Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, May/June 1998, Pages 73-74

Human Rights

Fatima Mernissi Speaks at MEI

Professor Fatima Mernissi of the Mohammed V University in Rabat, Morocco, discussed Muslim women and their emerging role in civil society at the Middle East Institute on April 29. Her lecture was co-sponsored by the Sisterhood Is Global Institute. Mernissi currently is a visiting professor at Tulane University in New Orleans, LA.

Mernissi began her discussion with a condemnation of journalists and academics who analyze the Middle East with broad generalizations and finite terms. She emphasized that changes in the Middle East are “enormous” and differ from country to country.

She emphasized that issues are complex and cannot be broken down into binary terms such as modern or traditional. She pointed to her necklace—an eclectic combination of a large silver piece from Mali, eight strands of pearls bought on a street in Rabat and two pieces of amber purchased from a place near the Berlin Wall. She then asked the audience if it was “modern” or “traditional.”

In her speech, Mernissi also illustrated the false association of secular with modern. In a mixture of French and English, she described inspecting the contents of an American hotel room drawer. In it she found a high-tech brochure advertising the hotel’s services and restaurants, a copy of the Bible and a copy of the Book of Mormon.

After forcing the audience to rethink journalistic stereotypes about the Middle East, she focused on the binary of strong state versus fundamentalism. She first challenged the prevalent notion that the state is strong in the Middle East. Three events-–the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the Gulf war and the peace process—have combined to weaken the state’s power in the Middle East. According to Mernissi, the role of civil society in decision-making increased when people realized that heads of state are answerable to their people.

As global communication increases and satellite dishes bring programs from around the world into Middle Eastern homes, Mernissi said people are watching more unregulated television. Thus “television financed by oil,” referring to the satellite networks owned by businessmen from Saudi Arabia, are increasing the dynamics within the Muslim community without focusing on religion. In her opinion, Islamic fundamentalism is not the only option for civil society, and there are many other avenues and expressions of vitality within Muslim civil society.

Mernissi discussed the increasing role of women in a burgeoning civil society. As women create grassroots organizations such as the women’s souq (marketplace) in northern Morocco, they are empowering themselves in the economic sphere. Mernissi also pointed to the number of women who want change and are running for parliamentary and governmental positions in Morocco. According to Mernissi, Islamism has ebbed and other activist voices in civil society increasingly are being heard.

—Randa Kayyali

Petition Filed Against Israel for 1996 Qana Bombing

Three American lawyers have filed a petition against the government of Israel for “gross violations of human rights” on behalf of the families of 47 victims of Israel’s April 18, 1996 shelling of a United Nations compound in Qana, Lebanon that killed more than 100 Lebanese civilians. Attorneys Mary Ramadan, John Quigley and Susan Akram filed the petition with the Human Rights Commission of the United Nations Economic and Social Affairs Committee. Compiling the massive amount of evidence presented with the filing has been a two-year effort by the attorneys, all of which was done on a pro bono basis.

During an April 24 press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, Mary Ramadan explained that the United Nations General Assembly already has found Israel culpable in the attack by a vote of 64 to 2 (the United States and Israel against) with 65 abstentions. She explained that at the time of the vote, “there wasn’t sufficient evident to convince all of the members” that Israel’s attack had been deliberate. That evidence, which now includes videotapes, photographs, news articles, transcripts and sworn affidavits, was supplied to the United Nations with the petition filed by attorneys Ramadan, Quigley and Akram.

Attending the press conference with attorneys Quigley and Ramadan was petitioner Haidar Bitar, a Lebanese citizen born in Qana, whose sons, Hadi, 9, and Abdul Mohsen, 8, were killed during the Qana bombing. Bitar’s mother, Wuroud Abboud, a Lebanese national born in Qana who currently lives in the Ivory Coast, is a surviving victim of the attack on the United Nations base and a co-petitioner in the case. She is the grandmother of Hadi and Abdul Mohsen Bitar, who were living with her at the time of Israel’s attack.

Below are excerpts of the petition filed with the United Nations, beginning with the opening summary.

—Shawn L. Twing

Summary

“Petitioners, by undersigned counsel, ask for an investigation into egregious violations of human rights by Israel during a bombing campaign and military offensive it conducted in Lebanon in April 1996, during which it killed 170 Lebanese civilians, seriously wounded 350 others, displaced 350,000, and damaged or destroyed hundreds of houses. [International Committee for the Red Cross, Annual Report 1996 on Lebanon, attached as Exhibit 29]. During this operation, Israel committed gross violations of human rights, including, prominently, the deliberate shelling of a makeshift refugee shelter on the UNIFIL base in Qana, southern Lebanon, on 18 April 1996. That single episode of shelling took the lives of over one hundred civilians, two of whom were Hadi and Abdul Mohsen Bitar, the minor children of Petitioner Haidar Bitar. That shelling also injured and dismembered scores of other civilians, including Petitioner Wuroud Abboud, grandmother of the deceased Hadi and Adbul Mohsen Bitar. That incident was one of numerous atrocities that Israel committed during its bombing campaign. Israel carried out other attacks which targeted civilians or had a disproportionate impact on civilians. Israel deliberately destroyed civilian facilities, including water reservoirs, power plants, and residential buildings. This petition focuses primarily on the incident of 18 April 1996 at Qana, of which Petitioners and Affiants are direct victims.

Other highlights:

“Israel denied that it intended to kill civilians when it shelled the UNIFIL compound at Qana. However, an investigation of the incident conducted by Major-General Franklin van Kappen , Military Advisor to the Secretary-General, found that it was ‘unlikely that the shelling was the result of gross technical or procedural error.’ The critical facts that led General van Kappen to this conclusion were: (1) the pattern and distribution of impacts, which showed the majority of shells falling on or in the immediate vicinity of the buildings in the compound; (2) the perceptible shift in the weight of fire from an initial barrage that fell on the mortar site to a second barrage that fell on the United Nations compound; and (3) that there were two Israeli helicopters and a remotely piloted vehicle (drone) flying above the Qana area at the time of shelling.”

Regarding the April 13, 1996 bombing by an Israeli helicopter gunship of an ambulance fleeing the village of Mansuri that killed two women and four children:

“Contrary to Israel’s claim that a ‘terrorist’ had been in the ambulance, eyewitnesses said that the only passengers aboard the ambulance were civilians who were fleeing the IDF aerial bombardment. [Videotape attached as Exhibits 16 and 17; Photographs attached as Exhibit 13]. Eyewitnesses told Human Rights Watch that prior to the attack two Israeli helicopters ‘watched’ overhead as civilians loaded into the ambulance, followed the ambulance past a U.N. checkpoint, and then fired a missile at the vehicle. [Human Rights Watch Report, attached as Exhibit 22, p. 23]. Thus, the available evidence suggests that the IDF intentionally targeted the ambulance, and that it did so understanding that it was occupied by civilians.”

Three days later another ambulance was attacked:

“On 16 April 1996, an ambulance responding to a call that three children had been injured in an Israeli air raid in the village of Aabba was targeted by missiles fired from an Israeli aircraft as [the driver] was trying to rescue the injured children. [ Human Rights Watch Report, at 28, attached as Exhibit 22].

Other Israeli atrocities:

“On 18 April 1996, an Israeli helicopter gunship attacked a house in Upper Nabatiyyeh... killing nine civilians, including a newborn baby and six children under the age of thirteen, all of whom were sleeping when the attack began. The newborn baby was that of Fawziyeh Khawajah, a woman who had delivered four days earlier, and who had decided not to evacuate in response to the warning of 17 April 1996. She and seven of her children were killed in the attack. [Human Rights Watch Report, at 24, attached as Exhibit 22 (quoting victims and witnesses)].”