BBC bows shamefully to Israeli pressure…

… on airing a philanthropic appeal for aid for Gaza… while even the British government urges it not to.
Go figure.
We can note that the British government– like the US government, the Egyptian government, and all the other governments of the world– has connived shamefully, for the past three years, in the Israeli government’s completely anti-humane campaign to starve the 1.5 million people of Gaza into submission. But now, something seems to be changing on this score– perhaps– in the halls of Whitehall. As well as, perhaps, in Washington.
Let’s hope we can now see the world’s governments all start working together to re-connect the lives and economy of Gaza properly to those of the outside world. And that Israel’s brutal siege of Gaza, which has caused its people so much suffering, can now be ended.
But the BBC, meanwhile, still seems intent on going along with the Israeli-bred idea that the provision of outside aid– even of very urgently needed emergency relief aid– should be a political football, subject only to the whims of the Israeli occupying/besieging power.
What an outrage.
Today, the representatives of the Palestinian government that was elected in a free and fair election in January 2006 are now in Egypt, are in Cairo where tomorrow they’ll conduct talks with the Egyptian government on the modalities of re-opening the Rafah crossing point between Gaza and Egypt.
An anonymous source (presumably from Hamas) told Reuters’s Nidal Mughrabi that Hamas is,

    willing to accept the presence of members of [Mahmoud] Abbas’s presidential guards, with a special arrangement he did not disclose. Leaders of the group have in the past said they could also accept European monitors on certain conditions that does not allow the international observers to have a say over the operation of the crossing.

So Hamas, Fateh, Israel, and Egypt have all returned to negotiating all the same issues they have been fighting about for the past year or more.
Except that this time around, the negotiating positions of both Egypt and Fateh are considerably weaker than they were a year ago.
And meantime, if the latest declarations from the British government and President Obama are anything to go by, the international consensus that Israel used to enjoy for its policy of Endless Punitive Siege against Gaza seems to be eroding significantly.
Shame on the BBC!
Anyone who wants to give support to the coalition of very mainstream British charities that has had its appeal for Gaza turned down by the BBC can do so here.

IPS articles from Syria and Washington, DC

I’ve been really busy these past couple of weeks– plus, figuring out too much new technology. So, to catch up a little, here are the last two pieces of News Analysis that I wrote for IPS:

Read and enjoy. Or not; it’s up to you.

Obama moves fast on M.E. diplomacy

I just read the transcript of Pres. Obama’s address at the State Department today. That’s the one where he appointed former Sen. George Mitchell as Special Envoy for Middle East peace, and former Amb. Richard Holbroooke as Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Mitchell is a good choice. He has a good feel for the needs of brokering peace in tricky situations, which he helped do in Northern Ireland. And he knows quite a lot about the Israel-Palestine issue from his earlier work investigating the causes of the Second Intifada.
Plus, as a former Senate Majority Leader, he has the political stature that will be required to cajole people from both sides– and even Israel’s well-entrenched ‘Amen Corner’ in the US Congress– towards the decisions that will be needed to build durable final peace agreements.
Of course, it’s also a good sign that perennial “Israel-right-or-wrong” cheerleader Abe Foxman actually criticized Mitchell for being “too even-handed” between Arabs and Israelis. (I have it on good authority that there was a time when “even-handed” was thought of in Washington as a good description of what was needed in US diplomats working on Israeli-Arab issues. But it certainly hasn’t generally been seen as a good thing for as long as I’ve lived in the country– since 1982. Let’s hope we’re returning to a decent respect for even-handedness and basic fairness.)
I am seeing some excellent early actions from Obama. On the day he was inaugurated he phoned the leaders of the PA, Israel, Jordan, and Egypt– starting with the PA’s (time-expired but who’s counting?) President, Mahmoud Abbas. That was one early sign of his concern for moving fast on Arab-Israeli issues. Today’s appointment of Mitchell is another, even stronger one.
Plus, I think it’s excellent that on his second full day in office the President went to the State Department to join Sec. Clinton in making these announcements. That’s a strong signal of the value he places in the work of diplomacy that the State department’s employees do.
Regarding Mitchell’s appopintment, of course a lot remains to be revealed. One telling sign was that the hawkish Clinton adviser Dennis Ross, whose strongly pro-Israeli think-tank had previously announced that he would be kind of super-adviser for the whole region stretching from the Middle East to Afghanistan, reportedly wasn’t even present at tofday’s announcement. (Maybe, though, he’ll end up working more on Iran issues? Who knows?)
Clinton said at the State Department event that “the president and I have asked [Mitchell] to be the special envoy for Middle East peace.” That leaves it a little unclear who he’ll report to, which is a key detail.
When Obama spoke, he said this about Mitchell’s task:

    He will be fully empowered at the negotiating table, and he will sustain our focus on the goal of peace.
    No one doubts the difficulty of the road ahead, and George outlined some of those difficulties. The tragic violence in Gaza and southern Israel offers a sobering reminder of the challenges at hand and the setbacks that will inevitably come.
    It must also instill in us, though, a sense of urgency, as history shows us that strong and sustained American engagement can bridge divides and build the capacity that supports progress. And that is why we will be sending George to the region as soon as possible to help the parties ensure that the cease-fire that has been achieved is made durable and sustainable.
    Let me be clear: America is committed to Israel’s security. And we will always support Israel’s right to defend itself against legitimate threats.
    For years, Hamas has launched thousands of rockets at innocent Israeli citizens. No democracy can tolerate such danger to its people, nor should the international community, and neither should the Palestinian people themselves, whose interests are only set back by acts of terror.
    To be a genuine party to peace, the quartet has made it clear that Hamas must meet clear conditions: recognize Israel’s right to exist; renounce violence; and abide by past agreements.
    Going forward, the outline for a durable cease-fire is clear: Hamas must end its rocket fire; Israel will complete the withdrawal of its forces from Gaza; the United States and our partners will support a credible anti-smuggling and interdiction regime, so that Hamas cannot rearm.
    Yesterday I spoke to President Mubarak and expressed my appreciation for the important role that Egypt played in achieving a cease-fire. And we look forward to Egypt’s continued leadership and partnership in laying a foundation for a broader peace through a commitment to end smuggling from within its borders.
    Now, just as the terror of rocket fire aimed at innocent Israelis is intolerable, so, too, is a future without hope for the Palestinians.
    I was deeply concerned by the loss of Palestinian and Israeli life in recent days and by the substantial suffering and humanitarian needs in Gaza. Our hearts go out to Palestinian civilians who are in need of immediate food, clean water, and basic medical care, and who’ve faced suffocating poverty for far too long.
    Now we must extend a hand of opportunity to those who seek peace. As part of a lasting cease-fire, Gaza’s border crossings should be open to allow the flow of aid and commerce, with an appropriate monitoring regime, with the international and Palestinian Authority participating.
    Relief efforts must be able to reach innocent Palestinians who depend on them. The United States will fully support an international donor’s conference to seek short-term humanitarian assistance and long-term reconstruction for the Palestinian economy. This assistance will be provided to and guided by the Palestinian Authority.
    Lasting peace requires more than a long cease-fire, and that’s why I will sustain an active commitment to seek two states living side by side in peace and security.
    Senator Mitchell will carry forward this commitment, as well as the effort to help Israel reach a broader peace with the Arab world that recognizes its rightful place in the community of nations.
    I should add that the Arab peace initiative contains constructive elements that could help advance these efforts. Now is the time for Arab states to act on the initiative’s promise by supporting the Palestinian government under President Abbas and Prime Minister Fayyad, taking steps towards normalizing relations with Israel, and by standing up to extremism that threatens us all.
    Jordan’s constructive role in training Palestinian security forces and nurturing its relations with Israel provide a model for these efforts. And going forward, we must make it clear to all countries in the region that external support for terrorist organizations must stop.

This is pretty good as a starting US position.
I was also interested to see that Pres. Obama went into considerably greater detail about Mitchell’s task than Sec. Clinton did. So that might well indicate that Mitchell will be reporting more to him (through National Security Adviser Gen. Jim Jones) than to Clinton.

Killer Jobs Programs

The economy is heading south and people are being laid off. Congress-critters and governors, and politicians in general, are being asked to come up with “shovel-ready” projects that will put people to work. But what about people that can’t or won’t shovel?
The Pentagon has some jobs programs too. Some of them involve getting into uniform, and enlistments are up. Others involve working for military contractors like KBR. We covered them in the piece about finding newly-unemployed George Bush a job.
There are other Pentagon jobs programs that go right into every congressional district. They include military bases and military procurement. They say all politics is local, and in this time for intensive economic recovery planning congress-critters are interested in military procurement now more than ever.
Remember the peace dividend? Forget it. War pays better dividends, and you need to buy a lot of stuff to fight a war. So if the country is at war, and it is at war thanks to some people who profit from it, and if you need even more stuff to fight wars yet uninitiated, then military procurement has to be high on the jobs program list in every US congressional district.
Call them the killer jobs programs.

Continue reading “Killer Jobs Programs”

Panel discussion Washington DC Thursday

If you’re in DC Thursday evening, come along to a panel discussion on the Gaza crisis that I’m participating in, at Georgetown University, at 6:30 p.m.
The other participants are:

    Tamim Barghouti
    Lama Abu-Odeh
    Tom Neu
    Josh Rudner, and
    Noura Erekat.

The discussion is organized by GU’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies and will be held in McNair Auditorium, in Old North Building on the main campus.

Forging Peace With War

President Obama, Jan 20 2009:

    We will begin to responsibly leave Iraq to its people, and forge a hard-earned peace in Afghanistan.

This peace-forging, in a poor land where the US brought war over seven years ago, is social engineering at the point of a spear, and it won’t work.
According to Masood Aziz, a former diplomat:

    [Social engineering on a grand scale is] “a now thoroughly discredited approach to development in the Third World. The idea that after spending over $2.5 trillion on aid and social engineering since World War II, the West can create a “wonderful culture” in the Third World is delusional and suggests ignorance of the fact that foreign intervention has a dismal record of success.
    …culture is essential to development and . . . it needs to be protected in its own land and nurtured when in danger–not imposed from the outside. It is now well-recognized that development efforts only work if they are inclusive of human security, which itself embodies cultural and social norms. This “human development” approach–as elucidated by the Noble laureate Amartya Sen–has its focus on expanding human liberty and freedom and respect for the local population in defining their own needs and futures. In this sense, development is a basic human right based on a nation’s deep cultural and social character. When disturbed either by conflict, or by the imported idealism Marlowe seems to suggest, these rights are violated and disaster ensues
    Not understanding what Afghans want–security, education for their children, prosperity and the preservation of dignity–and instead advocating for “greatness” to come from the outside, has grave consequences for both Afghans and the community of nations engaged in this fight..

Continue reading “Forging Peace With War”

Inaugurating

Barack Hussein Obama was sworn in as our president at noon today– Hurrah! … Four hours before that, I and four (mainly Quaker) friends from Charlottesville who slept over in our apartment in Washington had finished our mammoth “survival-dressing” operation and ventured out into the sub-freezing air to start our trek to the National Mall.
As we walked along streets from which, today, all moving vehicles had been banned we merged with other groups and then converged into ever broader and broader streams of humanity. We surged across Constitution Avenue onto the National Mall at around 18th Street and turned left on the Mall so we could get as close to the Capitol Dome end of it as possible. At one point the whole river of humanity had to get over a line of yard-high concrete barricades, which we did by helping each other across.
At our “hoi polloi” end of the mall there were no security checkpoints, though I assume the police were watching people very closely from the few temporary elevated watch-towers I saw, and from the ground. Some of the streets along which we’d walked had National Guard Military Police units strung lightly along them, but the security on and around the Mall was light.
The excitement built as the crowds around us grew denser. We made our way with increasingly difficulty around the northern shoulder of the hill on which sits the vast obelisk of the Washington Monument, hoping to reach at least the east side of 14th Street. But it was not to be. The entire section of the Mall east of 14th Street was already, at 8:45, filled to capacity and they were letting no more people in there. So we were stuck back on the eastern slope of the Washington Monument’s hill– facing the Capitol Building, which gleamed light-golden around 1.3 miles away.
We had a large Jumbotron screen on which we could see the details of what was happening there… and all around us an ever-thickening crush of humanity. A large preponderance of hardy young and middle-aged adults, but several families with kids aged seven or over. (Families with younger kids, and older people, had been warned to think carefully before coming, because of the lengthy waits expected, and the cold, the cold, the cold.)
So from around 9 a.m. through 11:15 we stood there. We got to know the people standing around us a bit– one family had come from Oregon, a young woman and her mother from Washington State. The crowd immediately around us was around 25% African-American and also contained a large group of Latinos. The Jumbotrons replayed the tape of the big concert held at the Lincoln Memorial on Sunday, which sparked sporadic waves of singing, swaying, or quasi-dancing among the crowd. A light sun peeked through. But still, it was cold, cold, cold. I pulled on my second pair of gloves and my third pair of legwear. The six layers on my upper body just sufficed.
At around 11:15 the Jumbotrons switched to showing us the things that were happening in real-time, in and around the Capitol Building. Various dignitaries arrived and were announced. A few of us raised a loud cheer for Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter. The Clintons got a louder cheer (but not from me.) The arrival of George W. Bush got deeps boos from our understandably partisan crowd. We saw the Obama daughters; Laura Bush with Michelle Obama… then out came “the President-Elect” to the delight of all.
Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts flubbed the administration of the oath of office, but that didn’t seem to matter. After Obama took the oath, many people in the crowd hugged each other, and there were some tears.
We then listened carefully to his Inaugural Address. He started off with a couple of quick grace notes to the man he had now replaced in office (yay!)… But just about all the rest of the speech was a pointed and powerful indictment of the value and policies pursued by Bush– though Obama never mentioned Bush by name during the rest of the speech.
I thought it was a great speech: serious, somber, inclusive. I do still have a problem with mentions of the concept “American leadership”, given the terrible straits into which this concept has led the world over the past 17 years. But it is sort of “boiler-plate” in the official rhetoric of the country at this point. But the main things I liked about the speech were the serious commitment he expressed to restoring the rule of law (“we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals”) and its emphasis on fairness, mindfulness, and inclusivity (“We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus — and non-believers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth… “) He made an indirect reference to the formerly enslaved (“We were lashed by the whip”), but I wish he had made a parallel reference to the indigenous people of the country.
But what he said, directly, to the Muslim world and to the people of the world’s low-income nations sounded good, respectful, and serious.
Soon after he finished the address, our group and many others turned to start to leave. Because of the crowds, it took a long while to straggle back to Constitution Avenue. As we walked we heard the chopper carrying the departing Bush fly overhead, and gave a cheer for that departure.
… Anyway, I’m pretty tired right now. I am really happy I was able to be a part of it.
Then I came back to the apartment and saw the new White House website, too. Wow, this is starting to feel real.
So if “inaugurating” is about getting the “augurs”– the heavenly signs; the karma– more rightly aligned, then I think that task has been achieved today. But there’s still a huge amount more work to do.

Marc Lynch resurrects discredited ‘ripeness’ theory

Marc Lynch, a generally sensible young “rising star” in the world of US Arabists, today blogged about his “four suggestions for the Obama administration.” Three of his suggestions are helpful, though not terribly new. The fourth– on the Palestinian/Gaza situation– seems actively dangerous since in it he resurrects from what I had thought was a well-deserved death the old canard of “ripeness theory.” … As in, “Oh no, we can’t possibly talk about final-status issues in the Palestinian-Israeli diplomacy right now because the situation isn’t ‘ripe’ for resolution.”
The original author of ripeness theory in this context was Richard Haass, who not long thereafter got “mugged by reality” and disavowed the whole idea. But the theory lived on, most especially in the words and works of Dennis Ross, peace “processor” extraordinaire, who for 12 long years in the Bush I and Clinton administrations used that argument– along with a second, Cold War-derived argument about the need for lengthy “confidence building measures”– to delay and delay the moment at which the US government or anyone else might actually get serious about promoting a final-status peace between Israelis and Palestinians.
Meanwhile, as we all know, the pro-settler forces in the Israeli political elite used those delays to their great advantage to push further and further forward their project of planting settler colonies throughout the whole of the West Bank (and throughout Syria’s Golan.)
What a crock that whole theory of “ripeness” turned out to be.
But now, here was Marc Lynch today, writing about the Palestinian situation:

    it’s hard to imagine a situation less “ripe” for resolution, the current Palestinian leadership is in no position to deliver anything, and the Gaza war will leave deep scars. Instead, focus on the realities on the ground as they are, not as we would like them to be, and put U.S. diplomatic and material support into building more solid foundations for a renewed peace engagement.

Well, Marc, I’m guessing that by “the current Palestinian leadership” you mean Mahmoud Abbas. (Though after the past four weeks he looks far less leaderly than Haniyeh, Meshaal, and Co.) But guess what, both Abbas and Hamas are now talking about the need for a new Palestinian national unity government… They look serious about getting their political ducks in a row in preparation for the challenges ahead.
It’s on the Israeli side that it now looks far more questionable whether there is indeed a “partner for peace.”
But regardless of those problems, the ghastly crisis from which we’re just now emerging provides just the kind of impetus and motivation that true, far-reaching– i.e. final-settlement-seeking– peace diplomacy so sorely needs. There truly is no excuse for not pushing ahead… And surely the whole world community (and not just the decisionmakers here in Washington) has now vividly seen the danger of simply letting the Palestinian-Israeli situation continue to fester for any further length of time.
Ripeness theory: It’s ripe for burial. Right now.

Echoes from Syria

I seem to have been incredibly busy since I left Damascus last Thursday evening. I’ve also been on an emotional roller-coaster, torn between the mounting excitement around Barack Obama’s inauguration tomorrow–Washington DC is abuzz with visitors, activities, parties, and high hopes– and my continuing deep sadness and concern over the horrors in Gaza.
Plus, there have been significant developments in the Gaza story, which I’ve tried to blog here.
But I just want to write something quick now, before the experience becomes too faded, about the amazing evening we spent in Damascus last Tuesday…
The small delegation of which I was part was invited to an event at the Zeitoun Church, near the Eastern Gate of the Old City of Damascus, in which a joint Christian-Muslim choir sang hymns sacred to their two religions and some patriotic songs, accompanied by traditional Arabic instruments and, at one point, by two “whirling dervishes.”
This was the Alfarah Chorale, organized by Father Elias Zahlawi. Also present was the (Sunni Muslim) Grand Mufti of Syria, Ahmed Bader Hasoun, who told us a little about the meaning of some of the dervishes’ sacred gestures.
If I shut my eyes I can almost see the rhythm of the dervishes’ vastly swirling white skirts. I can see the great enthusiasm in the faces of the “Christian” portion of the chorale, which stood in three lines across the back of the stage in the same kind of quasi-ecclesiastical garb a choir in a US church might wear. I can see the broad smiles of the half dozen yellow-clad, hijab-wearing women in the “Muslim” portion of the chorale. I can hear the plaintive tones of the flute, the lute, and the zither. I can feel the insistence of the hand-drums; admire the deep tones of the Muslim men singers over on the left.
The music was tremendous! Extremely accomplished and moving. The choristers seemed to be singing in six or seven parts, and they all reveled in the sound they made together. Sometimes the Christians sang alone; sometimes the Muslims. But mainly they sang together, whether it was sacred songs or more secular patriotic ballads.
Both the Mufti and Father Zahlawi spoke about the great value of the coexistence among faiths and communities that Syria has hosted for many centuries now, and how this can be a model for other nations everywhere. They spoke about how they valued their memories of the Jewish community that used to enrich their lives in Syria– nearly all its members left for the west some years ago… And about how they would love to welcome its members back to Syria.
Mufti Hasoun smiled broadly as he gave a special shout-out to “Barack Hussein Obama” on the occasion of his imminent inauguration as president of the US, and expressed the hope that Washington’s ties with Syria could rapidly be improved.
But it’s the rich and soaring tones of the singers, the wide skirts of the sacred dancers, and the low voice of the hand-drums that stay with me now.
We have a ceasefire in Gaza, however fragile. And tomorrow we’ll have a new president here in the US. Many things that seemed hard to imagine last Tuesday now seem much more possible.
… Just 18 hours of George Bush’s presidency still to go…

Kudos and hugs to Laila and her family

Palestinian journalist Laila el-Haddad has done a stupendously good job of blogging the Gaza war, despite the handicaps of (a) being the primary caregiver for her and her husband’s two young children, and (b) having to deal with her enormous concern for her parents, both retired physicians, who have been in their Gaza City home throughout all this time, and for all her other relatives and friends in Gaza.
She and her kids are currently living with her husband who’s doing a medical residency at Duke University in North Carolina. I know a little, from my own experience having to look after my young kids in a distant country while our former home in Beirut was being severely bombed by Israel back in 1982, how tough all aspects of that situation are. But Laila has dealt with it superbly– for the benefit and illumination of all the rest of us.
If you haven’t read Laila’s blog recently, do go and do so. She has brought together so many important aspects of the war, including with the numerous updates from and about her parents.
Imagine being in the situation she was in Saturday, when she received from her father what he thought might be his last communication with his loved ones outside the Strip…

    Loved ones :
    I thought to take few moments on the generator to write this email to you, It might be our last communication. The Israeli army has been heavily bombarding everything in GAZA now. They escalated their attack intensively after 4 AM. Tal El-Hawa is on fire ( I will attach photos that I took of smoke from burning buildings), they just fired a missile on one apartment in a huge apartment building in front of our house ( Borj Al-Shorook) I guess Laila knows it. Phosphorus bombs now are fired everywhere on houses and on people. UNRWA’s main stores in GAZA were hit.
    Hundreds of people are trapped in burning buildings in Tal El-Hawa and Al-Sabra and everywhere in GAZA. It is clear now that these people decided now to finish everyone and everything in GAZA strip. I still have faith in Allah.

Thank God for the internet. Thank God for brave and caring people like Laila and her father, Dr. Moussa (Abu Tarek) el-Haddad.