Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, May/June 1998, Pages 104-107

California Chronicle

L.A. Police Collaborate in Blocking View of Deir Yassin Remembrance Vigil at Museum of Tolerance

By Pat and Samir Twair

Although the 50th anniversary of the state of Israel is being celebrated in Los Angeles with television spectaculars, concerts, flag displays on major boulevards and supplements in the Los Angeles Times, there is a contingent of Southern Californians who are demonstrating publicly to air the real facts about the same half-century of a brutal Israeli occupation of the Palestinian people.

April 9, 1948 is a date of infamy for all Palestinians, for it was the day members of the Irgun and Stern Gang Jewish militias, supported by artillerymen of the Haganah, massacred 254 Palestinian civilians at the village of Deir Yassin near Jerusalem. The slaughter incited terror in the Arab population and many fled from the carnage presuming they would be allowed, like refugees the world over, later to return to their homeland. Deir Yassin was divested of its Palestinian population and today is the site of a mental institution for Israelis.

In Southern California several Israeli Americans and Arab Americans joined forces last year with other Americans to form the Deir Yassin Remembrance Committee. They decided to stage a vigil commemorating the murder of the 254 people of Deir Yassin. A large plaque was prepared listing by name and district each of the 418 Palestinian villages systematically destroyed by the Israelis in the past 50 years. Large blow-ups of the remains of 16 Arab villages were mounted on posters. A script was prepared for a street theater dirge.

The committee chose the Los Angeles Museum of Tolerance as an appropriately symbolic site for the 50th anniversary commemoration of the Deir Yassin massacre. A request was sent to the museum, but it was never answered.

Most police officers in Southern California undergo sensitivity training sessions at the Museum of Tolerance. Police departments pick up the tab of $187 per officer. The Museum of Tolerance receives funds from the state, but its focus—as any visitor will testify—is on the European Holocaust. There may be photos of some bloody Armenians or beaten up African Americans but, from start to finish, the emphasis is on the Jewish Holocaust. Police may emerge from the museum with an awareness of the evils of anti-Semitism, but it is unlikely their empathy for African Americans, Hispanics or Asians, the major minority groups in the area, has been expanded. As for Muslims or Arabs, one visitor remarked that the only Muslim photographs she observed inside were a snarling Muammar Qaddafi and a gesticulating Ayatollah Khomeini.

The police were notified in advance that the Deir Yassin Remembrance group would be carrying out a vigil on the sidewalk in front of the museum. When they arrived, however, the 60-plus demonstrators were all but hidden by yellow school buses parked in towing zones in front of and beside the museum.

When the demonstration leaders pointed out that the buses were illegally parked, the police said the drivers couldn’t be found. One participant noted that in the three years she has driven daily past the museum, a yellow school bus was never parked in front of the marble structure.

Nonetheless motorists slowed to observe the crowd visible at the front corner of the museum. One banner reading “50 Years of Palestinian Dispossession” left no question what the vigil was for.

As soon as the demonstrators dispersed, the bus drivers boarded their empty buses and drove away.

This summer, committee members plan to take their posters and banners to parks and educate the public about Palestinian dispossession. Crowds surely will assemble as the funereal script is chanted for each destroyed village:

“District of Haifa—113,000 refugees, 45 villages destroyed. Village of Balad al-Shaykh, 5,000 Palestinians displaced. All that remains, some crumbling buildings—Balad al-Shaykh. Today, on its village lands, the Israeli township of Nesher—Balad al-Shaykh

Chorus: all that remains Balad al-Shaykh

Chorus: all that remains Balad al-Shaykh

Chorus: all that remains.”

Hollywood Hoopla vs. Palestinian Tragedy

It looked like a mini Academy Awards night on April 14 as limousines delivered stars to the Shrine Auditorium to watch the taping of Kevin Costner’s and Michael Douglas’ TV spectacular celebrating Israel’s 50th birthday. Nonetheless, an estimated 70 protesters held their banners proclaiming, “50 Years of Palestinian Dispossession.” When police asked the dissenters to take their banner across the street from the Shrine, the pro-Palestinian contingent did so, and continued to chant its slogans. At least two TV stations sent cameramen over to register the protest. Passersby crossed the street to talk to the demonstrators and read the banner listing names of hundreds of Palestinian Arab villages destroyed by the Israelis. The spectators expressed sympathy, with most commenting that the systematic devastation of Palestinian villages was news to them.

Many of the group then traveled on the freeway to St. Mark’s Presbyterian Church in Van Nuys to view a screening of “Al Nakba: The Palestinian Catastrophe 1948.” Benny Brunner, the Dutch-Israeli who created the documentary, was on hand to answer questions after the showing.

Brunner, who studied at Tel Aviv University’s Film and Television Department, tells the story for Israeli audiences, but this perspective may enable American Jews to comprehend the injustices the founders of Israel inflicted on the Palestinians.

Israeli historian Benny Morris collaborated in the filmed recounting of the Palestinian tragedy of 1947 and 1948. Brunner’s film totally dispels the Israeli myths that the Arab militias outnumbered and were better armed than the Jewish forces and that Palestinian leaders broadcast orders for Palestinians to leave their villages.

U.S.-Iran Symposium Draws Detractors

Police squad cars and paddy wagons surrounded the Anaheim Marriott Hotel on April 2 when Southland World Affairs Councils sponsored a symposium on Iran. While many Iranian Americans seemed anxious to learn about the possibility of rapprochement between the two powers, other Iranians loudly protested the appearance of representatives of Iran’s Islamic revolutionary government.

The U.S.-Iran Symposium, which coincided with the Persian New Year of Noruz, featured four afternoon panels and a dinner program with Iran’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Hadi Nejad Hosseinian; retired Ambassador Roscoe S. Suddarth, president of the Middle East Institute; retired diplomat and former hostage Ambassador L. Bruce Laingen; and former Iranian Ambassador to the U.N. Mohammad J. Mahallati. The theme of the conference was “Has the Time Come to Resume the Dialogue?”

Before the panels got underway, a sizeable contingent representing Iran’s principal opposition group, the People’s Mojahedin of Iran, staked out a section of the hotel lobby. At the same time, members of the pro-shah opposition to the present government rented a room in the hotel and showed films depicting restrictions placed on Iranian women, while dissidents from the Islamic Socialist Party distributed their literature.

Threats had been made on the life of Dr. Hosseinian, whose trip to Anaheim made him the highest-ranking official of the revolutionary government permitted by the State Department to visit California.

Sir Eldon Griffith of the Orange County World Affairs Department was advised for security reasons to have Dr. Hosseinian speak during the afternoon session instead of after dinner as originally scheduled.

Addressing the World Affairs audience before dinner, Dr. Hosseinian stated that if Iran and the U.S. are ever to reopen relations, Washington must drop its opposition to Iran’s peaceful nuclear energy program. He also stated Iran’s opposition to U.S. sanctions on foreign investors in Iran’s energy industry, and U.S. opposition to use of pipelines crossing Iran to transport oil from the Caspian region.

Dr. Hosseinian stressed that Tehran has signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty and, as a signatory, has the right of access to peaceful nuclear technology. He noted that U.S.-imposed sanctions have slowed Iran’s economic development, but that companies in Europe and Asia are willing to ignore these sanctions.As for the opposition by the U.S. to an Iranian pipeline in the Caspian region, the diplomat stressed that Iran has the ability to pump 800,000 barrels of Caspian petroleum per day through Iranian pipelines to international markets.

“This means there is no need whatsoever for a huge investment to transfer the energy resources of the Caspian Sea,” Dr. Hosseinian said. “The Iranian refineries and existing pipeline are sufficient.” Fluctuating oil prices, he added, make the construction of new pipelines all the more unfeasible.

Hosseinian called the U.S. charges that Iran supports international terrorism and seeks to develop weapons of mass destruction baseless allegations.

A more positive approach was taken by Ambassador Suddarth, who recently returned from a trip to Iran. The former U.S. ambassador to Jordan said his seven-day visit encompassed the close of competition by an American wrestling team, the arrival of U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan during the Iraq-U.S. crisis, and enabled him to observe the on-going phenomenon of reformist Iranian President Mohammad Khatami. Declaring that Khatami’s convictions prevent him from being a liberal, Ambassador Suddarth said he nevertheless noted a trend toward secularism in the 18th year of the Iranian revolution. These signs varied from lifting fingernail inspections (checking that women don’t wear nail polish) to permitting the banned film “The Snowman” to be publicly screened.

“The time has come for the two governments to discuss their differences,” Suddarth concluded.

Ambassador Laingen, who spent 444 days as a hostage in the foreign ministry of Iran’s Islamic revolutionary government, said he has believed the U.S. should resume relations with Iran ever since he was released. “The past 20 years have been painful,” he said. “The hostage affair started a hate Iran syndrome, and it won’t be easy to restart relations after the vitriol of two decades.”

Emphasizing that he was not speaking for his government or his fellow hostages (most of whom endured far greater hardship and danger as prisoners of students who seized the American Embassy), Ambassador Laingen continued: “The U.S. containment policy doesn’t fit our interests. The U.S. can’t separate Iran from its strategic interests in the area, namely security in the Gulf and ties with the Central Asian states of the former Soviet Union.

“In order for both sides to open a dialogue, they must lower their rhetoric, be realistic about setting the pace and avoid talking about the past,” Laingen said.

“Iran is destined to become a dominant regional power in the region,” he concluded, suggesting that both sides should send trusted emissaries to Oslo—or somewhere—and “talk about how to talk.”

Former Iranian Ambassador to the U.N. Mahallati urged Iranian Americans to organize in building new bridges between Washington and Tehran to enable the waters of mistrust to pass underneath. He called upon emigrants to keep contact with their mother country and to learn Persian—“real Persian, not restaurant Persian.”

Throughout the talk, dissidents had tried to interrupt speeches, and when it came to the question-and-answer session, they shouted over the words of the respondents.

In answer to a query about the U.S. normalizing relations when Iran does not uphold human rights, Ambassador Laingen stated: “Recognition doesn’t mean acceptance.”

Another questioner asked if religious zealots might not unseat the present regime if it leans too far toward secularism, Dr. Seyed Kazem Sajjadpour of the Iranian Mission to the U.N. replied: “You’re making the wrong assumption. There is no way a coup could take place. Take a course in politics 101.”

At the close of the conference, security guards directed the huge crowd through back exits to avoid contact with dissident groups. When we commented to a World Affairs staffer that tensions seemed higher on this occasion than at a symposium on Arab-Israeli relations, she answered, “This is nothing. Come when we have a program on Cuba.”

Sabah, Clovis Maksoud Star at AAPG Banquet

Dr. Clovis Maksoud, former Arab League ambassador to the United Nations, was the keynote speaker at the 13th annual banquet of the Arab American Press Guild. For a few minutes, however, the veteran diplomat and speech maker was upstaged when Arab diva Sabah made a surprise entrance. The Lebanese chanteuse, who has charmed two generations of Arab audiences, was presented a plaque and brought down the house as she sang an impromptu mawal.

Ambassador Maksoud challenged the AAPG to meet its responsibilities to the Arab-American community as well as to the Arab-American national patrimony and to strengthening and ennobling the concept of democracy throughout the world.

This three-dimensional challenge requires thinking and a genuine commitment, he warned Arab-American reporters.

“Where does the AAPG fit into this scheme?” he asked rhetorically. “Think global and act global. Define nationalism as liberation—otherwise one develops into rigidity and tribal-ethnic communalism.”

Now a professor at American University in Washington, DC, Dr. Maksoud urged journalists to study issues of globalization affecting women’s rights, the environment and distribution of wealth.

Noting that “CNNization” has made us all well-informed but not particularly knowledgeable, Dr. Maksoud said the crisis in February, when Iraq was threatened by the U.S. and Britain, awakened the Arab conscience to the pain of the Iraqi people.

“The humiliation of a people who have given us the best artists and scientists was reflected in this crisis of conscience,” he said. “Arabs all over the world said ‘enough is enough.’”

“Arab American communities must mobilize,” he said. “They no longer can afford to leave it to students at Ohio State University,” referring to Columbus, OH students who challenged the seeming determination of Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Secretary of Defense William Cohen and National Security Adviser Samuel Berger to blitz Baghdad.

“The situation isn’t as bad as it looks, but it’s not what it should be,” Maksoud continued. “AAPG must fill the gap, correct the distortions of Arabs, enable Americans to learn about the Arab world and unlearn old distortions.

“The qualitative distinction between the global market and the world community is that the latter is more humane. Don’t concentrate on the market at the expense of eroding humanity,” he warned.

Historically, he said, Arab nationalism was identified with the renaissance of the Arabs. “The new generation of Arabs is totally out of tune with intellectual elements, and this is the beginning of the rupture in discourse among Arab generations.”

Turning to Algeria, he called the situation intolerable. “Forget the notion that no Arab state should interfere with another Arab state,” he said to a roomful of applause. “We must interrupt.”

He called upon the Arab-American media to go through self-criticism. “Project Islam as the home of our culture and civilization—not the Islam distorted by the Taliban, but the enlightenment of Khatami. “Where,” he asked, “is the Mandela of the Arabs?”

After charging that in the Middle East Arab leaders fight each other instead of unifying the Arab nation, he turned to the national level of Arab Americans in the U.S. “Your national organizations shouldn’t overlap and eliminate the deadweight of narrow-minded communalism. It is a debasement of our language to say I am a Maronite, et cetera.”

The audience rose to its feet in applause as he stated: “We cannot afford any more intellectuals like Fouad Ajami.”

In closing, Dr. Maksoud called on Arabs to focus on Jerusalem, “the anthem of our soul.”

“Jerusalem is not only the future capital of the Palestinians but the blending of Christian-Muslim understanding.”

In other AAPG sessions, Yousef Elia Haddad was elected president. Serving on his board will be Samer Saba, Soliman Saddi, and Yusef Ayoub Haddad.

The morning session featured a panel discussion on the future of the Arab-American press by Sami Asmar, Don Bustany and Pat Twair.

Asmar, who is a scientist with NASA, predicted the forthcoming generation will not read newspapers as the Internet replaces the print media. An example, he said, is that today there are 320 million Web sites and these will double each year.

He said that at present the Arab states have surpassed Latin America as a consumer of high-tech transfer of information, but they have not become producers in generating news. AT&T solely controls communications and this could become immensely lucrative as General Motors, Hughes and Sony, for instance, begin to compete with each other to reach the Arab market through electronic advertisements.

Bustany, who hosts the “Middle East in Focus” program of KPFK, the Pacifica station in Los Angeles, said it is up to Arab-American press members to speak up when they observe mistakes about Middle East reporting in the mainstream media.

“Editors make themselves accessible, for the most part, and it is important to bring these errors to the attention of editors,” Bustany said.

He cited several instances where he has sensitized editors to stop calling Israeli-occupied Arab land “disputed territories,” or to stop referring to Arab freedom fighters as terrorists while Israeli invaders are called commandos.

He concluded that the ethnic press is diminishing in the U.S. because with each generation, the language of the immigrant’s homeland gives way to English.

Twair reiterated the idea that the days of an Arab-American press are numbered. Arabic speakers can get the news from home on the Internet, as do English-speaking Arabs. Aramco World presents cultural activities of Arabs and Muslims and the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs offers in-depth political articles and news.

“The only need an Arab-American press might fulfill is to offer features on activities and accomplishments of Arab Americans on Web sites that the establishment press wouldn’t carry.”

Turning to the pro-Israel bias of U.S. publications, Twair said this already is diminishing because Americans can read the facts of what is occurring in Israel/Palestine on the Internet. As Americans become more aware of the truth, U.S. publications will have to publish what actually is happening in the Middle East or lose their credibility.

Ramsey Clark Decries Iraq Sanctions

More than 1,000 concerned Americans turned out March 7 for a program sponsored by the Save Iraqi Children Committee in Holman United Methodist Church. The size of the crowd and an address by former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark were ignored by the Los Angeles media.

“Sanctions are the new weapon of choice—because the world doesn’t see them or feel them,” Clark charged. “This planet is greatly troubled mainly because of our country, which spends $265 billion on military expenditures.” He compared this to $48 billion spent by the Russians, $42 billion by the Japanese, $38 billion by the French and $32 billion by the United Kingdom.

Noting that the Congress is cutting back on every social program, Clark said the Pentagon receives more than one-third of all U.S. expenditures. The advocate for world peace said that what the U.S. released on Iraq has no precedent. “We deliberately inflicted genocide on a national racial group to destroy it in whole or part,” he stated. He went on to point out it is a crime to bomb chemical plants and spread chemicals and that it is likewise a crime to bomb nuclear plants. “On top of this we send the Marine who wiped out Iraq’s infrastructure to head the inspection team and we get mad when Iraq resists.”

Clark’s thoughts were echoed by peace activist Kathy Kelly, a co-founder of Voices in the Wilderness, an organization that delivers medical supplies to Iraq.

“The U.S. postures about inspection access while it is conducting the longest sanctions/siege in modern history,” stated Kelly, who has been arrested 42 times for her activities as an objector to all forms of violence including nuclear plants.

“It is wrong for the U.S. to portray the sanctions as creating only a hardship in Iraq. The sanctions are murdering Iraqis.”

Commenting on her latest trip to Iraq, Kelly said she guided European and American cameramen through hospitals where they filmed dying children. “But,” she declared, “these young victims of the sanctions were never viewed on American TV. But the film footage was aired in European capitals.

“The only real scandal Bill and Hillary face is the scandal of a half-million Iraqi children dying,” Kelly continued.

The audience applauded Kelly when she told them the Internal Revenue Service had written her off that day as uncollectable because she refuses to pay income tax which is channeled to the U.S. military industrial complex.

“How obscene that the Pentagon demands an amount in excess of $274 billion to go down the rathole of the U.S. military,” she said.

Gloria La Riva, who produced a documentary entitled “Genocide by Sanctions,” noted Iraq is just one of many countries the U.S. is blockading.

“I’m struck by the fact that Washington says it has the right to determine who a country’s leader should be,” she said. La Riva predicted the U.N. Security Council will never lift the sanctions against Iraq so long as the U.S. and Britain have the veto.

Funds were raised to send medical and sanitation supplies to Iraq, where activists charge that children are dying of diarrhea and dysentery because Iraq cannot import chlorine and other chemicals to keep its water safe.