Saturday, May 10, 2014
Al-Jazeera Video:رؤية إسرائيل للسيسي وتصاعد الانتهاكات بمصر
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شير كلمة رئيس الوزراء الإسرائيلي السابق إيهود باراك التي دعا فيها واشنطن لدعم المرشح الرئاسي في مصر عبد الفتاح السيسي وعدم انتقاده بشكل علني، إلى رؤية إسرائيلية تضع آمالا عليه في المستقبل وترغب بشدة في أن يصل إلى سدة الحكم في مصر.
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Thursday, May 8, 2014
Navigating Syria: The Impossible, Indispensable Mission
How do you navigate an impossible story? You side with the victim. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)
By Ramzy Baroud
I unfriended another Facebook friend this week. It may seem to be a trivial matter, but for me, it is not. The reason behind my action was Syria. As in Egypt, Syria has instigated many social media breakups with people whom, until then, were regarded with a degree of respect and admiration.
But this is not a social media affair. The problems lie at the core of the Syrian conflict, with all of its manifestations, be they political, sectarian, ideological, cultural, and intellectual. While on the left (not the establishment left of course) Palestine has brought many likeminded people together, Egypt has fragmented that unity, and Syria has crushed and pulverized it to bits.
Those who cried over the victims of Israeli wars on Gaza, did not seem very concerned about Palestinians starving to death in the Yarmouk refugee camp on the outskirts of Damascus. Some squarely blamed the Syrian government for the siege that killed hundreds, while others blamed the rebels. Some writers even went further, blaming the residents of the camp. Somehow, the refugees were implicated in their own misery and needed to be collectively punished for showing sympathy to the Syrian opposition.
The only line of logic that exists in the Yarmouk narrative, as in the Syrian story as a whole, is that there is no logic. It has turned out that solidarity with Palestinians has limits. If forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad do the shooting – and the shelling and the starving – then the plight of the refugees is open for discussion.
It also has turned out that some of those who pose as human rights activists are rarely compelled by ethical priorities, but rather dogmatic ideology that is so rigid it has no space for a sensible argument based on a serious investigation of facts.
Some self-proclaimed ‘progressives’ have decided to elevate the status of Bashar al-Assad to that of being the last line of defence against American imperialism. They have done so with Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi as well. Their line of reasoning doesn’t stem from a serious understanding of the legacies of both men, but an entirely different set of representations, as in the West’s own attitude towards Libya and Syria. Syria supported Hezbollah and Hamas in their resistance to Israel. True. Leading US neoconservatives have plotted for years to ‘roll back’ Damascus, and to subdue any resistance to Israeli hegemony. Also true. But between delineating these truths and others, in all that the Syrian government has done – the horrendous war crimes, the perpetual sieges, the unhindered violations of human rights – everything is somehow forgiven. They are not to be discussed, or even acknowledged. In fact, for some, they never happened.
The other side is just as culpable. Crimes committed by opposition forces and al-Qaeda affiliated groups are heinous and barbaric. A simple news search produces volumes of crimes, massacres of entire villages, and whole families or individuals who belonged to the wrong sect, or religion.
The intellectual crowd that opposes Assad is also unmoved by all of this. They often pin the blame on Assad or the thugs (shabiha) for any reported crime anywhere in Syria. And when news emerges that the victims were loyalists to Assad, they find ways to twist the story in order to place the blame on Assad forces anyway. But when more is revealed to prove the responsibility of an opposition-affiliated militia, or a gang, they simply shift gears to another massacre elsewhere, which is real or fabricated.
How is one to navigate a Syria where there are no ‘good guys’, where a return to the status quo of an inherently corrupt, oppressive and an undemocratic, clan-based government is unthinkable? And where neither al-Nusra, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant nor any other warning faction offers the antidotes to Syria’s many ills – even worse, they offer an archaic and essentially violent interpretation of Islam?
How is one to navigate the Syrian intellectual realm when both narratives are riddled with half-truths or outright lies, where each discourse is predicated on the complete dismissal of the other? How is one to navigate this territory when many intellectuals who also masquerade as ‘human rights activists’ turn out to be narrow-minded ideologues devoid of any humanism?
Bashar is not a deity. He is no Che Guevara either. The crimes his forces committed, would be enough to send thousands of his backers to a never ending imprisonment. His opponents are no liberators. Few amongst them have any potential of being a harbinger of democracy or justice. Their crime record is vile and frightening.
The Syrian narrative is very complex because a ‘just solution’ is not a matter of a clever articulation of words. Aside from the Syrian camps, parties involved include Western powers, Arab governments, Israel, Russia, Iran, and a cluster of intelligence agencies and legions of foreigners, on all sides. The agendas are mostly sinister. The media campaigns are driven by lies. The story of the Ghouta chemical attack of last year is particularly poignant. A war was about to break out, led by the US and cheered on by Arabs. A recent investigation by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh suggests that the whole thing might’ve been a plot, involving Turkey, to indict the regime. He argues that the Americans knew it, yet still were ready to go to war.
If the Nusra group was indeed behind the Ghouta killings of hundreds of innocent Syrians, the Syrian army is not innocent; far from it; as it has killed thousands. The barrel bombs continue to level entire neighborhoods. Those who survived the chemical attacks, manage to die in numerous other ways.
New killing methods are now reportedly include crucifying victims. All of Syria is in fact being crucified. In fact, despite their differences, Syria’s warring parties are united in the blood of Syrians – and Palestinians – which they shed on a daily basis. When over 150,000 Syrians, including 10,000 children are dead, and 6.5 million are internally displaced, and 2.5 million have fled beyond the country’s borders, no one is innocent. As for the pseudo-intellectuals who are keeping track of one body count, and ignoring the other, they must wake up to the fact that there is only one pool of victims, the Syrian people.
Bishop Desmond Tutu is famous for his quote “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.” Some of those who applied the quote abundantly in the case of Palestine, are now ignoring it in the case of Syria, for it doesn’t fit perfectly with their ideas, where there can only be space for one single unadulterated and simplified narrative. All ‘facts’ are carefully selected and stacked in so carefully away to glorify one party and demonize the other. In their world, the story is convincingly clear, and those who don’t agree to its every component must be either a Jihadist, a Zionist, an Assad-sympathizer, a fan of Hezbollah or on the payroll of one intelligence service or the other.
But how do you navigate an impossible story? The answer: You side with the victim, no matter her colour, sect or creed. You remain committed to the truth, no matter how elusive. You drop every presupposition, abandon ideology, permanently discard dogma, and approach Syria with abundance of humanity and humility. We need to understand the roots of this heinous war, but we also need it to end for the good of the Syrian people. The Syrian conflict should not be a stage of bloody political intrigues for the West and Russia, Israel, Iran and the Arabs. Syria is not a God-given inheritance of the Assad-clan and their friends, or a space for another extremist experiment, as was the case in Afghanistan and Somalia, or another imaginary battlefield for social media leftists, whose claim to socialism is an occasional Facebook profile photo of a clasped fist, or an earth shattering quote about defeating capitalism.
Syria belongs to its people. You either stand on their side, or the side of the oppressor.
Palestine: Go to International Criminal Court
Impartial Justice, Deterrence to Serious Crimes Sorely Needed
(Jerusalem) – Palestine should urgently seek access to the International Criminal Court (ICC), a group of 17 Palestinian and international human rights groups, including Human Rights Watch, said today.
In a letter to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, the groups said that providing the ICC with jurisdiction could give victims of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by any party on or from Palestinian territory access to international justice and send a message that such crimes cannot be committed with impunity. Abbas is under pressure not to do so primarily from Israel and the United States. Some ICC member states, including the UK and France, have opposed such a move because, they say, it would undermine Israeli-Palestinian final status negotiations.
“The argument that Palestine should forego the ICC because it would harm peace talks rings hollow when 20 years of talks have brought neither peace nor justice to victims of war crimes,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “People who want to end the lack of accountability in Palestine and deter future abuse should urge President Abbas to seek access to the ICC.”
The ICC’s jurisdiction would cover serious crimes under international law committed on or from Palestinian territory, such as torture and indiscriminate attacks on civilians, whether committed by Palestinian authorities or armed groups or the Israeli military.
The ICC’s statute also classifies as a war crime the “direct or indirect” transfer of civilians by an occupying power into occupied territory – a category that would include the Israeli government’s facilitation of the transfer of its citizens into settlements. Another war crime under the statute is the “forcible transfer” of protected people in an occupied territory – in this case Palestinians – off their lands, such as by demolishing their homes and preventing them from returning.
Since Benjamin Netanyahu became Israel’s prime minister in 2009, Israel has begun construction on more than 9,480 settlement homes. Israeli demolitions during the same period left more than 4,600 Palestinians homeless. Both trends accelerated in 2013: 2,534 settlement housing starts in 2013 represented an increase of more than 220 percent over 2012, and demolitions that left 1,103 Palestinians homeless were up by almost 25 percent.
In February 2014, the International Committee for the Red Cross stopped delivering emergency shelters to Palestinians in the Jordan Valley, whose homes the Israeli military had demolished, because the Israeli military repeatedly confiscated or demolished the shelters.
The ICC’s statute also classifies as a war crime the “direct or indirect” transfer of civilians by an occupying power into occupied territory – a category that would include the Israeli government’s facilitation of the transfer of its citizens into settlements. Another war crime under the statute is the “forcible transfer” of protected people in an occupied territory – in this case Palestinians – off their lands, such as by demolishing their homes and preventing them from returning.
Since Benjamin Netanyahu became Israel’s prime minister in 2009, Israel has begun construction on more than 9,480 settlement homes. Israeli demolitions during the same period left more than 4,600 Palestinians homeless. Both trends accelerated in 2013: 2,534 settlement housing starts in 2013 represented an increase of more than 220 percent over 2012, and demolitions that left 1,103 Palestinians homeless were up by almost 25 percent.
In February 2014, the International Committee for the Red Cross stopped delivering emergency shelters to Palestinians in the Jordan Valley, whose homes the Israeli military had demolished, because the Israeli military repeatedly confiscated or demolished the shelters.
Palestine could request the ICC’s jurisdiction by acceding to the court’s Rome Statute, in which case the court could exercise jurisdiction after the accession took effect. In addition, Palestine could submit a declaration accepting the court’s jurisdiction starting from any date since the ICC treaty entered into force in 2002.
Palestinian officials submitted a declaration recognizing the ICC’s jurisdiction in January 2009, but the Office of the Prosecutor later determined that the declaration “was not validly lodged” because of Palestine’s unclear status as a state at the time. Now that the UN General Assembly has upgraded Palestine to non-member state observer status, in November 2012, the ICC prosecutor has said that “the ball is now in the court of Palestine” to seek the ICC’s jurisdiction.
Abbas had pledged not to seek the ICC’s jurisdiction over Palestinian territory during nine months of US-brokered final status negotiations with Israel, which ended on April 29. On April 2, Palestine acceded to 20 international treaties and conventions, most relating to human rights and the laws of war, but not the ICC statute. In a vote on April 27, the Palestine Liberation Organization’s central council approved a list of dozens of other international treaties and bodies for future Palestinian accession, including the ICC, the Wall Street Journal reported.
“The US, Israel and others who are pressuring Palestine not to seek the ICC’s jurisdiction cannot credibly argue that continued impunity for serious international crimes will help bring the conflict to an end,” Stork said. “We call on Abbas to go to the ICC precisely because giving it a mandate in Palestine would send a much-needed message that grave crimes will have serious consequences.”
The letter was signed by:Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association
Al Dameer Association for Human Rights
Al-Haq
Al Mezan Center for Human Rights
Al-Quds University Human Rights Clinic
Palestinian officials submitted a declaration recognizing the ICC’s jurisdiction in January 2009, but the Office of the Prosecutor later determined that the declaration “was not validly lodged” because of Palestine’s unclear status as a state at the time. Now that the UN General Assembly has upgraded Palestine to non-member state observer status, in November 2012, the ICC prosecutor has said that “the ball is now in the court of Palestine” to seek the ICC’s jurisdiction.
Abbas had pledged not to seek the ICC’s jurisdiction over Palestinian territory during nine months of US-brokered final status negotiations with Israel, which ended on April 29. On April 2, Palestine acceded to 20 international treaties and conventions, most relating to human rights and the laws of war, but not the ICC statute. In a vote on April 27, the Palestine Liberation Organization’s central council approved a list of dozens of other international treaties and bodies for future Palestinian accession, including the ICC, the Wall Street Journal reported.
“The US, Israel and others who are pressuring Palestine not to seek the ICC’s jurisdiction cannot credibly argue that continued impunity for serious international crimes will help bring the conflict to an end,” Stork said. “We call on Abbas to go to the ICC precisely because giving it a mandate in Palestine would send a much-needed message that grave crimes will have serious consequences.”
The letter was signed by:Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association
Al Dameer Association for Human Rights
Al-Haq
Al Mezan Center for Human Rights
Al-Quds University Human Rights Clinic
Amnesty International
Badil Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights
Defense for Children International – Palestine
Ensan Center for Human Rights and Democracy
Human Rights Watch
Hurriyat Centre for Defense of Liberties and Civil Rights
Badil Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights
Defense for Children International – Palestine
Ensan Center for Human Rights and Democracy
Human Rights Watch
Hurriyat Centre for Defense of Liberties and Civil Rights
International Commission of Jurists
International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH)Jerusalem Legal Aid and Human Rights Center
Palestinian Center for Human Rights
Ramallah Center for Human Rights Studies
Women’s Centre for Legal Aid and Counselling
International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH)Jerusalem Legal Aid and Human Rights Center
Palestinian Center for Human Rights
Ramallah Center for Human Rights Studies
Women’s Centre for Legal Aid and Counselling
Imperialism and revolutionaries
New TV show encapsulates the dissonance between US nostalgia for revolution and its current counter-revolutionary stance
Last updated: 08 May 2014 05:33
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Do people still watch TV? I have serious doubts. Nielsen, the TV ratings firm, has found that viewership among 18-to-24-year-old Americans has now dropped for at least eight consecutive quarters. Technology seems to have overtaken television, and the younger generation in particular tends to be more occupied with their laptops and the Internet than with TV.
But precisely for that reason, TV shows now have reasons to navigate new themes and explore more daring territory. The Sopranos, The Wire, Sex and the City, 24, The West Wing, Six Feet Under and Big Love are all examples of dramas that have redefined TV in North America.
These shows have tried to attract precisely the demographic that is losing interest in TV by exploring themes that had previously been untenable. Sex and the City flaunted female sexuality, Big Love explored polygamy, The Sopranos wanted to up the ante on Godfather crime families, and The West Wing brought high-voltage politics to American living rooms. Finally, fully cognisant of people's changing viewing habits, The House of Cards experimented with a new way of watching TV: The entire first season premiered in February 2013 on the streaming service Netflix.
It is in this context that we may look at a new series that just started in the US. Based in part on Alexander Rose's best-seller Washington's Spies: The Story of America's First Spy Ring, AMC's new period drama ""Turn"" tells the story of a Long Island farmer caught between his father's loyalty to the British crown and his childhood friends, who are Continental Army regulars trying to recruit him as a spy. The series begins at a point when the British have captured significant territory and put General George Washington's army in peril.
The reviews have not exactly been enthusiastic. "A bland show with a terse title" that "trap[s] good actors", is how one reviewer dismissed the show, claiming it failed "to capitalise on the useful parts of their premises". How long the show will last is uncertain when the executives read such reviews as this: "'"Turn"' is plodding, predictable and a bit confusing, though I might have tried harder to follow the plot had any of the characters made it worth my while." Or: "Ultimately, '"Turn"' is limited, pallid and derivative." Yet another reviewer wrote: "Despite this highly dramatic premise, '"Turn"' feels small and dull."
US political culture - and the entertainment industry that caters to it - subscribes to a palpable paradox, banking on the country's revolutionary heritage while militantly working against any and every revolutionary movement that challenges its imperial domination around the globe.
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Given the cutthroat market for such dramas, this tone of voice is not entirely surprising. But precisely because of the brutish disposition of the commercial market in which such shows appear and disappear, we might also detect in them a hidden vista.
Revolutionary past
In dramas such as "Turn" there seems to be a not-so-hidden desire to remember the revolutionary past of the United States and reconnect it with the current revolutionary spirit throughout the world. The drama's sympathies are clearly with the American revolutionaries, not the powerful British Empire. The British are imperial, arrogant, domineering, conniving - the proverbial "bad guys". Americans are revolutionary, defiant, courageous, imaginative, moral - and, of course, "the good guys".
US political culture - and the entertainment industry that caters to it - subscribes to a palpable paradox, banking on the country's revolutionary heritage while militantly working against any and every revolutionary movement that challenges its imperial domination around the globe.
That paradox gives the US the moral presumption of saving the world - while trying to shape it in a manner that best serves its own interests. Those interests are no longer formed, framed, or even informed by those bygone revolutionary ideals, which are more often fetishised than put into practise. To the contrary: These ideals are vitiated by a crass, cruel opportunism aiming to control the world and make it dance to its haphazard, aimless, wayward, soulless and surreal tune.
What is the point of celebrating your revolutionary past when you are busy crushing the revolutionary presence of every nation around the globe that dares to imagine their freedom in terms alien to your dead certainties?
Using the space of TV dramas at a time of uncertain viewership, shows like "Turn" expose feeble attempts to revive a revolutionary past that has now degenerated into a charade - actors dressing in fake uniforms sporting make-believe antique weapons, fighting fictitious battles against an empire that is no more - as their own postmodern empire uses the latest technology to spy on peoples and governments, prepares "kill lists" for extrajudicial assassinations and sends state-of-the-art drones to maim and murder people at will.
There is thus a disconnect, an emotive dissonance, in a political culture that remembers its own revolutionary heritage at the same time that it is armed to teeth as one of the world's biggest counter-revolutionary forces.
That dissonance spells out the terms of the blase vacuity with which revolutionary dramas like "Turn" are imagined and performed at the heart of this empire.
Graffiti artists unite against Egypt's presidential hopeful Abdel Fatah al-Sisi
The Army Above All, by the Egyptian street artist Ganzeer. Photograph: Abdelrahman Zin Eldin
Artists from Europe, the US and north Africa support their local counterparts with works critical of the former army chief
Some of the world's leading political artists are stepping up their efforts to produce street works protesting against the actions of Egypt's likely next president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi.
International graffiti stars such as Sampsa, Ganzeer and Captain Borderline, and the painter Molly Crabapple have begun to create designs incorporating the slogan "Sisi warcrimes" in cities across Europe, the US and north Africa.
The artists say their initiative aims to encourage fiercer international criticism of Sisi's behaviour. World leaders court Egypt's former army chief despite his having ushered in an era of increased oppression after removing the country's former president Mohamed Morsi last July.
"We hope these works will alter the narrative about Sisi," said Ganzeer,aka Mohamed Fahmy, one of the Egyptian artists who rose to global prominence following the country's 2011 revolution.
"It seems like Sisi will easily fool the international community that the majority of Egyptians side with him. All the images getting out there are of squares filled with Sisi supporters, with little to no news of the other side, unless it's of [Morsi's Muslim] Brotherhood. But there are people out there who are opposing who are not part of the Brotherhood."
Sisi's many supporters would dispute Ganzeer's perspective, as it is commonly believed inside Egypt that foreign politicians and journalists have sided against the government that Sisi installed last summer.
Ganzeer and his colleagues, however, feel the international community has done little to censure him and is fully reconciled to his expected election as president next month. They believe that more should therefore be done to shake it from its apathy.
"No Egyptian president will be able to survive without the support of international politicians," Ganzeer said.
The Finnish graffiti star Sampsa was the first artist to create anti-Sisi work outside Egypt. Best known for work that promotes fairer copyright law, Sampsa painted silhouettes signifying the bodies of dead Egyptians on Parisian pavements and a building in New York. The French artistLevalet, the Tunisian calligrapher El Cid and others also have works planned, and the Captain Borderline collective, the founders of Europe's largest street-art festival plan to collaborate with Ganzeer on a large mural in Munich.
New York-based Molly Crabapple will draw work inspired by the cages Egyptian dissidents are locked inside at trial hearings. "I'm disgusted with the way that the Egyptian revolution has been overtaken by a murderous military dictatorship that is in many ways worse than [ousted dictator Hosni] Mubarak," she said.
Ganzeer and his fellow Egyptian artists Zeft and Ammar Abou Bakr will continue to create anti-authoritarian works in Cairo, despite working in a context that is increasingly dangerous – a factor other street artists said had motivated them to show solidarity.
"These guys are the pioneers of modern-day political street art," said Sampsa. "The big stars [outside Egypt] don't give a shit about changing anything these days. But the guys down in Egypt, their work has a point. Their political art comes hand-in-hand with activism."
Previously largely free of artistic expression, Egypt's walls exploded with murals and slogans following Mubarak's removal in February 2011 and the graffiti was portrayed internationally as a symbol of the country's revolutionary gains.
Making graffiti was never easy in the months that followed. The authorities often whitewashed the murals and suspicious bystanders sometimes mobbed the artists, but Ganzeer said it had never been as hard as it is now. The increased policing of public space, a new law curbing protests and a more aggressive public have made artists far more wary.
"The output now is much fewer and far between. People are still doing things, but maybe not with the same outpouring we saw in 2011 when there were new pieces every week," he said. Ganzeer, was arrested in spring 2011 for posting anti-military stickers in public.
Like many of his colleagues, Ganzeer has often created work against the Muslim Brotherhood, but he now fears being taken for a member of the widely-loathed group. "The moment anyone sees you on the street, you're associated with the Brotherhood, and attacked very easily unless you can persuade them that you're creating something pro-military. So it's very difficult to create opposition work that hasn't just been made quickly."
To protect themselves, he and others have developed a technique that sees them add explicitly anti-authoritarian details to their designs only at the last possible moment. While painting a recent mural on Mohamed Mahmoud Street, a road leading from Tahrir Square that is famous for revolutionary graffiti, Ganzeer easily persuaded passersby that the cartoon soldier he had drawn next to a pile of skulls was mourning the deaths of innocent Egyptians. It was only when he added blood to the soldier's mouth and then scarpered that the image, entitled The Army Above All, took on a more sinister meaning.
Since Sisi deposed Morsi last July following days of mass demonstrations, at least 16,000 Egyptian dissidents have been arrested, and thousands killed during protests. The crackdown initially focussed on Morsi's Islamist supporters before expanding to secular-leaning activists.
The government and a sizeable section of society blame the violence on the Brotherhood, and say strong policing is necessary to quell a wave of terrorist activity. Ministers also maintain the country is on the path to democracy, and use May's presidential election to support their claims.
"This is not going to be an autocracy," Egypt's foreign minister, Nabil Fahmy, told the Guardian on Sunday. "If you're not doing it right, we will hold you accountable."
What are you doing, judges of Egypt, by abetting repression?
May 08, 2014 12:19 AM
By Rami G. Khouri
By Rami G. Khouri
| The Daily Star |
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The conduct of the courts and judges in Egypt during the past three years is a critical element to watch as the country pursues its tortuous route toward a pluralistic constitutional democracy.
If an independent, professional judiciary that checks autocratic tendencies and upholds citizen rights succumbs to the corrosive ways of military- or theocracy-dominated autocracy, Egyptians can anticipate only grief in their political future.
The conduct of elements of the Egyptian judiciary in recent months has shocked me as well as millions of others across the Arab world. Most of us are despairing about what to do, for nothing seems able to budge Egypt from its current course. So here is open letter to the judges of Egypt, hoping naively that their sense of Egypt’s pride of place in modern Arab history might still prod them to snap out of their destructive course and help set right the ship of state.
My brothers and sisters, the judges of Egypt: I greet you from Beirut and the Levant, a region that shares with your Egypt many impressive historical legacies related to the development of two significant dimensions of any healthy society: a vibrant press sector and a respected judiciary. So it is with immense shock and sadness – disbelief, actually – that I and hundreds of millions of Arabs have watched in recent months as you seem intent on destroying both of these pillars, as you transform your Egyptian courts into spectacles of farcical justice.
What in the world are you doing? What do you think you will achieve by arresting professional journalists and accusing them of being terrorists? Or by sentencing to death over 500 and 600 people at a time after laughable ceremonies not worthy of being called “trials” except in some children’s cartoons? Or of sentencing to death or imprisoning thousands of Islamist and secular human rights activists so as to empty the public sphere of any opinion or shade of color that does not blindly align with the views of the military- and the money-led power structure that continues to rule most of the Arab region?
I write you as a fellow Arab citizen who has always admired Egypt’s many achievements in ancient and modern times, while regarding its shortcomings as short-term challenges that would be overcome in due course. Yet when I watch your judiciary today succumb to the intolerant and violent ways of military rule that has destroyed much of the promise of the modern Arab world, I am saddened by the degradation of your professionalism, and frightened by its consequences.
Your harsh and arbitrary treatment of journalists simultaneously degrades and could ultimately destroy and bury the two most critical pillars of any credible transition to a democratic and pluralistic political governance system: an independent judiciary and freedom of expression. All the other ailments we suffer – military encroachment on civilian authority, corruption, family rule, bloated bureaucracies, technical incompetence, foreign interference – can all be overcome or mitigated if our society enjoys a credible, independent judiciary and freedom of expression for the individual via mass media. Why are you single-handedly trying to destroy both of these forces that can alert society to its own abuses?
I cannot know your motives or the feelings that drive you to act as you do. I assume you feel that you are acting in the best interests of the people of Egypt. Well, the evidence from your conduct – and like you, I also act professionally on the basis of clear and credible evidence – suggests that you are pushing Egypt toward a catastrophic abyss of intolerance, abuse of power, mass pauperization and national humiliation.
At this delicate moment when Egypt needs to find ways to engage all its citizens in democratic politics and economic rejuvenation, benefit from the ideas of all ideological quarters in the land, and replace the last three years of one-sided power grabs with a more open system of nonviolent political contestation. You seem determined to destroy the crucial roles of the judiciary and the free press in these processes. Why do you do this?
Is this the legacy you want to leave behind for future generations? Do you want your grandchildren to read that between 2011 and 2014, at a moment of epic national rebirth, you, the judges of Egypt, were the purveyors of autocratic gluttony, the facilitators of a muzzled press, the silenced citizen and a castrated civil society? That you championed bondage over freedom? That you turned a blind eye to the killings of thousands of your own citizens? That you made a mockery of the rich tradition of the integrity of the Egyptian judiciary? That you made Egypt an international joke? That you took away from Egyptians and all others who admire it in the region and the world the invaluable elements that Egypt inspires in us all: pride, integrity, respect and hope? That you did all this at a moment when hundreds of millions of Arab men and women still looked to Egypt, and to you in particular, with the anticipation that in the exercise of public power in the modern Arab world, decency would eventually triumph over dictatorship, and citizen rights would triumph over the rule of entire countries by individual families and their guards?
What are you doing, judges of Egypt? And why are you doing it?
If an independent, professional judiciary that checks autocratic tendencies and upholds citizen rights succumbs to the corrosive ways of military- or theocracy-dominated autocracy, Egyptians can anticipate only grief in their political future.
The conduct of elements of the Egyptian judiciary in recent months has shocked me as well as millions of others across the Arab world. Most of us are despairing about what to do, for nothing seems able to budge Egypt from its current course. So here is open letter to the judges of Egypt, hoping naively that their sense of Egypt’s pride of place in modern Arab history might still prod them to snap out of their destructive course and help set right the ship of state.
My brothers and sisters, the judges of Egypt: I greet you from Beirut and the Levant, a region that shares with your Egypt many impressive historical legacies related to the development of two significant dimensions of any healthy society: a vibrant press sector and a respected judiciary. So it is with immense shock and sadness – disbelief, actually – that I and hundreds of millions of Arabs have watched in recent months as you seem intent on destroying both of these pillars, as you transform your Egyptian courts into spectacles of farcical justice.
What in the world are you doing? What do you think you will achieve by arresting professional journalists and accusing them of being terrorists? Or by sentencing to death over 500 and 600 people at a time after laughable ceremonies not worthy of being called “trials” except in some children’s cartoons? Or of sentencing to death or imprisoning thousands of Islamist and secular human rights activists so as to empty the public sphere of any opinion or shade of color that does not blindly align with the views of the military- and the money-led power structure that continues to rule most of the Arab region?
I write you as a fellow Arab citizen who has always admired Egypt’s many achievements in ancient and modern times, while regarding its shortcomings as short-term challenges that would be overcome in due course. Yet when I watch your judiciary today succumb to the intolerant and violent ways of military rule that has destroyed much of the promise of the modern Arab world, I am saddened by the degradation of your professionalism, and frightened by its consequences.
Your harsh and arbitrary treatment of journalists simultaneously degrades and could ultimately destroy and bury the two most critical pillars of any credible transition to a democratic and pluralistic political governance system: an independent judiciary and freedom of expression. All the other ailments we suffer – military encroachment on civilian authority, corruption, family rule, bloated bureaucracies, technical incompetence, foreign interference – can all be overcome or mitigated if our society enjoys a credible, independent judiciary and freedom of expression for the individual via mass media. Why are you single-handedly trying to destroy both of these forces that can alert society to its own abuses?
I cannot know your motives or the feelings that drive you to act as you do. I assume you feel that you are acting in the best interests of the people of Egypt. Well, the evidence from your conduct – and like you, I also act professionally on the basis of clear and credible evidence – suggests that you are pushing Egypt toward a catastrophic abyss of intolerance, abuse of power, mass pauperization and national humiliation.
At this delicate moment when Egypt needs to find ways to engage all its citizens in democratic politics and economic rejuvenation, benefit from the ideas of all ideological quarters in the land, and replace the last three years of one-sided power grabs with a more open system of nonviolent political contestation. You seem determined to destroy the crucial roles of the judiciary and the free press in these processes. Why do you do this?
Is this the legacy you want to leave behind for future generations? Do you want your grandchildren to read that between 2011 and 2014, at a moment of epic national rebirth, you, the judges of Egypt, were the purveyors of autocratic gluttony, the facilitators of a muzzled press, the silenced citizen and a castrated civil society? That you championed bondage over freedom? That you turned a blind eye to the killings of thousands of your own citizens? That you made a mockery of the rich tradition of the integrity of the Egyptian judiciary? That you made Egypt an international joke? That you took away from Egyptians and all others who admire it in the region and the world the invaluable elements that Egypt inspires in us all: pride, integrity, respect and hope? That you did all this at a moment when hundreds of millions of Arab men and women still looked to Egypt, and to you in particular, with the anticipation that in the exercise of public power in the modern Arab world, decency would eventually triumph over dictatorship, and citizen rights would triumph over the rule of entire countries by individual families and their guards?
What are you doing, judges of Egypt? And why are you doing it?
TV Debate, Arab Style!
Jordanian TV debate descends into brawl – video report
"A TV debate in Jordan becomes so heated that the guests start destroying the studio live on air. Journalists Muhammad Sharif al-Jiyusi and Shakir al-Johari were midway through a discussion on the Jordanian 7 Stars TV network when one pundit accuses the other of 'bartering his positions', prompting the offended journalist to say 'shut up!' The men quickly start pushing the studio table at each other until the top comes off."
Tuesday, May 6, 2014
OP-ED: The Two-State Option is Dead: Time for New Thinking
BDS and Rabbis For Palestine. Credit: Mike Gifford/cc by 2.0
- The recent suspension of the U.S. -engineered Israeli-Palestinian talks signals a much deeper reality than the immediate factors that caused it. The peace process and the two-state solution, which for years were on life support, are now dead.
It is time for the United States and the rest of the international community to stop the 20-year old quixotic effort to resurrect a dead “process” and to seriously begin exploring other avenues for Israeli-Palestinian coexistence between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
Perpetuating Israeli rule over half the population through military occupation and without granting them citizenship or equal rights would in the foreseeable future deprive Israel of its Jewish majority, negate its democratic political culture, and ultimately lead to apartheid-like conditions.
The two-state solution has been a convenient policy position that allowed negotiations to go on and on, prompted primarily by the argument that no credible alternatives existed. Many governments, diplomats, negotiators, politicians, academics, NGOs, and consultants on both sides of the Atlantic and in the region have staked their life-long careers on the two-state paradigm.
Dozens of international agreements and declarations and thousands of meetings have been held all around the globe on the so-called modalities of a two-state solution. Unfortunately, all have come to naught.
Whenever the two-state approach was questioned over the years, its defenders would quickly ask, “What’s the alternative?” and would dismiss the “one-state” suggestion and similar options as non-starters. The retort has always been that no Israeli government would dare contemplate any proposal that involves Israelis and Palestinians living together in one political entity.
Palestinian nationalists and ruling economic and political elites, who benefited from their association with the PLO power structure, whether in Ramallah or elsewhere, supported the two-state formula despite their belief that Oslo was a hollow victory that would never lead to statehood. They went along because in the view of one Palestinian at the time, “It was the only game in town.”
The Arab states that advocated this approach drew comfort from the rhetoric because it appealed to Western countries, especially the United States. Yet, these states have failed to commit the necessary resources and political capital and seriously pursue their “Arab Peace Initiative” to its intended conclusion.
Official Arab leaders’ rhetoric continued to extol their unwavering commitment to Palestine, but they gave priority to their separate national interests, which often included unofficial economic, political, and intelligence contacts with Israel.
Successive Israeli governments played a similar game. Whenever the discussions of establishing a Palestinian state got serious, they advanced new conditions and “redlines”, which made it more difficult for Palestinian leaders to accept. The entire negotiating enterprise was reduced to talks about talks, resulting in decoupling the negotiation “process” from the envisioned “peace”.
The pro-Israeli lobby in Washington has successfully erected a solid pro-Israeli stand in the United States Congress. Such support, which has always been identified with right-wing policies in Israel, has severely constrained the diplomatic flexibility of the Executive Branch of the U.S. government.
In lieu of a political settlement, Western countries and the United Nations provided massive aid programmes to Palestinians, and Palestinian leaders and ruling elites benefited disproportionately from the largesse, resulting in newfound wealth and rampant corruption. In the absence of government accountability and transparency, it’s not clear where the huge chunks of the money went.
While rhetorically committed to a two-state solution, high-level PA officials have not been uncomfortable with this arrangement of the political status quo under Israeli occupation. So much so, in fact, that a Palestinian intellectual has described the situation as “The National Sell-out of a Homeland.”
I have supported the two-state solution for almost five decades. Based on my field research in the Occupied Territories in the late 1970s, I published a short book titled “The West Bank and Gaza: Toward the Making of a Palestinian State,” which argued for the creation of a Palestinian state in those parts of Palestine.
In reaction, self-proclaimed Palestinian nationalists, including the current Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erekat, attacked me publicly for “advocating an American position.” Some pro-Palestinian newspapers in the Gulf derisively described me as a “Palestinian American Sadatist”, a reference to Egyptian President Anwar Sadat’s peace treaty with Israel.
Of course, 10 years later, the PLO formally supported the two-state approach and proceeded with the Oslo agreement.
Sadly, I have come to the conclusion that the two-state option is simply no longer viable. The two parties and the international community must search for other options that could accommodate the two peoples living together.
I reached this position fully cognizant of the realities on the ground – Israeli occupation, Palestinian factionalism, and rising poverty and frustration among Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank and in Israel – and the lack of credible alternatives to the two-state approach.
As more and more Palestinians search for alternatives, they are transforming their confrontation with the Israeli occupation and anti-Arab discrimination in Israel to a peaceful struggle for human rights, justice, and economic self-sufficiency. BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions) has become the global rallying cry against Israeli occupation and continued settlement construction.
Some members of the Israeli cabinet, on the other hand, have begun talking publicly about taking “unilateral actions” on the West Bank, including annexing Area C and the major settlement blocs. Meanwhile, Israeli security forces continue to enter Area A, which is nominally ruled by the PA, at their whim.
In the absence of a Palestinian state, the Israeli government will be faced with a growing Palestinian population in Gaza, the West Bank, and in Israel, which, taken together, constitutes almost 50 percent of the total population between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River.
Perpetuating Israeli rule over half the population through military occupation and without granting them citizenship or equal rights would in the foreseeable future deprive Israel of its Jewish majority, negate its democratic political culture, and ultimately lead to apartheid-like conditions.
The international community and the two peoples should begin a serious exploration of new modalities based on justice, fairness, and equality. These could range from a unitary state to confederal arrangements that guarantee Palestinians equal rights, privileges and responsibilities. But all of them require an end to the occupation.
Some critics might consider this approach Pollyannaish, but it’s not unthinkable in light of the demonstrated failure of the two-state approach.
Lebanon accused of turning away some Palestinian Syrian refugees
Rights group says Lebanon, which has taken in one million refugees from Syria, is arbitrarily refusing entry for some arrivals
Syrian refugees in the eastern Lebanese border town of Arsal in December. Photograph: Bilal Hussein/AP
Human Rights Watch and a UN refugee agency have expressed concern that Lebanon is blocking Palestinians fleeing Syria from entering the country.
UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, said it was "concerned about the increased restrictions on Palestine refugees fleeing the conflict in Syria from entering Lebanon".
Its spokesman Chris Gunness in a statement: "We are monitoring the situation on the border carefully and have been given assurances by the Lebanese authorities that these restrictions are temporary."
Human Rights Watch criticised Lebanon for refusing entry for Palestinians from Syria and forcibly returning them to the wartorn country. It accused Beirut of arbitrarily denying entry, and documented the deportation of around 40 Palestinians accused of having forged documents.
Beirut has not announced a blanket ban on the entry of Palestinians from Syria, but government sources confirmed there was a general policy to keep out Palestinians fleeing the conflict.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, one source said the government felt Palestinian refugees registered in Syria should stay there, pointing out that Lebanon already had more than one million Syrian refugees.
HRW said the Lebanese government was violating international law by sending civilians back to an active war zone. "The Lebanese government should urgently rescind its decision to bar Palestinians from Syria from entering Lebanon. Lebanon is turning people back without adequately considering the dangers they face."
The group said Palestinians seeking to enter Lebanon from a crossing with Syria had been arbitrarily denied entry over the weekend.
A security official told AFP that 41 people, many of them Palestinians, were returned to Syria after they were caught trying to fly out from Beirut airport using fake visas. "Eight were allowed to stay because they have Palestinian Lebanese relatives here, or other documentation that allows them to be here," the official said.
Among the more than one million refugees from Syria registered in Lebanon are around 52,000 Palestinian Syrians. Once numbering 500,000 in Syria, Palestinians have been targeted by both sides in the war, making them one of the country's most vulnerable groups, rights groups say.
Lebanon is home to around 422,000 Palestinian refugees, whose presence in the country remains a source of tension. Unlike Jordan and Turkey, which also host a large number of Syrian refugees, Lebanon refuses to set up camps for people fleeing Syria's war. Some politicians have cited the semi-permanent status of Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon dating back to the 1948 creation of Israel as the reason why Lebanon does not want more camps.
The international community has praised Lebanon, which has a population of four million, for absorbing so many of those fleeing Syria.
HRW urged foreign governments to better assist Beirut in hosting refugees. "The Lebanese government is bearing an incomparable burden with the Syrian refugees crossing its borders, but blocking Palestinians from Syria is mishandling the situation," said HRW's deputyMiddle East and North Africa director, Joe Stork.
Lebanon: Palestinians Barred, Sent to Syria
Reverse Blanket Rejection of Refugees
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The Lebanese government is bearing an incomparable burden with the Syrian refugees crossing its borders, but blocking Palestinians from Syria is mishandling the situation. Palestinians are among the most vulnerable people in the Syria conflict, and like Syrian nationals are at risk of both generalized violence and targeted attacks.
(Beirut) – The Lebanese government forcibly returned about three dozen Palestinians to Syria on May 4, 2014, putting them at grave risk. On the same day, the government also arbitrarily denied entry to Palestinians crossing over the land border from Syria.
The Lebanese government should urgently rescind its decision to bar Palestinians from Syria from entering Lebanon, Human Rights Watch said. Lebanon is turning people back without adequately considering the dangers they face. Such a policy violates the international law principle of nonrefoulement, which forbids governments from returning refugees and asylum seekers to places where their lives or freedom would be threatened.
“The Lebanese government is bearing an incomparable burden with the Syrian refugees crossing its borders, but blocking Palestinians from Syria is mishandling the situation,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East and North Africa director. “Palestinians are among the most vulnerable people in the Syria conflict, and like Syrian nationals are at risk of both generalized violence and targeted attacks.”
Human Rights Watch spoke by phone on May 5 to two men who were part of a group of about three dozen people deported by Lebanese General Security on May 4. They and a third person had remained in the strip of territory between the Lebanese and Syrian border checkpoints at the Masnaa crossing for fear of what would happen to them if they reentered Syria. The rest of the group reentered Syria, where their fate is unknown.
The decision to deport the men followed their arrest at the Beirut airport on May 3 for allegedly attempting to leave the country using fraudulent visas. On May 3, Lebanon’s General Security issued a statement indicating that 49 Syrians and Palestinians from Syria had been stopped at the airport that day for using forged documents and that legal proceedings would be initiated against them.
Salam (names have been changed for their protection), a 26-year-old Palestinian who had been living in the Yarmouk refugee camp in Damascus, said he left Syria in December 2012. He told Human Rights Watch that Beirut airport officials accused him of having a fake Libyan visa in his passport and then transferred him to the Masnaa border crossing without explanation. He said the authorities had deported him even though he told General Security officials that he feared he would be detained if he was returned to Syria. He said that he was registered as a refugee with UNRWA, the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, both in Syria and after arriving in Lebanon. He said:
Salam (names have been changed for their protection), a 26-year-old Palestinian who had been living in the Yarmouk refugee camp in Damascus, said he left Syria in December 2012. He told Human Rights Watch that Beirut airport officials accused him of having a fake Libyan visa in his passport and then transferred him to the Masnaa border crossing without explanation. He said the authorities had deported him even though he told General Security officials that he feared he would be detained if he was returned to Syria. He said that he was registered as a refugee with UNRWA, the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, both in Syria and after arriving in Lebanon. He said:
On May 3, I went to the Beirut airport to travel to Libya…General Security said the visa is fake…and detained me at the airport for 26 hours with 40 other Syrians. They transferred us to the Masnaa border without explaining anything…They told us that we will be deported. They did not give us an option to leave, to go to another country. I spoke with the head of General Security...I told him I can’t go back to Syria because I will be detained for skipping my mandatory army service... The [General Security] general said that he can’t do anything…Now I am staying here [in between the border check points] until a country agrees to take me in. I prefer to wait than to get arrested in Syria.
A 21-year-old Palestinian refugee from the Yarmouk camp, who was deported with his brother, told Human Rights Watch that he also was stopped at the Beirut airport while attempting to travel to Libya and accused of having a forged visa. He too was registered with UNRWA in Syria and in Lebanon, where he has been living for the past year-and-a-half. He said that they were arrested with approximately 45 others, the majority of them Palestinians. He said he was afraid to enter Syria because he too had fled his military service.
“They didn’t explain anything to us – why they were detaining us and where they were taking us,” he said. “They didn’t give us any other option other than returning to Syria. We had women and children with us and one was pregnant.”
Before the March 2011 uprising began, Syria was home to approximately 500,000 Palestinian refugees, some of whom were born and raised in the country. Palestinians from Syria, like Syrians there, have suffered greatly as a result of generalized violence and unlawful attacks by both government forces and non-state armed groups. Palestinian refugee camps, including in Aleppo, Daraa, and the Yarmouk camp in south Damascus, have come under attack and siege, resulting in numerous civilian fatalities and injuries.
The Yarmouk camp, home to the largest Palestinian community in the country before the start of the conflict, was besieged by government forces in December 2012, resulting in widespread malnutrition and in some cases death from starvation. While some humanitarian relief has entered Yarmouk since then, residents who remain there are denied access to life-saving medical assistance and adequate food supplies. Half of the Palestinians who lived in Syria when the conflict began have been displaced as a result of the conflict, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported. Government forces have also arbitrarily detained and tortured Palestinians.
Since the conflict began, approximately 60,000 Palestinians from Syria have registered in Lebanon with UNRWA.
On November 25, 2013, Human Rights Watch wrote to the Lebanese minister of interior to raise concerns about “an apparent change in practice, and perhaps in policy, that seems to have begun in early August 2013 whereby Palestinians generally are denied entry from Syria.” At that time, seven Palestinians from Syria who were stranded at the Masnaa crossing told Human Rights Watch that they were being denied entry. Some of the Palestinians stranded at the border said they had previously crossed into Lebanon without any problem, and they said that when they asked for an explanation, General Security officials at the border were either not forthcoming or became hostile or threatened to respond with a one-year or one-month bar on entry. The Ministry of Interior did not respond to the letter.
Human Rights Watch has also documented the Jordanian government’s policy of pushing back Palestinian refugees from Syria trying to enter Jordan from Syria at the border, without considering their claims for asylum in Jordan. In violation of its international legal obligations, Jordan banned entry to all Palestinians from Syria in October 2012, denying refuge to those trying to flee Syria and rendering the presence of those already in the kingdom illegal, thereby increasing their vulnerability to exploitation, arrest, and deportation. According to the March 2014 Syria Needs Analysis Projectreport, Jordanian authorities have forcibly returned over 100 Palestinians to Syria, including deportations of women, children, and injured individuals. In one case, a Palestinian was arrested in late 2012 at his home in Syria 20 days after he was forcibly returned from Jordan, and his body was later dumped on the street in front of his father’s house, showing bullet wounds and signs of torture, according to informed sources who asked not to be named.
“Concerned governments should generously assist neighboring countries, including Lebanon, so that they can meet the needs of refugees and asylum seekers from Syria,” Stork said.
“They didn’t explain anything to us – why they were detaining us and where they were taking us,” he said. “They didn’t give us any other option other than returning to Syria. We had women and children with us and one was pregnant.”
Before the March 2011 uprising began, Syria was home to approximately 500,000 Palestinian refugees, some of whom were born and raised in the country. Palestinians from Syria, like Syrians there, have suffered greatly as a result of generalized violence and unlawful attacks by both government forces and non-state armed groups. Palestinian refugee camps, including in Aleppo, Daraa, and the Yarmouk camp in south Damascus, have come under attack and siege, resulting in numerous civilian fatalities and injuries.
The Yarmouk camp, home to the largest Palestinian community in the country before the start of the conflict, was besieged by government forces in December 2012, resulting in widespread malnutrition and in some cases death from starvation. While some humanitarian relief has entered Yarmouk since then, residents who remain there are denied access to life-saving medical assistance and adequate food supplies. Half of the Palestinians who lived in Syria when the conflict began have been displaced as a result of the conflict, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported. Government forces have also arbitrarily detained and tortured Palestinians.
Since the conflict began, approximately 60,000 Palestinians from Syria have registered in Lebanon with UNRWA.
On November 25, 2013, Human Rights Watch wrote to the Lebanese minister of interior to raise concerns about “an apparent change in practice, and perhaps in policy, that seems to have begun in early August 2013 whereby Palestinians generally are denied entry from Syria.” At that time, seven Palestinians from Syria who were stranded at the Masnaa crossing told Human Rights Watch that they were being denied entry. Some of the Palestinians stranded at the border said they had previously crossed into Lebanon without any problem, and they said that when they asked for an explanation, General Security officials at the border were either not forthcoming or became hostile or threatened to respond with a one-year or one-month bar on entry. The Ministry of Interior did not respond to the letter.
Human Rights Watch has also documented the Jordanian government’s policy of pushing back Palestinian refugees from Syria trying to enter Jordan from Syria at the border, without considering their claims for asylum in Jordan. In violation of its international legal obligations, Jordan banned entry to all Palestinians from Syria in October 2012, denying refuge to those trying to flee Syria and rendering the presence of those already in the kingdom illegal, thereby increasing their vulnerability to exploitation, arrest, and deportation. According to the March 2014 Syria Needs Analysis Projectreport, Jordanian authorities have forcibly returned over 100 Palestinians to Syria, including deportations of women, children, and injured individuals. In one case, a Palestinian was arrested in late 2012 at his home in Syria 20 days after he was forcibly returned from Jordan, and his body was later dumped on the street in front of his father’s house, showing bullet wounds and signs of torture, according to informed sources who asked not to be named.
“Concerned governments should generously assist neighboring countries, including Lebanon, so that they can meet the needs of refugees and asylum seekers from Syria,” Stork said.
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