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Yarmouk refugees tell of brutal treatment at hands of Syrians

• Martin Chulov in Beirut
• The Observer, Saturday 26 April 2014

Volunteers distribute free meals to residents at the Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmouk. Photograph: Reuters

Palestinian families who have managed to escape the Syrian camp are now arriving in Lebanon with terrible stories of their suffering

Lugging a plastic bag carrying the clothes and food scraps she could salvage, Umm Samir set out from her ruined home and crawled through the pre-dawn gloom on her second journey into exile in 68 years.

In the difficult days since, she has made her way from the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp in Damascus to Beirut, where she now confronts the bitter reality of again becoming a refugee, the lifelong dream of returning to her birthplace now further away than ever.

"I always thought that the only time I would move from Yarmouk would be back to Palestine," she said from a tiny, airless basement in the Sabra-Shatila Palestinian camp in the heart of the Lebanese capital, where the family sought sanctuary three days ago. "Now I find myself here."

Across the room, Umm Samir's daughter, son-in-law, and five of their 10 children, were squatting silently on the floor. The children's father, Abu Sameer, had a hunched and defeated air, while their mother, Umm Sameer, shifted quickly between anger and sorrow.

"I didn't expect this at all," said Umm Sameer of the unrelenting siege of the Yarmouk camp that had seen many of those who remain starved to the point of death. "I didn't think the [Syrian] regime would do this to our people. The veil has dropped. We can see clearly how we were used."

Over the past fortnight, the siege of Yarmouk, the camp held up by Syria over four decades as a symbol of its commitment to the Palestinian cause, has reached a nadir. Many of those who remain have been unable to eat, or leave. Others, like Abu Sameer and his family, decided that a suicide run for the camp's closely guarded borders was a better bet than fossicking for scraps in abandoned buildings and pillaged orchards.

"We made it in small groups, but five of our children were left behind," said Abu Sameer. "It was just too dangerous to bring them. "We were going to die," he said of his decision to leave. "We had no choice."

The desperate plight of those who left behind was showcased last week through pleas by the United Nations Relief Works Agency (UNRWA) and stories in the Observer. Both revealed the scale of an unfolding catastrophe starkly at odds with a recent UN security council resolution demanding that humanitarian aid be delivered to all those caught up in Syria's unrelenting war.

Last week, after a demand from UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon, things changed in Yarmouk, with food parcels reaching some of those who needed them for the first time in 15 days.

The UNRWA reported that Syrian officials had allowed close to 700 parcels, each capable of feeding between five and eight people, into the camp. The delivery eases an immediate crisis, but fails to address a profound stockpile deficit caused by months of delayed deliveries earlier in the year.

And the new supplies have not reached all those who need them. One Yarmouk resident, who asked not to be named, was almost too exhausted to make himself heard down the phone line on Friday. "It is a nightmare," he said. "For four months we have been eating rice and grass, radishes and greens."

Asked why he had not tried to leave, he said: "If we are caught, it is straight to the Palestine Branch (an intelligence division). Anyone who goes in there does not come out. If they do manage to, they have been reborn. So many people have been disappeared."

Many of the Yarmouk exiles say the name of their former home will soon be etched into infamy in the same way that Sabra-Shatila was 32 years ago, when more than 1,000 Palestinians were massacred by Lebanese Christian militias who at the time were allied to the occupying Israeli army.

The ghosts of 1982 remain deeply synonymous with Palestinian suffering. But some of the new arrivals say the scale of the current horrors in Yarmouk and other Syrian camps may soon eclipse even such a painful episode.

Iran and Syria "pretend to be against Israel", but that is just a ploy, according to Umm Ibrahim, the matriarch of a another Yarmouk family which had arrived in Sabra-Shatila in recent weeks. "The Golan Heights have been silent for how long?" she asked rhetorically. "The Palestinian resistance used to come through Lebanon to fight Israel. They weren't allowed through Syrian land. Not even a bird was allowed to fly across the border fence."

Resentment seethed among both families of new refugees. "The Arabs are bigger enemies than the Israelis," said Umm Sameer. "They don't behave like this to their worst enemies."

Unwanted in Syria, those fleeing Yarmouk are hardly made to feel at home in Lebanon either. New arrivals are given a one-week visa, which requires them to report to authorities or face a $200 fine, which few among them can afford. While UNRWA and other aid organisations offer some food assistance and living space, conditions are far worse here than in pre-war Syria.

"They didn't care about us at all," said Umm Samir, who was too young to remember her first journey to exile in 1948 from the Palestinian town of Safed, in what is now Israel, and too anguished to want to recall her second journey last week. "I thought that if I ever leave my home again before I die, it would be to go back to Palestine."

Outside Sabra-Shatila, in the Palestinian embassy nearby, senior official Qassem Abbas, who is responsible for Yarmouk arrivals, tried to play down the scale of the crisis. "Things have actually improved in recent weeks," he said. "They haven't worsened. The Palestinian leadership has decided to take a position of neutrality. This brought us closer to the Syrian regime, despite everything that has happened. It was a difficult decision, but it made us less biased.

"This is a chess game being played by all those in the region," he said of the Syrian war. "But there is only one real mastermind, America. It serves their interests so they can stay in the region."

Back in the camp, the new arrivals were having none of that. "Our so-called leaders have their own reasons for their closeness to the Syrian regime," said Umm Sameer. "And it has nothing to do with us. "Shame on them and their silence."

Al-Jazeera Cartoon

This is His Electoral Program!

RUNNING THE GLOBE IS TIRING

By Eric Margolis

Small wonder President Barack Obama’s hair is rapidly greying. Most second term presidents age rapidly from the constant pressure, tension, and need to make tough, painful decisions.

This past week, Obama finally managed, after two cancellations, to get to Asia – the epicenter of his much-ballyhooed but now rather watered down “Pivot to Asia.”

Any more pivoting between the Mideast, Ukraine and Asia, and the president’s head is going to seriously spin.

Obama faces a Mission Impossible in Asia. He has got to somehow deal with China’s growing geopolitical assertiveness and new-found sense that it is master of all Asia. He must confront China’s increasingly muscular efforts to drive US imperial influence off Asia’s mainland and island chains, and push it far back into the Pacific – but without starting a war with China, which holds the upper hand on the Asian coast.

At the same time, the president must brace up China’s pro-US neighbors who are intimidated by Beijing’s heavy-handed policies that its claim to be the paramount power in all of South and North Asia – he who must be obeyed.

The Philippines, Vietnam, Brunei and Malaysia are particularly nervous, but so is huge Indonesia, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, and mighty India, an insecure giant with feet of clay.

Japan is in a particularly nasty fix. Without nuclear weapons or dense anti-missile system, Japan is frighteningly vulnerable to nuclear blackmail by eccentric North Korea and certainly China. This writer has long believed that Japan, which has advanced nuclear capabilities, will soon decide to build a nuclear arsenal. Its first nuclear weapons could be produced in thirty days.

Japan has been shielded by America’s nuclear umbrella and Pacific forces for sixty years. In exchange, for protection and access to the huge US market, Japan agreed to let Washington direct is foreign and trade policy, and to maintain only token military forces.

But now, China has outflanked Japan’s American defense shield by claiming the uninhabited, vulnerable Senkaku Islands that are far from Japan’s nearest air bases. Up to now, Washington has been ambiguous about whether its defense treaty with Japan would cover the Senkaku.

This week in Tokyo, President Obama clearly affirmed the islets do lie under the treaty, putting China on notice that any further provocations could risk a clash with the US 7th Fleet and Pacific Command.

Defending the Senkaku was a risky but correct decision by President Obama. His forthright act might even calm China’s expansionist ardor. However, China is also pressing claims to islets or shoals off the Philippines, Brunei, Taiwan, Malaysia and Vietnam, causing them great consternation. Adding to the tensions, North Korea and Japan are squabbling over some small islets lying between them. North Korea’s refusal to accept South Korea’s self-declared western maritime border has led to past naval clashes.

China is pressing these petty claims for a very good reason. In classic Imperial Chinese fashion, Beijing is trying to browbeat and arm-twist its Asian neighbors into voluntarily becoming vassal status of the Chinese emperor. During its long history, China usually preferred intimidation to conquest. All neighbors should bow to the wisdom and power of China.

The United States has employed similar neo-feudalism to control Western Europe, Japan, South Korea, and Latin America since World War II.

China’s immediate goal is to humiliate old enemy Japan and make Tokyo lose big face. China’s seizure of a group of Japanese freighters under questionable claims dating to the 1930’s has Beijing opening a new front in its campaign to show Japan as a cringing paper tiger. Japan’s vast financial and industrial investments in China are now at risk or hostages unless Tokyo kow-tows to Beijing.

Call it China’s ongoing revenge for World War II.

China’s growing intimidation will drive Japan ever-deeper into America’s arms. It may also spark a military clash with Japan that could involve the US Seventh Fleet. Not a good time for such clashes when the US and its NATO appendage are trying to square off in Ukraine against China’s ally, Russia.

Now that Israel’s expansionist right has squelched any hope of a US-crafted two state solution for the wretched Palestinians and the war in Syria rages, it seems President Barack Obama will keep waking up with more and more grey hairs every morning.

Egypt: Halt plans to forcibly return Syrian refugees and asylum seekers, end unlawful detentions

“

Forcibly sending back refugees and asylum seekers who have sought safety in Egypt is a cruel betrayal of the authorities’ international obligation to offer protection to refugees. If any of them are returned to Syria their lives could be in grave danger.

”

Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Middle East and North Africa Deputy Director at Amnesty International.

Fri, 25/04/2014

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL

The lives of three Syrian men will be put at grave risk if the Egyptian authorities follow through with plans to forcibly send them back to Syria, said Amnesty International. 

The three are among more than 140 refugees and asylum seekers, including 68 children – most of whom are from Syria – unlawfully detained at Rosetta Police Station in Beheira Governorate. They have been held at the police station since 14 April 2014, when Egyptian security forces arrested them after they abandoned a treacherous Mediterranean Sea crossing in an attempt to reach Europe. 

“Forcibly sending back refugees and asylum seekers who have sought safety in Egypt is a cruel betrayal of the authorities’ international obligation to offer protection to refugees. If any of them are returned to Syria their lives could be in grave danger,” said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Middle East and North Africa Deputy Director at Amnesty International. 

“Instead of offering much-needed help and support to refugees and asylum seekers – including families and dozens of young children who have sought sanctuary in Egypt – the authorities have locked them up in a police station in deplorable conditions.”

The three men at risk of deportation were told by the Egyptian authorities on 24 April that they would be returned to Syria within 48 hours if they were not able to afford tickets back to either Lebanon, Turkey or Malaysia, where they had initially sought asylum.  

Any deportation of Syrian refugees and asylum seekers would blatantly violate Egypt’s responsibility to protect refugees.  

“Egypt must stop shirking its responsibility towards those seeking refuge in Egypt. The authorities have repeatedly displayed a chilling lack of compassion to the plight of refugees from Syria who often suffer routine discrimination and detention. Many of them have escaped the bloody conflict in Syria, only to face further misery in Egypt. They should be immediately released and granted access to asylum procedures,” said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui. 

The majority of the refugees held at Rosetta Police Station are Syrian nationals and Palestinians who have fled from Syria. There is also one Sudanese and one Eritrean refugee among the group. A number of those detained, including two of the men at risk of expulsion, are registered with the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR. 

It is unclear how long the authorities intend to detain the group of refugees – initial “illegal immigration” charges against them were later dropped. 

They are being held in unhygienic conditions in a courtyard at the police station. Many of the children have also been unwell due to the harsh conditions faced on the boat before their arrest. 

There are currently more than 136,000 registered refugees from Syria in Egypt. Amnesty International has documented a number of cases of refugees attempting to cross by boat from Egypt and Turkey, among other countries, to countries in the European Union. Many have been subjected to ill-treatment and detention while attempting to seek safety and security. 

عن المصالحة الجديدة وما بعدها وبديلها

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ياسر الزعاترة

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متعلقات

• المصالحة المستحيلة
• كي لا تهدد المصالحة القضية بدولة مؤقتة
• تحديات الحكومة الفلسطينية القادمة
• هل المصالحة الفلسطينية ممكنة؟
• سيناريوهات اليوم التالي لتنفيذ المصالحة الفلسطينية

لأن طرفيها مأزومان، كان لا بد من إتمام المصالحة، من دون أن يعني ذلك أن كل شيء سيمضي في الاتجاه المطلوب.

نقول ذلك، أولا لأن شياطين كثيرة ستبقى كامنة في التفاصيل، وقد تُفجر الموقف لاحقا، وثانيا لأن الظروف التي دفعت الطرفين إلى التوقيع قد تتغير، فيأخذ أحدهما أو كلاهما في التلكؤ لاحقا ووضع العصي في الدواليب، وأقله التشدد في التفاصيل على نحو يفضي إلى تفجير الموقف من جديد.

حماس تعيش مأزق الحصار المشدد الذي تفرضه مصر بنظامها الجديد على القطاع، وتعيش أزمة الاستهداف من قبل السلطة في الضفة الغربية، بينما تعيش فتح والسلطة أزمة فشل المفاوضات، فضلا عن مساعي دحلان لتأكيد سيطرته على فرعها في القطاع على نحو يهمّش قيادتها في الضفة.

هذه الظروف ليست ثابتة، وتتبعها المواقف التي قد تتغير بفعل الضغوط، خاصة مواقف قيادة السلطة.

"تعيش حماس مأزق الحصار المشدد الذي تفرضه مصر على القطاع، وتعيش أزمة الاستهداف من السلطة في الضفة الغربية، بينما تعيش فتح والسلطة أزمة فشل المفاوضات، وتبعات الصراع مع دحلان"

لكن الأهم أن التفاصيل في ملف المصالحة كثيرة، لسبب بسيط يتعلق بالخيارات السياسية والنضالية لكل طرف. ففي حين ترى حماس أن المقاومة هي الخيار الإستراتيجي للشعب الفلسطيني، وإن لم يكن بوسعها أن تفعِّلها بسبب عجز القطاع عن إطلاق مواجهة مع الاحتلال وحده في ظل خلل كامل لميزان القوى، فهو المحاصر برا وبحرا وجوا (يمكنه رد العدوان ببسالة كما فعل من قبل)، فإن الطرف الآخر لا زال يعوّل على المفاوضات، وإذا تركها لبعض الوقت بسبب المواقف الصهيونية، فإن بديله ليس المقاومة، وإنما التوجه إلى المؤسسات الدولية التي يعلم الجميع أنها لن تعيد للفلسطينيين حقوقهم، حتى لو اعترفت بها، مع أنها تعترف بها أصلا، من دون أن يؤدي ذلك إلى إعادتها.
البنود العامة في اتفاق المصالحة تبدو جيدة، أقله من وجهة نظر أصحابها، لكنها تتناقض مع الحرد السياسي الذي يمارسه محمود عباس منذ أيام، وتلويحه وآخرين بحلِّ السلطة، إذ كيف يلوحون بحل سلطة يعلم الجميع أنها مصممة لخدمة الاحتلال، بينما جوهر المصالحة هو تشكيل حكومة لها، وانتخابات رئاسية وتشريعية أيضا، بما يعني تكريسا لوضعها كدولة تحت الاحتلال الذي يتحكم بكل مفرداتها، بل وصل بها الحال إلى أن عقدت معه اتفاقيات طويلة المدى مثل اتفاقي المياه والغاز؟

هل ستغير الحكومة الجديدة من برنامج السلطة؟ وأين برنامج حماس من تلك الحكومة؟ وإذا قلنا إنها إدارية وليست سياسية، فما الذي يضمن لنا أن تذهب قيادة السلطة والمنظمة التي ستنتخب لاحقا في اتجاه آخر؟

إن برنامج عباس الكامن هو انتخابات للسلطة ولمنظمة التحرير في الداخل، وتجاهل الشتات، وبالطبع اعتقادا منه بالقدرة على الحصول على أغلبية، ولو بسيطة تعيد إليه ما فقده عام 2006، بينما يترجم ذلك في المجلس الوطني، وبالطبع حينئذ سيجري التذرع بعدم القدرة على إجراء انتخابات في الشتات الذي تتفوق فيه حماس بكل تأكيد.

والنتيجة هي أن ما يسمى "الشرعية" ستتحول إلى محمود عباس وحلفائه، ولو بفارق بسيط عن حماس في السلطة، وهو ما سيجري سحبه على منظمة التحرير، وبذلك تتحول حماس -ومعها الجهاد أيضا- إلى معارضة تقول ما تريد (كما كان حال الفصائل الأخرى مع فتح تاريخيا)، بينما يذهب صاحب مشروع السلطة، وعدو المقاومة، في الاتجاه نفسه الذي يريد، من دون أن يكون بوسع حماس أن تسحب الشرعية منه.

أما القول إن ذلك هو خيار الشعب الفلسطيني، فهذا غير صحيح أبدا، أولا -وقبل كل شيء- لأن أربعة ملايين في الضفة والقطاع هم 40% من الشعب الفلسطيني لا غير، وثانيا لأن الانتخابات ستتم والمسدس في رأس الشعب الفلسطيني (في الداخل)، إذ إن إعادة انتخابه حماس إنما يعني تجديد الحصار على الضفة والقطاع، هذا من جهة. ومن جهة أخرى، فإن حماس بعد طول استهداف (منذ 2007) في الضفة الغربية لن تكون قادرة في غضون ستة شهور على لملمة جراحها وخوض انتخابات تعلم أن الانقلاب عليها ممكن، وأن من سيدخلونها، ومن سيشرفون عليها من أبنائها سيتحولون بعد قليل من الوقت إلى أسرى في سجون الاحتلال كما حصل من قبل، بينما بعضهم لم يخرج بعد منها، أو خرج وعاد إليها من جديد.

"بنود اتفاق المصالحة تبدو جيدة، أقله من وجهة نظر أصحابها، لكنها تتناقض مع الحرد السياسي الذي يمارسه عباس منذ أيام، وتلويحه وآخرين بحلِّ السلطة، بينما جوهر المصالحة هو تشكيل حكومة لها"

مع التذكير بأن الكلفة التي دفعها فرع حماس في الضفة الغربية نتيجة دخول انتخابات السلطة عام 2006 كانت باهظة جدا، إذ كشفت أوراق التنظيم وجعلته برسم استهداف غير مسبوق، ثم استمر الاستهداف من قبل السلطة بعد ذلك على نحو قارب السحق، إذ استهدفت كل مؤسسات الحركة، وطورد الأفراد والقادة واحدا إثر الآخر، واستهدفت المساجد والجامعات بشكل لم يحدث منذ تأسيس الحركة.

ومن هنا، فإن من الطبيعي ألا تكون نتيجة حماس في هذه الانتخابات هي ذاتها التي حصلت عليها في انتخابات 2006، خاصة أنها ستجري بنظام القائمة النسبية وليس الدوائر، مع العلم أن وجود الدوائر لن يخدم الحركة هذه المرة أيضا، لذات الاعتبارات المشار إليها آنفا، وفي مقدمتها الاعتقالات وعموم أشكال الاستهداف.

والخلاصة أن الانتخاب لن يكون حرا، ولا قيمة للقول إن وضع فتح في القطاع لا يختلف عن وضع حماس في الضفة، لأن حجم الاستهداف لها كان أقل من جهة، ولأن البعد الآخر هو الأهم ممثلا في المسدس المصوب إلى رأس الشعب الفلسطيني، ويقول له: إما فتح وعباس، وإما الحصار من جديد، والأكثر أهمية هو عدم تمثيل الانتخابات سوى لأقل من 40% من الشعب الفلسطيني في الداخل والشتات.

بعد ذلك تنهض الأسئلة الأكثر إثارة في القضية، وهي التي تتعلق بالعقيدة التي تتبناها أجهزة الأمن في الضفة الغربية، مقابل الوضع في قطاع غزة. هل سيجرؤ محمود عباس على وقف التنسيق الأمني مع العدو، وهو الذي تفاخر أنه مائة في المائة طوال الوقت؟ ثم ماذا سيكون موقف الصهاينة لو تجرأ وفعل ذلك؟ ألن يدخلوا ويخرجوا كما يفعلون الآن ويعتقلون من يشاؤون؟ وحينها، هل سيقبل أن ترد الأجهزة على تلك التوغلات بالرصاص، أو يتجرأ بعض الشبان على فعل ذلك على سبيل المثال دون أن يتعرضوا للاعتقال؟

ألن يقول محمود عباس بعد قليل من الوقت، إن السلطة تعني شرعية واحدة وسلاحا واحدا، وإن على حماس والفصائل أن تضع سلاحها بيد السلطة كما كان يقول قبل الحسم العسكري يونيو/حزيران 2007، وتكف عن العمل خارج القانون؟ ماذا سيكون والحالة هذه مصير ما راكمته حماس والجهاد من سلاح طوال السنوات الماضية؟ هل ستقبل بالتخلي عنه، ومعه الجهود التي بذلتها تحت الأرض وفوقها، وتضع كل ذلك رهن أجهزة أمنية تتبنى عقيدة الجنرال دايتون التي تجرِّم الفعل المقاوم؟

"البديل الذي نراه هو أن تجرى انتخابات في الداخل والخارج لانتخاب قيادة فلسطينية تمثل كل الشعب الفلسطيني، وتكون تلك القيادة مفوضة بتعيين إدارة للسلطة في الضفة والقطاع تكون مهمتها إدارية"

والسؤال الذي يطرح نفسه في ضوء ذلك هو: هل مصالحة من هذا النوع تخدم فعلا قضية الشعب الفلسطيني، سواء مضت في الاتجاه المتوقع بحسب ما تفرضه موازين القوى على الأرض من حيث تحكّم الاحتلال بوضع السلطة في الضفة الغربية بشكل كامل، أم انفجرت من جديد بسبب التفاصيل التي أشرنا إليها؟

الجواب هو لا، ما لم يجر تعديل بنودها ومسارها، لأن الفشل سيؤدي إلى إشاعة الإحباط من جديد في الساحة الفلسطينية في حال رفض حماس المضي في الاتجاه الذي يريده عباس من حيث الالتزام بما يريده ممولو السلطة الدوليون؟ أما النجاح بالصيغة المتوقعة -حسب ما ذكرنا على الأقل- فهو كارثي أيضا، لأنه يكرس التفاوض كخيار، والتنسيق الأمني كعقيدة، والدولة في ظل الاحتلال وتحت إبطه، وفي خدمته، كخيار لا بديل عنه برأي أصحابه.

هنا يٌطرح سؤال: ما البديل؟
البديل الذي نراه -وقلناه مرارا من قبل- هو أن تجرى انتخابات في الداخل والخارج (تهميش الشتات الفلسطيني جريمة) لانتخاب قيادة فلسطينية تمثل كل الشعب الفلسطيني (إعادة تشكيل منظمة التحرير)، وتكون تلك القيادة مفوضة بتعيين إدارة للسلطة في الضفة والقطاع تنحصر مهمتها في إدارة حياة الناس، بينما تحدد القيادة الفلسطينية مسار الشعب الفلسطيني النضالي، والذي لن يكون غير المقاومة، لأنه من دون أن يغدو الاحتلال مكلفا، فلن يقدم الصهاينة شيئا للشعب الفلسطيني، فضلا عن أن يكون ذلك الشيء هو دولة كاملة السيادة على كامل الأراضي المحتلة عام 67 بما فيها القدس مع حق العودة.

وإذا رأت قيادة الشعب الفلسطيني أن حلَّ السلطة وتحميل الاحتلال مسؤوليتها وتحسين شروط المقاومة هو الأفضل، فسيكون ذلك بالتوافق الوطني أيضا.

Raging with the Machine: Robert Fisk, Seymour Hersh and Syria

By Yassin al-Hajj Saleh link

In the West, Robert Fisk and Seymour Hersh are considered critical journalists. They occupy dissident positions in the English-speaking press. Among Syrians, however, they are viewed very differently.

The problem with their writings on Syria is that it is deeply centered on the West. The purported focus of their analysis – Syria, its people and the current conflict – serves only as backdrop to their commentary where ordinary Syrians are often invisible. For Fisk and Hersh the struggle in Syria is about ancient sects engaged in primordial battle. What really matters for them are the geopolitics of the conflict, specifically where the US fits into this picture.

On the topic of chemical weapons, Fisk and Hersh, completely ignore the antecedents of last summer’s attack on Ghouta .

A reader who relies exclusively on Fisk/Hersh for their understanding of Syria would never know that the Assad regime had used chemical weapons several times before the August 21, 2013 massacre in Ghouta. I was there at the time. I saw victims of sarin gas on two occasions in Eastern Ghouta and I met doctors treating them. The victims were from Jobar, which was hit with chemical weaponsin April 2013 and from Harasta, which was hit in May 2013.

It is shocking that investigative journalists such as Fisk and Hersh know nothing about these attacks. They write as if Ghouta was the first time chemical weapons were used in Syria. Their credibility and objectivity is compromised by these omissions.

For these renowned commentators, all Middle East is reducible to geopolitical intrigue. There are no people; there is only the White House, the CIA, the British Government, Recep Tayyib Erdogan, the Emir of Qatar, the Iranian regime and of course Bashar Assad and the jihadis.

In Fisk’s myriad articles, one rarely reads about ordinary Syrians (the observation also applies to the late Patrick Seale).

Robert Fisk was once a scourge of American reporters embedding with US forces during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. But he saw no irony in himself embedding with Syria regime forces as they entered Daraya in August 2012.

More than 500 people were killed in a massacre at that time (245 according to Fisk). Who killed them? The rebels, determined Fisk based solely on interviews with regime detainees. Why should local fighters kill hundreds from their own community? Robert Fisk does not provide an answer. Had he spoken to a single citizen without his minders present, he would have learened that they had no doubts about the regime’s responsibility. Indeed, it was an American journalist, Janine di Giovanni, who established that fact shortly thereafter by visiting Daraya on her own.

At the same time when this was happening Human Rights Watch documented ten attacks on bread queues around Aleppo. Fisk did not mention a single one.

During this time Fisk visited a security center in Damascus where he was welcomed by a security official. He was given access to four jihadi fighters, two Syrians and two foreigners. Fisk made a point of mentioning that the prisoners were allowed family visits. As someone who spent 16 years in Assad’s jails and who has firsthand knowledge of these factories of death, I find this claim high improbable. Fisk’s credulity is risible; he is assisting a shameful attempt to beautify the ugly polices of the House of Assad.

Why has Robert Fisk never attempted to contact people of Eastern Ghouta to ask them what happened there last August? It would have been easy for a person as well-connected as he to convince his friends in the regime, such as Assad’s media adviser Buthaina Shaaban, to facilitate his entrance to the besieged town. He could have met ordinary people for a change with the intimidating presence of regime minders and found out for himself who used the chemical weapons that killed 1466 people, including more than 400 children.

Ignoring local sources of information on the conflict in Syria seems to be a standard practice among many in the West, especially among leftwing and liberal commentators. This speaks volumes about their ideological bias. Their dogmatic self-assurance with its veneer of professionalism is not substantively different than the obscurantist self-righteousness of the jihadis.

The Hersh/Fisk narrative unfolds in a historical vacuum: it tells you nothing about the history and character of the regime. You will not learn that the regime has used collective punishment as a policy since the very beginning of the Syrian revolt. That it has used fighter jets, barrel bombs and scud missiles against civilians to cow them; that it has invited foreigners from Lebanon, Iran, Iraq, and other countries to assist in the slaughter.

Nor will you learn about a flourishing death industry in the very places to which Fisk is a welcome visitor. Three months ago he penned an article about Assad’s systematic killing of the detainees in his dungeons, but Fisk reported on this topic in a way that gives us a biopsy of his professional conscience.

Fisk prefaces his report on the regime’s atrocities by warning readers about the horrors that may soon exist “if the insurrection against Bashar al-Assad succeeds.” For most the significant fact about the photos was the industrial scale killings inside Assad’s jails that they evidenced. But Fisk appeared more obsessed with the timing of the photos as they were appearing a day before the Geneva 2 Conference. Fisk may have been reminded of Nazi Germany by the horrific fate of the 11,000 prisoners, But he still found occasion to expatiate at length about Qatar, whose “royal family viscerally hates Bashar al-Assad”, for funding the investigation. For Fisk, the atrocities were a mere detail in a larger conspiracy whose real victim was Assad’s regime.

To the uninitiated, Fisk’s article might convey the impression that those 11,000 were all that were killed by Assad’s regime and the 20,000 killed in Hama in 1982 were all that that were killed by his father’s. The actual number of victims is eleven times as many for Assad and twice as many for his father. Moreover, these figures ignore the tens of thousands arrested, tortured, and jailed, and the millions who have been humiliated by this regime

By methodically ignoring the Syrian people and by focusing on Al Qaeda, Robert Fisk and Seymour Hersh have done us all a huge disservice. The perspective on Syria portrayed by these writers is exactly the view of Syria that Basher Assad wants to rest of the world to see.

Obama: “Remaking the Middle East”: The American Gulag

By James Petras

Introduction: During the beginning of his first term in office President Obama promised “to remake the Middle East into a region of prosperity and freedom”. Six years later the reality is totally the contrary: the Middle East is ruled by despotic regimes whose jails are overflowing with political prisoners.

The vast majority of pro-democracy activists who have been incarcerated, have been subject to harsh torture and are serving long prison sentences. The rulers lack legitimacy, having seized power and maintained their rule through a centralized police state and military repression.Direct US military and CIA intervention, massive shipments of arms,military bases, training missions and Special Forces are decisive in the construction of the Gulag chain from North Africa to the Gulf States.

We will proceed by documenting the scale and scope of political repression in each US backed police state. We will then describe the scale and scope of US military aid buttressing the “remaking of the Middle East” into a chain of political prisons run by and for the US Empire.

The countries and regimes include Egypt, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Iraq, Yemen, Jordan and Turkey . . . all of which promote and defend US imperial interests against the pro-democracy majority, represented by their independent social-political movements.

Egypt: Strategic Vassal State

A longtime vassal state and the largest Arab country in the Middle East, Egypt’s current military dictatorship, product of a coup in July 2013, launched a savage wave of repression

subsequent to seizing power. According to the Egyptian Center for Social and Economic Rights, between July and December 2013, 21,317 pro-democracy demonstrators were arrested. As of April 2014, over 16,000 political prisoners are incarcerated. Most have been tortured. The summary trials, by kangaroo courts, have resulted in death sentences for hundreds and long prison terms for most. The Obama regime has refused to call the military’s overthrow of the democratically elected Morsi government a coup in order to continue providing military aid to the junta.In exchange the military dictatorship continues to back the Israeli blockade of Gaza and support US military operations throughout the Middle East.

Israel: The Region’s Biggest Jailer

Israel, whose supporters in the US dub it the “only democracy in the Middle East”, is in fact the largest jailer in the region.

According to the Israeli human rights group B’Tselm, between 1967 and December 2012, 800,000 Palestinians have been imprisoned at some point, over 20% of the population. Over 100,000 have been held in “administrative detention” without charges or trial. Almost all have been tortured and brutalized. Currently Israel has 4,881 political prisoners in jail. What makes the Jewish state God’s chosen… premier jailer, however, is the holding of 1.82 million Palestinians living in Gaza in a virtual open air prison. Israel restricts travel, trade, fishing, building , manufacturing and farming through air, sea and ground policing and blockades. In addition, 2.7 million Palestinians in the Occupied Territories (West Bank) are surrounded by prison-like walls, subject to daily military incursions, arbitrary arrests and violent assaults by the Israeli armed forces and Jewish vigilante settlers engaged in perpetual dispossession of Palestinian inhabitants.

Saudi Arabia: Absolutist Monarchy

According to President Obama’s ‘remaking of Middle East’ Saudi Arabia stands as Washington’s “staunchest ally in the Arab world”. As a loyal vassal state, its jails overflow with pro-democracy dissidents incarcerated for seeking free elections, civil liberties and an end to misogynist policies. According to the Islamic Human Rights Commission the Saudis are holding 30,000 political prisoners, most arbitrarily detained without charges or trial.

The Saudi dictatorship plays a major role bankrolling police state regimes throughout the region. They have poured $15 billion into the coffers of the Egyptian junta subsequent to the military coup, as a reward for its massive bloody purge of elected officials and their pro-democracy supporters. Saudi Arabia plays a big role in sustaining Washington’s dominance, by financing and arming ‘jailer-regimes’ in Pakistan, Yemen, Bahrain, Jordan and Egypt.

Bahrain: Small Country – Many Jails

According to the local respected Center for Human Rights, Bahrain has the dubious distinction of being the “top country globally in the number of political prisoners per capita”. According to the Economist (4/2/14) Bahrain has 4,000 political prisoners out of a population of 750,000. According to the Pentagon, Bahrain’s absolutist dictatorship plays a vital role in providing the US with air and maritime bases, for attacking Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan. The majority of pro-democracy dissidents are jailed for seeking to end vassalage , autocracy, and servility to US imperial interest and the Saudi dictatorship.

Iraq: Abu Ghraib with Arab Characters

Beginning with the US invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003 and continuing under its proxy vassal Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki, tens of thousands of Iraqi citizens have been tortured, jailed and murdered. Iraq’s ruling junta, has continued to rely on US military and Special Forces and to engage in the same kinds of military and police ‘sweeps’ which eviscerate any democratic pretensions. Al-Maliki relies on special branches of his secret police, the notorious Brigade 56, to assault opposition communities and dissident strongholds. Both the Shi’a regime and Sunni opposition engage in ongoing terror-warfare. Both have served as close collaborators with Washington at different moments.

The weekly death toll runs in the hundreds. The Al-Maliki regime has taken over the torture centers (including Abu Ghraib), techniques and jails previously headed and run by the US and have retained US ‘Special Forces’ advisers, overseeing the round-up of human rights critics, trade unionists and democratic dissidents.

Yemen:A Joint US-Saudi Satellite

Yemen has been ruled by US-Saudi client dictators for decades. The autocratic rule of Ali Abdullah Saleh was accompanied by the jailing and torture of thousands of pro-democracy activists, secular and religious, as well as serving as a clandestine torture center for political dissidents kidnapped and transported by the CIA under its so-called “rendition” program. In 2011 despite prolonged and violent repression by the US backed Saleh regime, a mass rebellion exploded threatening the existence of the state and its ties to the US and Saudi regimes. In order to preserve their dominance and ties to the military, Washington and Saudi orchestrated a ‘reshuffle’ of the regime: rigged elections were held and one Abdo Rabbo Mansour Hadi, a loyal crony of Saleh and servant of Washington, took power. Hadi continued where Saleh left off: kidnapping, torturing, killing pro-democracy protestors… Washington chose to call Hadi’s rule “a transition to democracy”. According to the Yemen Times (4/5/14) over 3,000 political prisoners fill the Yemen prisons. “Jailhouse democracy” serves to consolidate the US military presence in the Arabian Peninsula.

Jordan: A Client Police State of Longstanding Duration

For over a half century, three generations of reigning Jordanian absolutist monarchs have been on the CIA payroll and have served US interests in the Middle East. Jordan’s vassal rulers savage Arab nationalists and Palestinian resistance movements; signed off on a so-called “peace agreement” with Israel to repress any cross-border support for Palestine; provide military bases in support of US, Saudi and EU training, arming and financing of mercenaries invading Syria.

The corrupt monarchy and its crony oligarchy oversee an economy perpetually dependent on foreign subsidies to keep it afloat: unemployment is running over 25% and half the population is subsisting in poverty. The regime has jailed thousands of peaceful protestors. According to a recent Amnesty International Report (Jordan 2013), King Abdullah’s dictatorship “has detained thousands without charges”. The jailhouse monarchy plays a central role in buttressing US empire-building in the Middle East and facilitating Israeli land grabbing in Palestine.

Turkey: NATO Bulwark and Jailhouse Democracy

Under the reign of the self-styled “Justice and Development Party” led by Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey has evolved into a major military operational base for the NATO backed invasion of Syria. Erdoğan has had his differences with the US; especially Turkey’s cooling relations with Israel over the latters’ seizure of a Turkish ship in international waters and the slaughter of nine unarmed Turkish humanitarian activists. But as Turkey has turned toward greater dependence on international capital flows and integration into NATO’s international wars, Erdoğan has become more authoritarian. Facing large scale public challenges to his arbitrary privatization of public spaces and dispossession of households in working class neighborhoods, Erdoğan launched a purge of civil society ,class based movements and state institutions. In the face of large scale pro-democracy demonstrations in the summer of 2013, Erdoğan launched a savage assault on the dissidents. According to human rights groups over 5,000 were arrested and 8,000 were injured during the Gezi Park protests. Earlier Erdoğan established “Special Authorized Courts” which organized political show trials based on falsified evidence which facilitated the arrest and imprisonment of hundreds of military officers, party activists, trade unionists, human rights lawyers and journalists, particularly those critical of his support for the war against Syria. Despite conciliatory rhetoric, Erdogan’s jails contain several thousand Kurdish dissidents, including electoral activists and legislators (Global Views 10/17/12).

While Erdoğan has served as an able and loyal Islamist anchor against popular democratic and nationalist movements in the Middle East, his pursuit of greater Turkish influence in the region, has led the US to deepen its political ties with the more submissive and pro-Washington , pro-Israel Gulenist movement embedded in the state apparatus ,business and education. The latter has adopted a permeationist-strategy: purging adversaries in its quiet march to power from within the state. The US still relies on Erdoğan’s “jailhouse democracy” to repress anti-imperialist movements in Turkey; to serve as a military anchor for the war against Syria; to back sanctions against Iran and to support the pro-NATO Maliki regime in Iraq.

The Middle East Gulag and US Military Aid

The police state regimes and the long-term authoritarian political culture in the Arab world is a product of long-term US military support for despotic rulers. The absence of democracy is a necessary condition for expanding and advancing the US imperial military presence in the region.

A small army of US Islamophobic academics, “experts”, journalists and media pundits totally ignore the role of the US in promoting, sustaining and strengthening the ruling dictators and repressing the profoundly democratic mass movements which have erupted over a prolonged period of time. Spearheaded by long-time pro-Israel Middle East scribes and scholars, in Ivy League universities, these propagandists, claim that Arab dictatorships are a product of “Islamic culture”,or the “authoritarian personality of Arabs” in search of a ‘strongman’ to guide and rule them. Ignoring or distorting the history of working class struggles, pro-democracy protests and affirmations, in all of the major Arab countries, these scholars justify the US ties to the dictatorships as “realistic policies” given the “available options”. Wherever real democracy begins to emerge, where political rights begin to be exercised, Washington provokes coups and intervenes to bolster the repressive apparatus of the state (Bahrain 2011-14, Yemen 2011 to 2014, Egypt 2013, Jordan 2012 among numerous other cases). While the bulk of the Middle East “experts” blame the Arab citizens for authoritarian rule, they completely ignore and cover-up Israel’s racist majority which solidly backs the incarceration and torture of hundreds of thousands of pro-democracy Palestinians.

To understand the Middle East gulag requires a discussion of US ‘aid policy’ which is central to sustaining the ‘jailhouse regimes’.

US Aid to Egypt: Billions for Dictators

The Egyptian police state anchors the US ‘arc of empire’ from North Africa to the Middle East. Egypt has been actively engaged in destabilizing Libya, Sudan, Lebanon, Syria and collaborating with Israel’s dispossession of Palestinians. The Mubarak dictatorship received $2 billion dollars a year from Washington – nearly $65 billion for its imperial services. US aid strengthened its capacity to jail, and torture pro-democracy and trade union activists. Washington continued its military support of dictatorial rule after the military coup against Egypt’s first democratically elected government, to the tune of $1.55 billion dollars for 2014 . Despite “expressions of concern” over the murder of thousands of pro-democracy protestors by the new military strongman General Abdul Fattah al-Sisi, there was no cut in funding for so-called “counter-terrorism” and “security”. To continue funding the dictatorship under US Congressional legislation, Washington refused to characterize the violent seizure of power as a coup . . . referring to it as a “transition to democracy”. The key role of Egypt in US foreign policy is to protect Israel’s ‘eastern flank’. US aid to Egypt is product of the pressure and influence of the Zionist power configuration in Congress and the White House: US aid is conditioned on Egypt’s ‘policing’ of the Gaza border, ensuring that Israel’s blockade is effective. The White House supports Cairo’s repression of the majority of nationalist, anti-colonial Egyptians opposed to Tel Aviv’s dispossession of the Palestinians. Insofar as Israel’s interests’define US Middle East policy, Washington’s financing of Egypt’s jailhouse dictatorship is in accord with Zionist Washington’s strategy.

Israel: The US “Pivot” in the Middle East

Most independent and knowledgeable experts agree that US Middle East policy is largely dictated by a multitude of Zionist loyalists occupying key policymaking positions in Treasury, State Department, the Pentagon and Commerce as well as Congressional dominance by the Presidents of the 52 Major American Jewish Organizations and their 171,000 full time paid activists. While there is some truth in what some critics cite as the divergence of the ‘real’ US ‘national interest’ from Israel’s colonial ambitions, the fact is that US leaders in Washington perceive a convergence between imperial dominance and Israeli militarism. In point of fact a submissive Egypt serves wider US imperial and Israeli colonial interests. Israel’s war on Lebanon against the anti-imperialist Hezbollah movement served US efforts to install a docile client as well as Israeli’s effort to destroy a partisan of Palestinian self-determination. Washington’s divergence with Israel over Israel’s dispossession of all Palestine does run counter to Washington’s interest in a Palestinian mini-state run by neo-colonial Arab officials. As a result of Zionist influence, Israel is the biggest per-capita US aid recipient in the world, despite having a higher standard of living than 60% of US citizens. Between 1985-2014, Israel received over $100 billion dollars, of which 70% was military, including the most advance high technology weaponry. Israel ,the country which has the world record for political prisoners and military attacks on its neighbors over the past forty years, holds the record for US military aid. Israel as the premier ‘jailhouse democracy’ is a key link in the chain of gulags extending from North Africa to the Gulf States.

Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia competes with Israel as an incarceration center of pro-democracy dissidents; the Saudi’s recycle hundreds of billions of petro-rents through Wall Street, enriching local Saudi despots and overseas pro-Israel investment bankers. The Saudi-US-Israeli convergence is more than incidental. They share military interests in warring against pro-independence, pro-democracy Arab movements throughout the Middle East. Saudi houses the major US military base and the biggest intelligence operations in the Gulf. It backed the US invasion of Iraq. It finances thousands of Islamic mercenaries in the US-NATO proxy war against Syria. It invaded Bahrain to smash the pro-democracy movement. It intervenes with Washington in support of the Yemen police state. It is the biggest and most lucrative market for the US military-industrial complex. US military sales between 1951 – 2006 totaled $80 billion. In October 2010 it signed off on a $60.5 billion purchase of US arms and services.

Bahrain: A US Aircraft Carrier called a Country

Bahrain serves as the naval base for the US Fifth fleet – and an operative base for attacking Iran. It has been servicing the occupation of Afghanistan and US control of oil shipping routes. The Al-Khalifa dictatorship is extremely isolated, highly unpopular and faces constant pressure from the pro-democracy majority. To bolster their vassal rulers, Washington has increased its military sales to the tiny statelet from $400 million between 1993-2000 to $1.4 billion in the subsequent decade. Washington has increased its sales and military training program in direct proportion to the growth of democratic discontent, resulting in the geometrical growth of political prisoners.

Iraq: War, Occupation,and the Killing Fields of a Jailhouse Democracy

The US invasion and occupation of Iraq led to the slaughter of nearly 1.5 million Iraqis (mostly civilians, non-combatants) at a cost of $1.5 trillion dollars and 4,801 US military deaths. In 2006 the US engineered ‘elections’ led to the installation of the Maliki regime, buttressed by US arms, mercenaries, advisers and bases. According to a recent study for the Congressional Research Office (February 2014), by Kenneth Kilzman, there are 16,000 US military personnel and “contractors” currently in Iraq. Over 3,500 US military contractors in the Office of Security Cooperation bolster the corrupt Maliki police state. The jailhouse democracy has been supplied with US missiles and drones and over $10 billion dollars in military assistance :this includes $2.5 billion in aid and $7.9 billion sales between 2005 – 2013. For 2014 -2015 Malaki has requested $15 billion in weapons, including 36 US F-16 combat aircraft and scores of Apache attack helicopters. In 2013 the Malaki regime registered 8,000 political deaths resulting from its internal war.

Iraq is a crucial center for US control of oil, the Gulf and as a launch pad to attack Iran. While Maliki makes ‘gestures’ toward Iran, its role as an advanced link in the US imperial gulag defines its real ‘function’ in the Gulf region.

Yemen: The Desert Military Outpost for the American Gulag

Yemen is a costly military outpost for Saudi despotism and US power on the Arabian Peninsula. According to a study, Yemen: Background and US Relations by Jeremy Sharp for the Congressional Research Service (2014), the US has supplied $1.3 billion in military aid to Yemen between 2009-2014. Saudi Arabia donated $3.2 billion in 2012 to bolster the Saleh dictatorship in the face of a mass popular anti-dictatorial uprising. Washington engineered a transfer of power from Saleh to “President” Hadi and ensured his continuity by doubling military aid to keep the jails full and the resistance in check. According to the New York Times (6/31/13) Hadi was “a carry-over of dictator Saleh”. The continuity of a jailhouse democracy in Yemen is a crucial link between the Egypt-Israel-Jordan axis and the Saudi-Bahrain imperial gulag.

Jordan: Eternal Vassal and Mendicant Monarchy

Jordan’s despotic monarchy has been on the US payroll for over a half century. Recently it has served as a torture center for kidnapped victims seized by US Special Forces engaged in the “rendition” program. Jordan has collaborated with Israel in assaulting and arresting Palestinians in Jordan engaged in the freedom struggle. Currently Jordan along with Turkey serves as a training and weapons depot for NATO backed mercenary terrorists invading Syria. For its collaboration with Israel, Washington and NATO, the corrupt jailhouse monarchy receives large scale long-term military and economic aid. The monarchy and its extended network of cronies, jailers and family, skim tens of millions of dollars in foreign aid, laundered in overseas accounts in London, Switzerland, Dubai and New York. According to a Congressional Research Service Report (January 27, 2014), US aid to the Jordanian royal dictatorship amounts to $660 million per year. An additional $150 million for military aid was channeled to the regime with the onset of the NATO intervention in Syria. The fund was directed to build-up the infrastructure around the Jordan-Syria border. In addition, Jordan serves as a major conduit for arms to terrorists attacking Syria: $340 million destined for “overseas contingencies” probably is channeled through Amman to arm the terrorists invading Syria. In October 2012, Jordan signed agreements with the US allowing a large contingent of Special Forces to establish airfields and bases to supply and train terrorists.

Turkey: A Loyal Vassal State with Regional Ambitions

As the southern military bulwark of NATO, on Russia’s frontier, Turkey has been on the US payroll for over 66 years. According to a recent study by James Zanotti Turkey – US Defense Co-Operation: Prospects and Challenges (Congressional Research Service, April 8, 2011) in exchange for bolstering the military power of Turkey’s “jailhouse democracy”, the US secured a major military presence including a huge air base in Incirlik a major operational center housing 1,800 US military personnel. Turkey collaborated with the US invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and supported the NATO bombing of Libya. Today Turkey is the most important military operational center for jihadist terrorists invading Syria. Despite President Erdoğan’s periodic demagogic nationalist bombast, the US empire builders continue to have access to Turkish bases and transport corridors for its wars, occupations and interventions in the Middle East and South and Central Asia. In exchange the US has stationed missile defense systems and vastly increased arms sales, so-called “security assistance”. Between 2006 – 2009 US military sales exceeded $22 billion dollars. In 2013-14, tensions between Turkey and the US increased as Erdoğan moved to purge the state of the Gulenists, a US backed fifth column, which permeated the Turkish state and used its position to support closer collaboration with Israel and US military interests.

Conclusion

The expansion of the US Empire throughout North Africa and the Middle East has been built around arming and financing vassal states to serve as military outposts of the empire. These vassal regimes, ruled by dictatorial monarchies, and authoritarian military and civilian rulers, rely on force and violence to sustain their rule. The US has supplied the weapons, advisers, and financing allowing them to rule. The US arc of imperial military bases stretching from Egypt through Israel, Turkey, Jordan, Yemen, Iraq , Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, is protected by a chain of prison camps containing tens of thousands of political prisoners.

The US engagement, its pervasive presence throughout the region, is accompanied by a chain of jailhouse democracies and dictatorships. Contrary to liberal and conservative policy pundits and academics, US policy for over 50 years has actively sought out, installed and protected bloody tyrants who have pillaged the public treasury, concentrated wealth, surrendered sovereignty and underdeveloped their economies.

Pro-Israel academics at prestigious US universities have systematically distorted the structural bases of violence, authoritarianism and corruption in the Islamic world: blaming the victims, the Turkish and Arab people, and ignoring the role of US empire builders in financing and arming the authoritarian civilian and military rulers and absolutist monarchies and their corrupt military, judicial and police officials.

Contrary to the mendacious tomes published by the prestigious University presses and written mostly by highly respected pro-Israel political propagandists, the remaking of the Middle East depends on the strength of the democratic currents in Islamic society. They are found in the student movements, among the trade unionists and unemployed, the nationalist intellectuals and Islamic and secular forces who oppose the US Empire for very practical and obvious reasons. Along with Israel the US is the main organizer of the vast chain of political prison camps that destroy the most creative and dynamic forces in the region. Greater Arab vassalage provokes the periodic explosion of a vibrant democratic culture and movement; unfortunately it also results in greater US military aid and presence. The real clash of civilizations is between the democratic aspirations of the Eastern popular classes and the deeply embedded authoritarianism of Euro-American- Israeli imperialism

Another stillborn Palestinian “reconciliation”

AN EXCELLENT COMMENT 
By Ali Abunimah

Leaders of Hamas and members of a PLO delegation celebrate yet another “reconciliation” deal in Gaza City today. (Ashraf Amra / APA images)

Alongside the endless and sterile Palestinian-Israeli “peace process” is another long-running saga: the “peace process” between the main Palestinian factions Hamas andFatah.

Hamas runs the wing of the Palestinian Authority besieged and isolated in the Gaza Strip, while Fatah, with full support from the United States, the European Union, Israel and Arab regimes, runs the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.

Today, with much fanfare, leaders of Hamas and the Fatah-dominated Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) signed a “reconciliation” agreement in Gaza.

Its terms include forming a “national unity government” headed by Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas within five weeks and elections in the occupied Gaza Strip and West Bank within six months.

Not so fast

“This is the good news we tell our people: the era of division is over,” Ismail Haniyeh, prime minister of the Hamas-run wing of the Palestinian Authority in Gaza, said at the press conference announcing the deal.

The excitement with which many Palestinians have greeted the deal reflects real public frustration with the long-running division and yearning for a truly national leadership.

But Haniyeh’s declaration is more than a little premature. This “reconciliation” is not going to be any more successful than previous deals signed in Cairo in 2011, in Doha in 2012and again in Cairo in 2012.

Fundamental differences

The reasons are straightforward: the differences between Fatah and Hamas are fundamental and have not changed.

Hamas, although it is currently observing a November 2012 ceasefire it negotiated with Israel, remains committed to military resistance. Abbas remains committed to active collaboration – politely termed “security coordination” – aimed at dismantling all Palestinian capacity for military resistance to Israel.

There is no middle ground between these positions and no trust on the ground between the US-supervised, Abbas-run security forces and Hamas’ own police and military forces.

Good relations with occupation

Just yesterday the Israeli daily Haaretz reported that Abbas reaffirmed that “as far as he was concerned the security coordination with Israel would continue as long as he remains in office.”

“It is a duty, not a choice,” Abbas said. “Even when there was no negotiation we continued the security coordination in order to prevent bloodshed and chaos. Our relationship with the [Israeli] military and security ranks is good, and we are interested in maintaining it.”

Following the last West Bank-Gaza elections in 2006, Abbas’ authority conspired with Israel, Egypt and the United States to undermine the national unity government of the time. The US-backed coup plot led to a brief and bloody Palestinian civil war and the current political division between the West Bank and Gaza.

Abbas: Israel’s unshakable ally

Abbas has remained one of Israel’s most formidable allies in its war against resistance in general and Hamas in particular. Israel gave Abbas advance warning of its 2008-2009 invasion of Gaza. Yet Abbas did nothing to warn Palestinians and spare the lives of the 1,400 mostly civilians Israel killed.

Abbas associates have consistently pressed for Israel’s devastating siege on Gaza to be tightened.

In 2011 alone, according to Israeli sources, Israeli occupation forces and the Palestinian Authority held 764 “joint security meetings” aimed at preventing Palestinian resistance to the occupation.

And as recently as 2012, Abbas publicly begged Israel for weapons which he said he would he would use to ensure Israel’s “security.”

The Abbas-run Palestinian Authority plays precisely the same role as the collaborationist “South Lebanon Army” Israel armed and financed during its 22-year-long occupation of southern Lebanon.

It is simply absurd to imagine a “national unity government” in which one party supports armed resistance and the other side remains fully committed to serving as the Israeli occupation’s native enforcers.

Doomed to fail

It took only hours for Israel and its sponsor the United States to announce their opposition to the latest reconciliation deal. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced he would convene his “security cabinet” to discuss the matter, and declared that Abbas could choose between “peace” with Israel or peace with Hamas, but not both.

The US State Department announced – laughably – that the deal could “complicate” nonexistent peace efforts.

The bottom line is this: the Abbas-run PA exists and functions solely at the discretion of Israel and the United States. Israel will not allow a “reconciliation” or elections to proceed if it deems otherwise.

Abbas is permitted no room for maneuver by his handlers. The US recently warned him sternly against dissolving the Palestinian Authority, and now it is once again objecting to reconciliation. Israel and the US want the Palestinian Authority to remain precisely as it is, capable only of serving Israel’s needs.

So why sign the deal?

If there’s no chance of success, why would Hamas and Fatah sign yet another reconciliation deal? For Hamas, it is a move of desperation, isolated as it is in Gaza by the Israeli siege and the US-supported Egyptian coup regime.

For Abbas it is a win-win. He is using Hamas to get back at the US and Israel over the failed negotiations, much the same way as his recent signing of a number of UN treaties. At the same time he knows the deal will go nowhere because Israel and the US will not allow it.

But by signing (another) reconciliation he boosts his own position, washes away his own complicity in Israel’s crimes and – with the blessing of Hamas – cements his image as a legitimate “national leader.”

Palestinians should make no mistake: any reconciliation that leaves a collaborationist PA regime still functioning as Israel’s enforcer can never produce the united leadership capable of standing up to Israel that they yearn for.

While it may serve the short-term political interests of factions, such a deal would only further compromise the rights of the Palestinian people and damage their struggle for liberation.