Levantine Cultural Center director Jordan Elgrably disclosed that the cost was half that of “Amreeka.” —Samir Twair
THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
Publisher Tayyibah Taylor. OCTOBER 2014
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Other People’s Mail Compiled by Dale Sprusansky Map Shows Israeli Aggression To The News-Press, Aug. 20, 2014 Look at a map of Israel in 1947 and look at a map of Israel today. Please ponder who needs protection from whom. The Israeli/ U.S. propaganda machine keeps saying the Israelis must protect themselves. Why are the Palestinians denied the same right? I guess the dark-skinned Palestinians are denied that right. The Gaza Strip is a Palestinian ghetto blockaded by Israel/U.S. military operations. The Palestinians are prisoners in their own land. It appears that once again the U.S. is on the wrong side of history. R.M. Cinotto, Fort Myers, FL
Israel the Conqueror To The News Tribune, Aug. 5, 2014 Conquerors uproot natives from their homeland, forcing them to live on reservations, denying them the right to enter or exit the prison camp, controlling with an embargo what flows in or out. The conqueror assumes that the native will be docile and subservient, never questioning the conqueror’s cultural superiority. When a native dares to resist, the conqueror labels him “criminal” and “terrorist.” We could be describing South American tribes facing Spanish conquistadors, Native Americans of the United States, South African blacks under apartheid or Palestinians in Gaza. This is the double standard of historical colonialism. Why are indigenous people who resist conquest called “terrorists” and “criminals,” while conquerors who steal their land and slaughter their children are never called “war criminals”? Conquerors get the privilege of writing the history, never indigenous tribes. Maybe we should listen to their telling of the story. Fred LaMotte, Steilacoom, WA
Disproportionate Destruction To The New York Times, July 23, 2014 As reported in “For Israelis on Edge of Battle, Rockets Put on a Show,” Israelis sit on a white couch on a hillside eating popcorn and cheering as they watch the skies lit up by airstrikes and explosions. In Gaza, as Mohammed Omer notes in his op-ed article, “fear permeated the summer night,” and Gazans “scanned the night OCTOBER 2014
sky” for any warning of bombs. What better example of the tragic toll of this war in moral degradation and disproportionate destruction? Janet Kehl, Arrowsic, ME
Israel Is Acting Intentionally To The Denver Post, Aug. 8, 2014 Your editorial states that the Israeli “shelling” of U.N. schools may have been a mistake on the part of Israel. Let’s be honest—Israel knew what they were doing when they bombed U.N. schools, hospitals and civilians. As they continue these and other tactics, public sentiment and support turns against them. Marilyn Eaton, Denver, CO
U.S. Must Question Israel To the Los Angeles Times, Aug. 1, 2014 I’m tired of the expression “Israel has the right to protect itself.” Who can argue with that? But does Israel also have the right to hold an entire population in complete subjugation to the point where the Gazans are entirely dependent on the “largesse” of their wardens for food, electricity and healthcare? Every day we see pictures of wounded or dead Gazans. The Israeli government obviously has no shame when it comes to what can be considered war crimes against a people. Even in war, conquered people must be cared for. Has anyone noticed the silence of Congress, or even the president, except for the time-worn “We have an unbreakable bond with Israel”? Well, it’s time for breaking that bond. To start with, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee needs to register as a foreign agent of Israel. What chance do we have for peace in the Middle East when our government must tread lightly on issues concerning Israel? Lou Del Pozzo, Pacific Palisades, CA
Cuomo’s Trip Inappropriate To the Poughkeepsie Journal, Aug. 26, 2014 Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s recent trip to Israel seems totally inappropriate. He and other state lawmakers who accompanied him are not qualified to “represent the American people” as Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is quoted as saying. And I believe they are not qualified to repTHE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
resent the people of the state of New York in this matter either. It is reported that the trip was not funded with taxpayer money but with campaign funds. How unfeeling to use the trauma of that part of the world for political ends. If the governor went as an individual, he certainly acted as though he was on a state visit, with press conferences, photo ops and visits to holy sites. Finally, for any official of the United States to stand beside the prime minister of Israel in support of one party, to the exclusion of the other in the conflict between Palestine and Israel, is inappropriate. A century of armed conflict involving many nations in that area has shown that a military “solution” is not possible; it has not worked. So far, the diplomatic efforts have not succeeded either, but the ordinary people of both Israel and Palestine deserve that diplomacy be given every chance. Mary Cadbury, Rhinebeck, NY
Gaza, Syria: Selective Outrage? To The Oregonian, Aug. 7, 2014 Bob Horenstein (“Where was Portland when Syria killed Palestinians,” Aug. 6) begins his op-ed by criticizing Palestine justice activists for not protesting the horrors occurring in the Syrian Yarmouk (Palestinian) refugee camp. This is a diversionary tactic which, at its conclusion, would say, if one does not protest every atrocity occurring on the planet then it is not legitimate to protest those committed by Israel. He is right in one statement. There is a link between Yarmouk refugee camp and current conditions in Gaza. Both are historically the result of Israel’s expulsion of well over 750,000 Palestinians in 1948, when the state of Israel was declared. That Palestinians are living in impoverished and horrid conditions in both Gaza and Yarmouk is directly due to Israel’s ethnic cleansing of the indigenous Palestinian population. Mr. Horenstein’s defense of Israeli apartheid and his denial that it has just committed unspeakable horrors in Gaza is detrimental to creating a way toward justice and peace. Maxine Fookson, Portland, OR 67
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The U.S. Can’t Fix Syria To The New York Times, Sept. 2, 2014 Roger Cohen’s litany of American missteps in the pursuit of terrorist groups illustrates the very reasoning that has proved so costly to us. Criticizing President Obama for failing to intervene against President Bashar al-Assad, Mr. Cohen claims that “a bloody vacuum was precisely what Obama allowed Syria to become.” The thinking that the United States can determine the course of events in complex multiparty disputes with little-understood historical backgrounds is what led us into the morass of Iraq. We see how well that turned out. Richard Alba, Stephentown, NY
Dominican Sisters in Iraq Share Their Plight To the Illinois Times, Aug. 28 and Sept. 4, 2014 Aug. 28: We continue to share our daily struggle with you, hoping that our cry will reach the world. We are like the blind man of Jericho (Mark 10: 46-52), who had nothing to express himself but his voice, asking Jesus for mercy. Although some people ignored his voice, others listened, and helped him. We count on people who will listen. We entered the third week of displacement. Things are moving very slowly in terms of providing shelter, food and necessities for the people. There are still people living in the streets. There are still no organized camps outside of schools that are used as refugee centers. These places look like stables. We all wonder, is there any end in sight? We appreciate all efforts that have been made to provide aid to the displaced people. However, providing food and shelter is not the only essential thing we need. Our case is much bigger. We are speaking about two minorities (Christian and Yezedians), who lost their land, their homes, their belongings, their jobs, their money. Some have been separated from their families and loved ones, and all are persecuted because of their religion. Our church leaders are doing their best to solve the issue. They have been meeting with political leaders, with the president of Iraq and Kurdistan, but initiatives and actions of these political leaders are really slow and modest. Actually, all political meetings have led to nothing. What has happened in our Christian towns that have been evacuated is even 68
worse. The IS forced out of their homes those who did not leave their towns up to the night of Aug. 6. Yesterday, 72 people were driven out of Karakosh. However, not all of them arrived; those who arrived last night were in miserable condition. They had to cross Al-Khazi river (a tributary to the Great Zab) on foot because the bridge had been destroyed. There are still quite a few on the side of the riverbank. We do not know when they will make it to Erbil. It depends on the situation and negotiations between the Peshmerga and the IS. There are some people who went to fetch the elderly and the unable to walk. Another woman said that she was separated from her husband and children, and she knows nothing about them. Also, a three-year-old daughter was taken from her mother’s lap, and she also knows nothing about her. As for our community, we know that our convent in Tel Kaif is being used as an IS headquarters. Also, we know that they had entered our convent in Karakosh. Those that recently arrived have stated that all the holy pictures, icons and statues are being destroyed. Crosses have been taken off the top of churches and they have been replaced with the IS flags. That is not only in Karakosh and Tel Kaif. In Baqofa, one of our sisters heard the situation was calm, so she went back with a few people to get her medicine. She found the convent had been searched; everything was open and strewn across the rooms. People are losing their patience. They miss everything in their hometowns: churches, church bells, streets and neighWRITE, TELEPHONE OR E-MAIL LEADERS President Barack Obama The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W. Washington, DC 20500 Comment Line: (202) 456-1111 Visit: <www.whitehouse.gov/contact/submitquestions-and-comments> Vice President Joe Biden (same as above) Secretary of State John Kerry U.S. Department of State 2201 C Street NW Washington, DC 20520 (202) 647-6575 #8 or (202) 647-5291#1 Visit <www.state.gov> to e-mail comments Any Senator U.S. Senate Washington, DC 20510 (202) 224-3121 Any Representative U.S. House of Representatives Washington, DC 20515 (202) 225-3121 E-mail Congress: visit <www.congress.org> THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
borhoods. It is heartbreaking for them to hear that their homes have been robbed. Although they love their towns, most people are now thinking of leaving the country so they can live in dignity and have a future for their children. It is hard to have hope in Iraq, or to trust the leadership of the country. Please, keep us in your prayers. Sept. 4:...The Kurdish government, apart from allowing us to enter their province, has not offered any aid, financial or material, leaving us in the streets, and making the church take full responsibility of us all. Thanks to the Church of Iraq in Kurdistan, who opened their halls and centers to provide shelters. Yet the number of refugees was so large that the Kurdish government had to face the stark reality and open their schools to provide additional shelter for refugees. We hear a lot about world governments and organizations sending financial aid to Iraq, but the refugee gets the least—we do not know or understand why. People lost almost everything; they cannot even afford to buy milk or formula for their children. What saddens us most is that only one month ago these people were the most educated in the country and among those most likely to build a life for themselves and their family, and now they do not have enough money in their pockets to survive the day. Christians became accustomed to investing their money in businesses, shops, fields, buildings, etc., to build their communities. Leaving their towns meant leaving everything they had been working for all their lives. Yet, amid losing everything, accepting their lost dignity is the most difficult loss they may experience. Some have found shelter in tents, others in schools, still others in church halls and gardens. They wait to be fed, or given food to cook; elderly are not being taken care of properly; children are living in unhealthy conditions; families have lost their privacy; women are exposed in these places; men have no jobs in a culture where a man is expected to support his family.... People cannot endure this persecution, marginalization, contempt and rejection anymore. If there is any other way, besides emigration, please let us know. Otherwise, please help people get out of the country, by seeking asylum, according to the U.N. law. Dominican Sisters of Saint Catherine of Siena-Iraq, Kurdistan q OCTOBER 2014
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bookreview_70_Book Review 9/10/14 7:21 PM Page 70
Books
The War Around Us By Ayman Mohyeldin, MPI, DVD/BlueRay Combo, 2014, 75 minutes. List: $24.98; MEB: $22. Reviewed by Kevin A. Davis On July 16, 2014, four young boys were playing soccer on a beach in Gaza when an Israeli warship offshore fired two missiles at them, killing all four children. This scene quickly became symbolic of the 2014 Israeli assault on Gaza. The powerful imagery of the innocent children resonated with an international audience and contributed to a public outcry against Israel. This story was witnessed and tweeted by NBC reporter Ayman Mohyeldin, who brought the story of the four boys to light. Mohyeldin had become one of America’s most respected Middle East correspondents, covering the uprising in Egypt in 2011 and the aftermath for Al Jazeera English, before he moved to NBC. As a result of Mohyeldin’s brave reporting on the four boys, NBC removed him from Gaza the next day with no explanation. The immediate public reaction was fierce; thousands demanded that Mohyeldin be reinstated as Gaza correspondent. Under intense scrutiny, NBC indeed sent Mohyeldin back to Gaza. The controversy affirmed a popular desire for in-depth, balanced reporting on the war in Gaza, and demonstrated the public’s faith in Mohyeldin. Part of the respect for Mohyeldin’s reporting stems from the fact that this was not his first experience in Gaza. In fact, he was one of only two foreign correspondents in Gaza during Israel’s 200809 Operation Cast Lead. “The War Around Us” documents that incredible experience, juxtaposing images from Mohyeldin’s reporting and his own personal footage, creating a perspective on the Gaza war unseen until now by a Western audience. The film is the result of a collaboration between Mohyeldin and noted Al Jazeera correspondent Sherine Tadros, whose experience in the 2008 war marked her first wartime correspondence assignment. Kevin A. Davis is director of Middle East Books and More. 70
“The War Around Us” follows Mohyeldin and Tadros as they negotiate the intense experience of covering the war, moving from site to site as they struggle to fairly represent the plight of Gazans under siege and convey their messages to the Western world. At the same time, they also negotiate their own close friendship, their daily struggles, and the constant fear of not knowing if they will survive any given day. One aspect of the film that is perhaps most striking given Israel’s most recent assault on Gaza is the odd similarity of the timelines of both the 2008 and 2014 attacks. The film follows the progression of the war from airstrikes to ground invasion, including scenes of U.N. school bombings that could just as easily be from 2014. Perhaps, as Mohyeldin notes, one of the main differences between 2008 and 2014 is the presence of foreign journalists. In 2008, he and Tadros were the only ones. The film leaves the viewer with an indepth understanding of the realities of life for the people of Gaza living under Israeli siege, as well as an understanding of the confusion and chaos that accompanies such a traumatic event. The film also conveys the difficulties of war zone reporting and personalizes Mohyeldin, Tadros and the many people of Gaza they meet. I recommend this film for anyone interested either in the realities of Gaza in wartime or in international journalism. q
The Orange Trees of Baghdad: In Search of My Lost Family By Leilah Nadir, Smith Books, 2014, paperback, 336 pp. List: $17.96; MEB: $15. The Orange Trees of Baghdad traces the personal stories of members of author Leilah Nadir’s family in Iraq. After the 2003 invasion, Nadir, a Canadian of Iraqi descent, reached out to her family to capture their stories and provide an intimate and human account of their war-torn country. On a recent visit to the Washington Report, she discussed her book with Kevin A. Davis and intern Clara McGlynn: “Just before the invasion in 2003, I started feeling that there was no voice for the Iraqi people. In the lead-up to the invasion, we were inundated here with THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
news reports about bombs, military buildups, Saddam Hussain, and all of that hype. This was after 9/11 as well, so all that madness you can surely remember. I was talking to my Iraqi relatives and I was getting their point of view, and there was just no connection between what I was seeing and hearing. I wanted to capture the stories of my family and what people were going through pre-invasion, during the invasion, and after the invasion for as long as I could tell those stories. “Originally, my intended audience was Western. But it’s been funny, since the book came out lots of Iraqis have read it and a lot of Iraqi men of my dad’s age, so in their 60s, have been reading it. And they love it! It totally speaks to them because it tells their stories of growing up in a relatively peaceful situation and having access to studying all over the world. So now Iraqis are my audience, too. I recently did a book launch in the UK and a lot of Iraqis were there and they were crying! They were very emotional because it was a kind of cathartic release and it brought back memories for them. There’s such a deep level of trauma that I think people don’t have any place to put it. They just obsessively watch the news and the horrors.… “A lot of people [in the West] say that they have been watching the news and trying to understand the Middle East. People just can’t seem to understand what’s going on and I think when you’re in it, it seems fairly obvious what’s going on. It’s pretty basic. It’s an extension of imperial control and power over populations in the region for political and economic ends. But I think it gets very muddled in the way it is reported. People have said that from reading The Orange Trees, they get a sense of a narrative that makes sense with a beginning, middle and end. You get some history, like what happened after World War I and how those countries were set up and, beyond that, how interactions between East and West came about and how dictatorships came into being, the relationships between those regimes and the people. And I feel like that’s important for people to understand. There is rationality. It isn’t just pure chaos, even though it can look like that. And I think that’s what part of the propaganda machine tells us, that it’s just chaos and you can’t figure it out. It’s just crazy Arabs. And millions of people in the region are dying because of that. So that’s one of the main messages from my book.” q OCTOBER 2014
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Middle East Books and More Literature
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Fa l l 2 0 1 4 The Muslims Are Coming! Islamophobia, Extremism, and the Domestic War on Terror by Arun Kundnani, Verso, 2014, hardcover, 256 pp. List: $26.95; MEB: $22. In this groundbreaking exploration of the perceived “Muslim threat” in the United States and Britain, Kundnani shows how domestic surveillance and media hysteria have created an atmosphere of fear in the Muslim community and a growing distrust of the government. Kundnani analyzes the mechanisms behind the atmosphere of fear in the American Muslim community and how that fear relates to the global “War on Terror.”
Faith in the Face of Empire: The Bible Through Palestinian Eyes by Mitri Raheb, Orbis Books, 2014, paperback, 160 pp. List: $20; MEB: $10. From the author of I Am a Palestinian Christian and Bethlehem Besieged comes a new exploration of the long history of Palestinians subjected to thousands of years of different empires, from the Romans to the British to the current state of Israel. Raheb raises basic theological questions regarding the imperial history of Palestine, draws on lessons of Jesus’ own experiences with empire, and presents conclusions that can be drawn from that history.
The Woman from Tantoura: A Palestinian Novel by Radwa Ashour, AUC Press, 2014, paperback, 272 pp. List: $22.95; MEB: $16. Originally published in Arabic in 2010, this powerful Palestinian novel is now available in English. Ashour movingly captures the life of a young girl from the Palestinian village of al-Tantoura, and follows her life through the various developments of her country in the 20th century. While not focusing on politics, this novel presents a compelling emotional story that can broaden the way we think about Palestine.
The Islamophobia Industry: How the Right Manufactures Fear of Muslims by Nathan Lean, Pluto Press, 2012, paperback, 248 pp. List: $19; MEB: $15. Among the new and important literature on Islamophobia, Lean’s work stands out. He powerfully examines not just Islamophobia as a growing phenomenon, but one which is created and marketed to a Western audience using fear tactics and threats of an Islamist takeover. Lean brilliantly exposes the forces behind this manufactured fear and its devastating results.
Gate of the Sun by Elias Khoury, Picador Press, 2007, paperback, 544 pp. List: $20; MEB: $15. Elias Khoury, one of Lebanon’s most celebrated contemporary literary figures, is known for his provocative and moving works dealing with Palestine. In Gate of the Sun, he follows the story of Palestine, flashing back in time to 1948 while grounding himself in the present. Khoury evokes a sense of both nostalgia and confusion, beautifully capturing the traumatic experience of exile. This book is surely one of the most important modern novels on Palestine.
Jil Oslo: Palestinian Hip Hop, Youth Culture, and the Youth Movement by Sunaina Maira, Tadween Publishing, 2013, paperback, 200 pp. List: $16; MEB: $14. In her third full monograph, Sunaina Maira, an anthropologist at UC Davis, explores the formation of the “Oslo Generation” (“Jil” meaning “generation” in Arabic), the ever-growing youth population in the West Bank born after the 1990 Oslo accords. Maira meticulously analyzes contemporary life for Palestinian youth and their engagement with forms of expression ranging from graffiti to music to resistance activities. Jil Oslo is a great way to understand how youth negotiate everyday life as a colonized population.
Palestine’s Children: Returning to Haifa & Other Stories by Ghassan Kanafani, Lynne Rienner Publishing, 2000, paperback, 199 pp. List: $16.95; MEB: $15. In this collection of short stories, the late Palestinian author Ghassan Kanafani relates the stories of various children in different periods of Palestinian history, following their lives and invoking larger motifs of war, resistance and homeland. Through his elegant prose, Kanafani uses fiction to explore the striking realities of Palestinians, providing a readable and accessible gateway to the Palestinian experience.
One Land, Two States: Israel and Palestine as Parallel States by Mark LeVine and Mathias Mossberg, University of California Press, 2014, paperback, 296 pp. List: $29.95; MEB: $25. At a time when popular discourse increasingly is shifting toward various ideas of a one-state solution, LeVine and Mossberg insightfully bring the discussion back to two states in this new edited volume featuring scholars, diplomats and experts on the Israel-Palestine issue. The volume radically presents a reimagined two-state solution in an effort to appease both historical claims and present realities.
National Summit to Reassess the U.S.-Israel “Special Relationship” by the American Educational Trust, DVD, 2014, 420 min., MEB: $19.95. On March 7, 2014, four organizations, including the Washington Report, hosted the National Summit, a conference on the “special relationship” between Israel and the United States. This DVD presents the entire summit proceedings, with diplomats, military and intelligence personnel, academics, research organizations, economists and representatives from various NGOs exploring the U.S.-Israel relationship, its cost and consequences for foreign and domestic policies alike.
Shipping Rates 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.middleeast books.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 . S h i p p i n g R a t e s : Please add $5 for the first item and $2.50 for each additional item. Canada & Mexico shipping charges: Please add $15 for the first item and $3.50 for each additional item. International shipping charges: Please add $15 for the first item and $6 for each additional item. We ship by USPS Priority unless otherwise requested. OCTOBER 2014
L i b r a r y p a c k a g e s (list value over $240) are available for $29 if donated to a library, or free if requested with a library’s paid subscription or renewal. Call Middle East Books and More at 800-368-5788 ext. 2 to order. Our policy is to identify donors unless anonymity is specifically requested.
THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
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Upcoming Events & Obituaries â&#x20AC;&#x201D;Compiled by Kevin A. Davis Upcoming Events C3 Summit, in partnership with the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, will host its annual U.S.-Arab Business Summit Oct. 6 at the Union League Club in New York City. Aimed at promoting partnerships between the U.S. and Arab countries, it will feature such speakers as Matt Lauer, Khalaf Ahmed Al Habtoor and many more. Visit <www.c3 business2014.com> for more information. The Holy Land Christian Ecumenical Foundation will host its 16th International Conference Oct. 17 and 18 at the Washington Marriott Georgetown Hotel in Washington, DC. Visit <www.hcef.org> for the list of speakers and conference program. The RenĂŠ Moawad Foundation will host its 21st Annual Washington Benefit Gala Oct. 17 at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Washington, DC. The event will honor the late H.E. Mohamad Chatah and Dr. Joseph E. Aoun and will feature a Lebanese fashion show and performance by Lebanese vocalist Menal ElMallat. Visit <www.rmf.org.lb> for more information, or e-mail <rmf@dc.net>. American Near East Refugee Aid (ANERA) will host its Annual Dinner Oct. 17 at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, DC. This yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s proceeds will go to support ANERA programs which focus on women in the Middle East. Visit <www.anera.org/ dinner> for more information and tickets. The 2014 Arab Film Festival will be held in the San Francisco Bay Area from Oct.
10-23 at various venues. The festival will move to Los Angeles from Nov. 7-12 and San Diego from Nov. 20-22. Visit <www. arabfilmfestival.org> for more information. The Arab American Political Action Committee (AAPAC) will host its 17th Annual Banquet on Oct. 22 at the Bint Jebail Cultural Center in Dearborn, MI. Funds will go to the advocacy work of the organization. Visit <www.aapac.org> or e-mail <RSVP@aapac.org> to RSVP for the event. UNRWA will host a Gaza Solidarity 5K Run in Los Angeles on Oct. 25. All proceeds will benefit psycho-social support programs for children in Gaza who are suffering from war trauma. Visit <www.unrwausa.org> for more information and registration, or e-mail <info@friendsunrwa.org>.
Obituaries Hashim Khan, approximately 100, a Pakistani squash player, died Aug. 18 at his home in Aurora, CO. Born in what is now northern Pakistan, but at the time was part of the British Raj of India, he began to play squash at a young age and even became the squash coach of the British Air Force. In the 1950s, at the peak of his squash career, he was world champion no less than seven times. He cultivated the squash careers of family members as well, many of whom went on to win their own honors and medals around the globe. The family became known in the squash world as the â&#x20AC;&#x153;Khan Dynasty.â&#x20AC;? After moving to the United States in the 1960s, Khan was credited with changing the
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THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
BulletinBoard nature of the sport, previously associated with an elite white demographic. He coached in both Detroit and Denver, appealing to non-white segments of the population. Many call him the greatest squash player ever. Samih al-Qasim, 75, one of Palestineâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most respected and loved poets, died Aug. 19 after battling cancer for many years. Born in Zarqaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; in the then-British mandate of Transjordan, he moved with his family back to their ancestral village of Rama in the Galilee after World War II. The poet was just 9 years old in 1948, but recalled in his memoir that his earliest memories were from that tumultuous time, and his poetry makes frequent references to this important date. He published the first of his 25 volumes of poetry, Processions of the Sun, at the age of 18. Some of al-Qasimâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s poetry reflected his long interest in PanArabism, and he frequently refers to his infatuation with Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt in the 1960s. He wrote in standard Arabic, evidence of his desire to reach a broad Arab audience, rather than just a Palestinian oneâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;even though his main themes were anti-imperialism and the effect of the Nakba on Palestinian life. Politically active throughout his life, he was famously arrested in 1960 for refusing to enlist in the Israeli armyâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;something that, as a Druze living in Israel, he was legally required to do. His membership in the Israeli Communist Party landed him in prison in 1967. He was also the editor of the Arab-Israeli newspaper Kul al-Arab. Simin Behbahani, 87, the celebrated Iranian poet, died Aug. 19 in a hospital in Tehran. Known as the â&#x20AC;&#x153;Lioness of Iran,â&#x20AC;? she was famous not only for her literary achievements, but as an advocate for womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s rights and social justice. The author of more than 19 books, she was a pioneer in transforming classical Persian poetic forms, and served as president of the Iranian Writersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Association. She was nominated twice for the Nobel Prize in Literature, and in 2009 was awarded the Simone de Beauvoir Prize for Womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Freedom. Behbahaniâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s outspoken criticism of social and political ills frequently got her into trouble with authorities. In 2010, her passport was confiscated and she was prevented from leaving the country to speak in Paris. q OCTOBER 2014
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AET’s 2014 Choir of Angels Following are individuals, organizations, companies and foundations whose help between Jan. 1, 2014 and Aug. 27, 2014 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 March 7 National Summit to Reassess the U.S.-Israel “Special Relationship.” We are deeply honored by their confidence and profoundly grateful for their generosity.
HUMMERS ($100 or more) Jeffrey M. Abood, Silver Lake, OH Rev. Fahed Abu-Akel, Atlanta, GA Alice & Rizek Abusharr, Claremont, TX James C. Ahlstrom, Stirling, NJ Aglaia Ahmed, Buda, TX Dr. M.Y. Ahmed, Waterville, OH Emeel & Elizabeth Ajluni, Farmington Hills, MI Robert Akras, N. Bay Village, FL Dr. & Mrs. Salah Al-Askari, Leonia, NJ Dr. Subhi Ali, Waverly, TN Nabil & Judy Amarah, Danbury, CT Mike & Pat Ameen, Kingwood, TX Edwin Amidon, Charlotte, VT Sylvia Anderson de Freitas, Phoenix, AZ Anace & Polly Aossey, Cedar Rapids, IA Dr. Robert Ashmore, Jr., Mequon, WI Mr. & Mrs. Sultan Aslam, Plainsboro, NJ Dr. & Mrs. Roger Bagshaw, Big Sur, CA Nabil Bahu, Athens, Greece Mrs. Alma Ball, Venice, FL Jamil Barhoum, San Diego, CA Allen & Jerrie Bartlett, Philadelphia, PA Susan M. Bell, Alexandria, VA Peter Bentley, Sebastian, FL Syed & Rubia Bokhari, Bourbonnais, IL Stephen Buck, Bethesda, MD Prof. Mireya Camurati, Williamsville, NY John Carley, Pointe-Claire, Quebec Lois Carrig, Erie, PA Blaine Chandler, Boise, ID Patricia Christensen, Poulsbo, WA Dr. Arthur Clark, Calgary, Canada Dr. Robert G. Collmer, Waco, TX Lois Critchfield, Williamsburg, VA Ray Doherty, Houston, TX Tareck Elass, Washington, DC Gloria El-Khouri, Scottsdale, AZ Wajih Elkiswani, Niles, IL M.R. Eucalyptus, Kansas City, MO Dr. Moneim Fadali, Los Angeles, CA Dr. & Mrs. Hossam Fadel, Augusta, GA Albert E. Fairchild, Bethesda, MD Catherine Fararjeh, Santa Clara, CA Renee Farmer, New York, NY Mr. & Mrs. Majed Faruki, Albuquerque, NM OCTOBER 2014
Claire Bradley Feder, Atherton, CA Douglas A. Field, Kihei, HI Eileen Fleming, Clermont, FL E. Patrick Flynn, Carmel, NY Robert Gabe, Valatie, NY Michael Gillespie, Maxwell, IA George Glober, Dallas, TX Herbert Greider, Dauphin, PA Agi Groff, New York, NY Mark Habib, Chico, CA Iftekhar Hai, S. San Francisco, CA Shirley Hannah, Argyle, NY James Hanson, Columbus, OH Katharina Harlow, Pacific Grove, CA Robert & Helen Harold, West Salem, WI Mrs. Frances Hasenyager, Carmel, CA Mr. & Mrs. Sameer Hassan, Quaker Hill, CT Ibrahim Hayani, Unionville, Ont. Joan & Edward Hazbun, Media, PA Alan & Dot Heil, Alexandria, VA† James Hillen, North Vancouver, Canada Jerry Hlass, Long Beach, MS Veronica Hoke, Hillcrest Hts., MD Dr. Marwan Hujeij, Cincinnati, OH Mr. & Mrs. Azmi Ideis, Deltona, FL George Jabbour, Sterling Hts., MI Dr. Raymond Jallow, Los Angeles, CA Ronald Johnson, Pittsford, NY Anthony Jones, Jasper, Canada Mohamad Kamal, North York, Canada Mujid Kazimi, Newton, MA Louise & Bob Keeley, Washington, DC Gloria Keller, Santa Rosa, CA Edwin Kennedy, Bethesda, MD Dr. Mohayya Khilfeh, Chicago, IL Abdal Hakim Khirfan, Flint, MI Alfred & Dina Khoury, McLean, VA N. Khoury, Pasadena, CA Donald C. Kimmel, Bethesda, MD Gail Kirkpatrick, Philadelphia, PA Joseph Korey, Reading, PA Donald Kouri, Westmount, Canada Ronald Kunde, Skokie, IL Ann Marie Labbate, Salt Point, NY William Lawand, Mount Royal, Canada Mary Lou Levin, Mill Valley, CA Josie Toth Linen, Richmond, VA Leslie Lomas, Boulder, CO George & Karen Longstreth, San Diego, CA Joseph Louis, Los Gatos, CA THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
Jeanie Lucas, Thebarton, Australia J. Robert Lunney, Bronxville, NY Anthony Mabarak, Grosse Pointe Park, MI Robert L. Mabarak, Grosse Pointe Park, MI Allen J. MacDonald, Washington, DC Farah Mahmood, Forsyth, IL Tahera Mamdani, Fridley, MN Ted Marczak, Toms River, NJ Joseph A. Mark, Carmel, CA Linden Martineau, Ventnor City, NJ Carol Mazzia, Santa Rosa, CA Shirl McArthur, Reston, VA Stanley McGinley, The Woodlands, TX Tom Mickelson, Madison, WI Lynn & Jean Miller, Amherst, MA Peter Miller, Portland, OR Dr. Yehia Mishriki, Emmaus, PA Colleen Mitchell, Fresno, CA Mr. & Mrs. Farah Munayyer, West Caldwell, NJ Ann Murphy, Tacoma, WA Mohamad Nabi, Union, KY William & Nancy Nadeau, San Diego, CA Joseph Najemy, Worcester, MA Jacob Nammar, San Antonio, TX Neal & Donna Newby, Las Cruces, NM Susan Nicholson, Gloucester, MA Tom O’Connell, Brooklyn, NY Rev. John O’Neill, Petaluma, CA Khaled Othman, Riverside, CA Edmond & Lorraine Parker, Chicago, IL John Parry, Chapel Hill, NC Vicki Perkins, Calgary, Canada Dr. Bashar Pharoan, Timonium, MD Phillip Portlock, Washington, DC Barry Preisler, Albany, CA Clarence Prince, Austin, TX Syed R. Quadri, Elizabethtown, KY Bassam Rammaha, Corona, CA Nayla Rathle, Belmont, MA Vivian & Doris Regidor, Pearl City, HI Mr. & Mrs. Edward Reilly, Rocky Point, NY Paul Richards, Salem, OR Ms. Brynhild Rowberg, Northfield, MN Arthur Rowse, Chevy Chase, MD Ambassador William Rugh, Garrett Park, MD Hameed Saba, Diamond Bar, CA 73
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Grace Said, Chevy Chase, MD Ramzy Salem, Monterey Park, CA Betty Sams, Washington, DC Dr. Dirgham H. Sbait, Portland, OR Russell Scardaci, Cairo, NY * Robert M. Schaible, Maine Voices for Palestinian Rights, Buxton, ME Joan Seelye, Bethesda, MD Mona Serageldin, Cambridge, MA Dr. Abid Shah, Sarasota, FL William A. Shaheen III, Grosse Ile, MI George Shalabi, Sauk City, WI Qaiser & Tanseem Shamim, Somerset, NJ Theodore Shannon, Middleton, WI Lewis Shapiro, White Plains, NY Kathy Sheridan, Mill Valley, CA Yousuf Siddiqui, Bloomfield, MI Lucy Skivens-Smith, Dinwiddie, VA William Slavick, Portland, ME Edgar W. Snell, Jr., Schenectady, NY Jean Snyder, Greenbelt, MD Gregory Stefanatos, Flushing, NY Dr. William Strange, Fort Garland, CO Karl Striedieck, Port Matilda, PA Corrine Sutila, Los Angeles, CA Mushtaq Syed, Santa Clara, CA Dr. Yusuf Tamimi, Hilo, HI Doris Taweel, Laurel, MD J. Tayeb, Shelby Township, MI Ned Toomey, Bishop, CA Nona Tyler, Loveland, CO Unitarian Universalists for Justice, Cambridge, MA Tom Veblen, Washington, DC Elizabeth & Lawrence Waldron, Berkeley, CA Sheila Wells, Monterey Park, CA Duane & Barbara Wentz, Kirkland, WA Keith Wilbanks, Gainesville, GA Darrell & Sue Yeaney, Scotts Valley, CA Munir Zacharia, La Mirada, CA Nadim & Alicia Zacharia, San Diego, CA Ziyad & Cindi Zaitoun, Seattle, WA Fred Zuercher, Spring Grove, PA
ACCOMPANISTS ($250 or more) Mohamed Alwan, Chestnut Ridge, NY Dr. Majid Azzedine, Lakewood, WA Mr. & Mrs. Robert Beckmann, Seattle, WA Robert Adams Boyd, Binghamton, NY Prof. & Mrs. George W. Buchanan, Gaithersburg, MD Lynn & Aletha Carlton, Norwalk, CT Joe Chamy, Colleyville, TX Mr. & Mrs. John Crawford, Boulder, CO Joseph Daruty, Newport Beach, CA Robert & Tanis Diedrichs, Cedar Falls, IA Eugene Fitzpatrick, Wheat Ridge, CO Joseph & Angela Gauci, Whittier, CA 74
Ray Gordon, Bel Air, MD Iftekhar Hai, S. San Francisco, CA Delinda C. Hanley, Kensington, MD*** Shirley Hannah, Argyle, NY Masood Hassan, Calabasas, CA Dr. Colbert & Mildred Held, Waco, TX Salman & Kate Hilmy, Silver Spring, MD Omar & Nancy Kader, Vienna, VA Martha Katz, Youngstown, OH Dr. M. Jamil Khan, Bloomfield Hills, MI Omar Khwaja, Irvine, CA Paul N. Kirk, Baton Rouge, LA Michael Ladah, Las Vegas, NV Kendall Landis, Media, PA David & Renee Lent, Hanover, NH† Joe and Lilli Lill, Arlington, VA Nidal Mahayni, Richmond, VA†† Rachelle Marshall, Mill Valley, CA Tom & Tess McAndrew, Oro Valley, AZ Dr. Charles W. McCutchen, Bethesda, MD Ben Monk, St. Paul, MN Dr. Eid B. Mustafa, Wichita Falls, TX Arthur Paone, Belmar, NJ Edward & Ann Peck, Chevy Chase, MD Catherine Quigley, Annandale, VA Sam Rahman, Lincoln, CA Neil Richardson, Randolph, VT Henry Schubert, Damascus, OR Yasir Shallal, McLean, VA James G. Smart, Keene, NH David J. Snider, Airmont, NY Mae Stephen, Palo Alto, CA Mubadda Suidan, Atlanta, GA Michel & Cathy Sultan, Eau Claire, WI John Theodosi, Lafayette, CA John V. Whitbeck, Paris, France Darrell & Sue Yeaney, Scotts Valley, CA Rafi Ziauddin, West Chester, PA
TENORS & CONTRALTOS ($500 or more) Michael Ameri, Calabasas, CA Rev. Dr. Lois Aroian, Willow Lake, SD Kamel and Majda Ayoub, Hillsborough, CA Graf Herman Bender, North Palm Beach, FL Wilhelmine Bennett, Iowa City, IA Rev. Ronald C. Chochol, St. Louis, MO Mr. & Mrs. John Crawford, Boulder, CO Richard Curtiss, Boynton Beach, FL* Mervat Eid, Henrietta, NY Rafeek Farah, New Boston, MI Elisabeth Fitzhugh, Mitchellville, MD Ronald & Mary Forthofer, Longmont, CO Elaine & William Guenther, Saint Joseph, MO George Hanna, Santa Ana, CA Brigitte Jaensch, Carmichael, CA Les Janka, Leesburg, VA Zagloul Kadah, Seattle, WA THE WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
Gloria Keller, Santa Rosa, CA Kids in Need of Development Education, Richardson, TX Bill & Jean Mansour, Corvallis, OR Jean Mayer, Bethesda, MD Maury Keith Moore, Seattle, WA Liz Mulford, Cupertino, CA Mary Norton, Austin, TX Mary Regier, Albany, CA**** Robert Reynolds, Mill Valley, CA Gabrielle Saad, Oakland, CA Shahida Siddiqui, Trenton, NJ Michel & Cathy Sultan, Eau Claire, WI Dr. Robert Younes, Potomac, MD*
BARITONES & MEZZO SOPRANOS ($1,000 or more) Asha A. Anand, Bethesda, MD Dr. Abdullah Arar, Amman, Jordan G. Edward & Ruth Brooking, Wilmington, DE Rev. Rosemarie Carnarius & Aston Bloom, Tucson, AZ Donald Bustany, Studio City, CA William G. Coughlin, Brookline, MA Luella Crow, Eugene, OR Thomas D’Albani & Dr. Jane Killgore, Bemidji, MN Gregory DeSylva, Rhinebeck, NY Linda Emmet, Paris, France Dr. & Mrs. Clyde Farris, West Linn, OR Evan & Leman Fotos, Istanbul, Turkey* Hind Hamdan, Hagerstown, MD Judith Howard, Norwood, MA** Mary Ann Hrankowski, Rochester, NY††† Shafiq Kombargi, Houston, TX Jack Love, San Diego, CA John Mahoney, AMEU, New York, NY Gerald & Judith Merrill, Oakland, CA Bob Norberg, Lake City, MN Norman Tanber, Dana Point, CA Ms. Janice Terry, Marietta, OH John Van Wagoner, McLean, VA
CHOIRMASTERS ($5,000 or more) Henry Clifford, Essex, CT Donna B. Curtiss, Kensington, MD****, † John & Henrietta Goelet, New York, NY Andrew I. Killgore, Washington, DC Vincent & Louise Larsen, Billings, MT*, ** Mahmud Shaikhaly, Hollywood, CA Joan Toole, Albany, GA *In Memory of Richard H. Curtiss **In Honor of Andrew I. Killgore ***For Helen Thomas Internship ****In Memory of Frank Regier †In Memory of Ghassan Sabbagh ††In Memory of Leila Goodman †††In Memory of USS Liberty q OCTOBER 2014
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American Educational Trust The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs P.O. Box 53062 Washington, DC 20009
October 2014 Vol. XXXIII, No. 7
A Kashmiri family walks through floodwaters in the capital of Srinagar Sept. 10, 2014, as anger mounted over the slow pace of rescue operations following devastating floods in Indian-controlled Kashmir and elsewhere in the region. PUNIT PARANJPE/AFP/Getty Images