Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, The

Letters to the Editor

.\n If one is honest, one must admit that the majority of the mainstream media, both electronic and print, have an overwhelming bias in favor of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza and a belief, or at least a tolerance for the belief, that the Jews have divine title to all the land of Palestine, a gift from God himself to the Jews and their descendents. In our very first issue (dated April 5, 1982), this magazine reported that "Washington's pro-Israel lobby, the American Israel ...

Other People's Mail

Arlen Grossman, Monterey, CA Celebrate Our Freedoms To The New York Times, July 4, 2008 William Kristol's column about the Declaration of Independence reminds readers that an elite minority instigated the American Revolution and pledged "their lives, their fortunes," in the cause of the American War of Independence. Thanks to the Iraq invasion and occupation led by the Bush administration, which included Bolton at the time, it is now painfully apparent that the neocon foreign policy has serv...

Publishers' Page

Among the most egregious legislation it's worked to push through Congress are House Resolution 362 and its sister Senate Resolution 580, which call for the president to stop all shipments of oil from reaching Iran and which also demand "stringent inspection requirements on all persons, vehicles, ships, planes, trains and cargo entering or departing Iran" unless Tehran abandons its nuclear program. Forty passengers (including former British Prime Minister Tony Blair's sister-in-law) from 16 c...

In Memoriam: Valentine Richmond Vester, Age 96

Many famous people have stayed at the American Colony, from Lawrence of Arabia of World War I fame to Tony Blair, the former prime minister of Britain who currently keeps an office there as the Quartet's special envoy.

Special Report

Mccain, Lieberman and Iraq: 'Till Death Do Us Part

Within weeks of casting their fateful October 2002 votes giving President George W. Bush the authority to attack Iraq, Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Joe Lieberman (D-CT) became the honorary co-chairmen of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq (CLI), a public relations entity set up at the behest of the Bush administration to help sell the Iraq war to U.S. allies and the American public. [...] not only did Senators McCain and Lieberman vote for funds to help overthrow Saddam Hussain as e...

Radovan Karadzic Captured After Serbs Vote Out Hard-Line Nationalist Government

[...] a hard-line nationalist government was overturned in special elections, and Boris Tadic's Democratic Party, more cooperative with the West, received enough support from Serbia's citizens-in part because of its promise to lead Serbia toward membership in the European Union-to form a new coalition.

Will Iraqis Vote the U.S. Out of Iraq?

The American and Iraqi armies continue to launch large-scale air and ground attacks on suspected militants, and soldiers continue to conduct nighttime raids, blowing up homes and making mass arrests. The joint U.S.-Iraqi offensives in Basra and Sadr City, and the Iraqi army's seizure of Amara in late June, were widely seen as an effort to weaken the political power of Muqtada al-Sadr, a fiercely nationalist cleric who opposes the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq and has organized mass rallies...

United Nations Report

Playing Favorites

The body of U.N. decisions and international law dating from the 1947 partition resolution to the 2004 International Court of Justice opinion on the separation wall quite clearly shows Israel to be in violation both of specific resolutions and the general principles of international law-quite apart from its own commitment to the Quartet, which the U.N. secretary-general heads. Speaking of condemnation, the U.S. delegation abstained on a resolution to extend the mandate of the peacekeeping fo...

Congress Watch

Eight Senators, 33 Representatives in 110th Congress' 'Hall of Fame'

Peter Welch (D-VT) and Peter DeFazio (D-OR), with 26 other representatives, wrote to Bush in December 2007 saying that the National Intelligence Estimate that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons program indicated that it is time for direct, unconditional negotiations with Iran. Gary Ackerman (D-NY) and Mike Pence (R-IN) introduced H.Con.Res. 362 regarding the "threat" posed to peace and stability in the Middle East and to "the vital national security interests" of the U.S. by "Iran's pursuit...

House Resolution Seems to 'Demand' Blockade of Iran

Gary Ackerman (D-NY) and Mike Pence (R-IN) introduced H.Con.Res.362, with the relatively mild title of expressing the sense of Congress regarding the "threat posed to international peace, stability in the Middle East, and the vital national security interests of the U.S. by Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons and regional hegemony." It "demands" that the president initiate an international effort to increase economic, political and diplomatic pressure on Iran to "suspend its nuclear enrichment...

Southern California Chronicle

Activists Challenge L.A. City Council's Expensive June Junket to Israel

The City Council was broadsided June 25 when polite dissidents stood up one at a time during the public comment session to protest the council's negotiating with a foreign power before seeking bids from American security services. Is it because these consulting agreements are really just a foot in the door to more extensive security agreements with a foreign power implicated in espionage scandals? Jeremy Rothe-Kushel questioned the efficacy of Israeli security firms, pointing out that Israel...

New York City And Tri-State News

Committee for Open Discussion of Zionism Holds First Major Event in New York

Opinion polls show that only 50 percent of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank prefer the two-state solution-which is odd, according to Abunimah, given that it is they who are the beneficiaries-whereas Palestinian citizens of Israel and in the diaspora strongly support one state. Professor Gil Anidjar described himself as an old Jew, in contrast to Zionism's new Jew.\n She attributed this to Palestinians telling their own stories through films, hiphop, and novels, as well as to an increas...

Books

Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry From the Middle East, Asia and Beyond

[...] Language for a New Century, and the regional networks developed through the work of its tireless collaborators, is likely to bring on a new age of enlightenment; if not for the world, then at least for the reader.

Collateral Damage: America's War Against Iraqi Civilians

The soldiers and Marines who tell their stories in Collateral Damage expose the true, if unintended, consequences of the war in Iraq on Iraqis and Americans alike.

Bulletin Board

Obituaries

After serving in the Army Air Forces during WWII, he received his M.A. from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in 1947, then joined the foreign service.

Upcoming Events

The Gaza Community Mental Health Program (GCMHP) & the World Health Organization (WHO) will host GCMHP's 5th International Conference, entitled Siege and Mental Health...Walls vs.

Islam And The Near East In The Far East

U.S. Elections Spark Keen Interest Among Southeast Asians

Conversely, McCain's standing has suffered from the self-inflicted wound of his support for the invasion of Iraq, although the actual distance between his and Obama's positions on the future of the U.S. presence in the country appeared to decline during the course of the campaign.

European Press Review

British Novelist Tells Italy's Corriere Della Sera He 'Despises Islamism'

Top Judge Says Shariah Could Be Used in Britain Controversy over shariah law was reignited by the Lord Chief Justice when he argued on July 3 that the Islamic legal code could be used to resolve disputes between Muslims in the U.K. Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, the most senior judge in England and Wales, ruled out the possibility of shariah courts sitting in Britain or handing down penalties. Israeli Military Said to Systematically Target Journalists Writing in the July edition of France...

Israel And Judaism

Aipac's Role in the 2008 Election Coming Under Increasingly Critical Scrutiny

The mainstream pro-Israel camp," he states, "has decided so brazenly to throw its lot in with neoconservative ideologues within this administration and with the far right dispensationalist Christian Zionists, and this unholy triangle has pulled things so much to the right-wing direction that we are desperately in need of a corrective...I think other groups that care about this issue feel more comfortable expressing a sensible position on the Middle East when there is also a very credible and ...

Gaza On The Ground

Honored in London, Tortured in Israel for Exposing the Truth About Gaza

People were outraged-not only members of the press, but human rights activists, university students, and legislators in the British House of Commons and the Greek and Swedish parliaments. An agent of Shin Bet (Israel's internal intelligence agency, known by the Hebrew acronym Shabak) with blond hair and green eyes then took me to another room and ordered me to turn off my cell phone and remove the battery. The Shabak men dumped all of my documents, business cards (even of European parliamen...

The Subcontinent

India Ratifies Controversial Nuclear Treaty with U.S.

According to press reports in India, although the government's left-wing coalition members, led by the Communist Party of India, resigned from the Congress Party-led coalition, Singh survived by managing to secure the support of the Samajwadi Party, led by Mulaim Singh, and by keeping some of the right-wing BJP members from voting by bribing them heavily. President Pervez Musharraf, elected to another five-year term by a lame-duck parliament and state legislatures, continues to meet with his...

Northern California Chronicle

Egyptian American Society Honors Consul General and Mrs. Abderahman Salaheldin

Sunbula Empowers Women During Hard Economic Times For 18 years, the Jerusalem-based nonprofit Sunbula (see November 2006 Washington Report, p. 41) has been helping women in the West Bank and Gaza improve their economic condition by selling their handmade art and handicraft items. After the Israeli air force bombed Gaza's power plant two years ago, Sunbula purchased a generator so the women could run their sewing machines.

Arab-American Activism

Adc's Annual National Convention

(My beach bag is now packed with their books, available from the AET Book Club.) The authors discussed the obstacles Arab-American writers and readers face in post-9/11 America, and read excerpts from their stories and poetry that made audience members weep or smile. The Saturday evening Gala Banquet featured keynote speaker Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE), who told the predominately Arab-American audience that all Americans have the duty to influence their country through the political process. Th...

Waging Peace

Busboys Hosts Naomi Klein

Citing the war in Iraq, Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, and the natural disaster in Myanmar, Klein argued that the privatization of businesses in these areas following these events were deliberate strategies to seize an economic hold on the respective country or city.

Collateral Damage Authors at Dc's Busboys and Poets

Dr. Jeremy Brigham Discusses 'Forty-One Vetoes' in Iowa City

After noting that in its many vetoes of Security Council resolutions critical of Israel the U.S. has nearly always stood alone, Brigham concluded with a rhetorical question, "Can the United States take a different stance in regard to the Security Council in this new era that is about to come upon us?" The event was sponsored by People for Justice in Palestine, an Iowa City community organization concerned about the crisis in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. -

Four Anti-Rove Activists Arrested in Iowa

POLICE OFFICERS arrested four anti-war activists who attempted to make a citizens' arrest of Karl Rove for war crimes when the former political adviser to President George W. Bush spoke at a Republican luncheon fund-raiser at the Wakonda Country Club in Des Moines, Iowa on July 25. About 25 activists, including several Drake University students and other members of the Des Moines Catholic Worker community, the Catholic Peace Ministry, and other local peace and social justice organizations, s...

Making Sense of the Arab-Israel Nightmare

Ghaith al-Omari, a former policy adviser to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Daniel Levy, former senior policy adviser in the Israeli prime minister's office, and Aaron Miller, author of The Much Too Promised Land, addressed the Arab-Israeli conflict largely as an inherited problem.

Mepc Capitol Hill Panel Discusses War with Iran

Dr. John Duke Anthony, founding president and CEO of the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations, opened the discussion by encouraging the engagement of Iran "in every possible, imaginable way." The downside of diplomacy, noted Dr. Anthony, is that it is often invisible, designed to prevent things from happening that one cannot prove would have happened otherwise. Diplomacy has not been exhausted, he pointed out, and must be pursued further.

Through a Photojournalist's Lens

Included in his presentation were arresting images of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) using gas meant for use in the open against soldiers wearing protective gear, against civilians in small spaces. A photojournalist by trade but a peace activist at heart, Hashlamoun showed many moving pictures of Palestinian, Israeli and international demonstrators working together to protest IDF atrocities.