Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, June 1999, pages 114-119

Waging Peace

Iraq Action Coalition Student Committee

Students and faculty members on more than 100 campuses across the Untied States dedicated the week of April 25 through May 1 to taking action aimed at lifting the U.N.-imposed sanctions and stopping the bombing of Iraq. Students participated in marches, rallies, vigils and teach-ins and circulated petitions to try to educate others about the lethal U.S.-led sanctions that cause the deaths of 4,500 children each month.

According to Will Youmans, a national coordinator of the events and a student at the University of Michigan, “By joining forces for this week of coordinated action, we aim to speak in a loud voice to policymakers in Washington, DC to say: ‘Enough’ of the killing in our name. We will no longer stand idly by while the U.S. squeezes the life out of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children through the dreadful sanctions policy.”

Rania Masri, a student at North Carolina State University, another national coordinator, said, “We aim to arm ourselves and our fellow students with the facts about the deadly impact of U.S. policy toward Iraq. Once so informed, we will act to organize into an effective force toward ending the U.S. war on the Iraqi people.”

The week of events culminated several months of student protests against U.S. Iraqi policies, the students’ statement said. Student groups across the country have produced resolutions against the U.S.-sponsored sanctions, and attended presentations by sanctions opponents Denis Haliday, Phyllis Bennis, Ramsey Clark, Kathy Kelly and others on campuses across the country. The student Committee of the Iraq Action Coalition can be reached by calling (919) 272-8685 or (734) 827-1077 or by visiting http://iraqaction.org/days.html/ for a list of college campus contacts for more information.

—Delinda C. Hanley

Mona Yacoubian Analyzes the Algerian Election

Mona Yacoubian, an independent consultant and analyst of Algerian politics, discussed the results of the April 15 Algerian election on April 19 at the Middle East Institute in Washington, DC. On the eve of the election, six of the seven presidential candidates withdrew from the election, leaving Abdelaziz Bouteflika victorious with 74 percent of the votes. The six candidates who withdrew from the election refused to recognize its legitimacy.

According to the government, the voter turnout was 60 percent, yet the media and opposition groups claim that the turnout was between 20 and 30 percent. Yacoubian pointed out that without an international observance of the election process, it is impossible to verify or deny these statistics. Unofficial reports of nearly empty polling places, however, suggest government inflation of its count.

Yacoubian analyzed political events prior to the election and prospects for a move toward democracy in Algeria. The call for an early presidential election did not stem from a desire to promote democracy, but from a power struggle between former President Laimine Zeroual and key military officials, she said. Some signs, such as changes in the electoral law to avoid fraud and equal media time for all candidates, suggested a positive move toward democracy.

Unfortunately, several negative signs cast a dark light on hopes for democracy. The signature period was marred by harassment charges, Yacoubian said, and spontaneous support for Bouteflika and his sudden reappearance into the political scene aroused suspicions. According to Yacoubian, the biggest warning was a controversial ruling that banned Mahfoud Nahnah, leader of the Islamist MPS (Movement for a Peaceful Society) party.

Yacoubian discussed Bouteflika’s potential as the president of Algeria. “His popular legitimacy is somewhat in doubt,” she said, citing questions regarding his health, political leverage and popular support. According to Yacoubian, Bouteflika is not known for his openness, and he has failed to demonstrate an understanding of market reforms. “Hopes for a near-term resolution [to conflict in Algeria] seem diminished in the wake of the election,” she said. “Bouteflika will most likely perpetuate the status quo.”

—Samia El-Mahdi

Discussion of Turkish Elections at MEI

A political shift to the right as a result of the recent Turkish elections was analyzed in an April 22 panel discussion at the Middle East Institute.

“It’s a shock, even a bit traumatic to see them do well,” said Asli Aydintasbas, a New York-based correspondent for the Turkish daily Radikal, referring to the unprecedented victory for the ultra-right-wing Nationalist Action Party, or MHP, as the party is known in Turkey.

But despite a stellar performance for the MHP, Aydintasbas noted that the overall election climate was “apathetic,” with candidates engaging in mudslinging and the Turkish electorate responding with general indifference.

Aydintasbas attributed part of the MHP’s success to voter pragmatism. “It’s somewhat of a ‘let’s try this’ syndrome with the Turkish voters,” she said. “They feel as if they’ve tried everything, so now they’ll try the Nationalists.”

She also pointed to growing center-right voters’ disapproval of government corruption as a factor in the shift to the far right.

The MHP victory was especially surprising for the Turkish media. Most journalists do not care for the MHP and have not paid very close attention to its leaders, despite the fact that some candidates who ran, and indeed won, on the Nationalist Action Party ticket have been convicted of killing leftists, according to Aydintasbas.

Other factors which contributed to the Nationalist victory, which made it only six seats short of being the largest party in parliament, included the much-publicized capture of Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan. In addition to exacerbating the disaffection from the government among Turkey’s Kurds, response to Ocalan’s capture among many ethnic Turks deepened Turkish nationalism, Aydintasbas said, making the MHP more appealing to the Turkish electorate.

Yasemin Congar, Washington bureau chief and foreign affairs columnist for the major Istanbul newspaper Milliyet, and the Washington correspondent for the Turkish TV channel KANAL D, noted that Turkey’s multi-party democracy makes a shoestring election win all the more possible.

“In today’s fragmented political scene, even 20 percent of the voters can bring you into power,” Congar said.

—Rob Swanson

Israeli Judge Discusses State of Israeli Legal System at MEI

‘The Israeli Judiciary’ was discussed by Judge Salim Joubran, of the District Court of Haifa, at the Middle East Institute in Washington, DC on Feb. 24. Joubran, an Israeli citizen of Arab descent, pointed out that the Israeli legal system has inherited legal codes from 30 years of British Mandate law and some 400 years under the Ottoman Empire. As for the Israeli contribution, Israel has no formal constitution, but it does have a declaration of independence which provides for equal rights and freedom of religion for all citizens of Israel.

Joubran noted that Israeli case law is a mixture of British law, European common law, and Jewish religious law. The three levels of the Israeli judiciary, he said, are the Supreme Court, the district courts and the magistrate courts. The Supreme Court in Israel is made up of 12 judges. He stated that the magistrate courts are reserved for small claims and family matters. Interestingly, he explained that there are no jurors in the Israeli legal system.

Within Israel, each religious community has its own court dealing with matters pertaining exclusively to that group, an inheritance from the mosaic system of the Ottoman Empire. However, anything above mundane matters, such as criminality or family issues, must be sent to the other courts within the system, according to Joubran.

He explained that the judicial branch within Israel is totally independent of any other body. Joubran noted that international affairs are out of the jurisdiction of the judicial branch, but that actions taken by the Israeli military government within the West Bank and Gaza must adhere to the laws of the state of Israel.

He argued that while the judiciary was said to be the weakest of all three branches of government by a founding father of the United States, this weakness can also be seen as a strength, with the judiciary being the guardian of legal and moral values in the nation.

He also discussed the highly controversial Israeli Supreme Court ruling that in cases of a clear and present danger to the state from individuals or organizations, basic human rights can be waived to allow “moderate” physical pressure on suspects under investigation. Interestingly, this ruling apparently makes Israel the only country in the world where torture to extract confessions not only is practiced, but also is codified under the law.

In terms of court diversity, Joubran said that 30 out of 450 judges in Israel are Arab, and that an Arab judge has been nominated to the Supreme Court for one year. He added that there are presently five female judges in the court system and that 55 percent of the students at the law school in Haifa are women, boding well for the future of gender diversity within Israel’s legal system.

—Michael S. Lee

Journalist and Adventurer Addresses MEI Audience

The Middle East Institute in Washington, DC played host to academic, adventurer, journalist and self-described “conflictologist” Thomas Goltz on March 26 to discuss “Azerbaijan: Prospects for U.S. Intervention.” While this topic was indeed discussed, it seemed to be a while in coming, as Goltz initially recounted his adventures in Chechnya during that Russian republic’s violent war with the Russian army in 1995 and during the conflict in Georgia between its government and Abkhazian separatists in 1994 and 1995.

He stated that he was the first American to take up residence in Baku, Azerbaijan in the early 1990s. He noted that during this period Azerbaijan was in danger of becoming a failed state. The confirmation of significant oil and gas deposits along the Caspian shores of the country, and indeed throughout much of the Caspian basin, changed everything. Suddenly a country many had written off was playing host to a who’s who of oil and gas companies from around the world, including the industry’s giants, according to Goltz. Money was no longer a problem for the government in Baku, he said.

He showed two videotapes which he produced for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) detailing the horrors of the Chechnyan war and of the conflict in Georgia between the government and those seeking to form a separate nation in the breakaway region of Abkhazia, something which Georgian leader Edward Sheverdnadze would not tolerate.

Goltz’ first-hand reporting from a bloody battle for a farm town in Chechnya was quite chilling, while his subsequent search for the exiled villager who had led the defense of the town was very compelling. He has written a book about his experiences, Azberbaijan Diary, which he made available at his talk.

—Michael S. Lee

The New Arab Media, Satellite TV, and the Internet

Dr. Jon Alterman, program officer in the Research and Studies Program at the United States Institute of Peace, discussed the implications for Arab policies of recent developments in satellite TV and the Internet at the Middle East Institute in Washington, DC March 11. Alterman, author of New Media, New Politics, pointed out that while faxes and phone lines can be monitored and printed material can be impounded, satellite TV and the Internet take users outside the realm of government censorship.

Satellite dishes have the potential to change the Arab world, Alterman predicted. Viewers from all over the Middle East have discovered the Qatari TV station El Jazira. Some call it “politically salacious” while others commend it for the variety of views expressed. As a result of this station and others picked up by a growing number of satellite dishes, there is a new political order in the region, Alterman said. News flows unimpeded across borders, and often the regional media’s information may contradict that of the national media. At that point a government needs to justify, not just impose, policies.

With Arab countries getting the same information at the same time, there can be common identity building, Alterman explained, just as Britons, Canadians and Americans can all share a cultural identity when enjoying Monty Python films. By sharing a regional pan-Arab media, people can share an Arab cultural identity and political disunity may end, Alterman said. Governments will have to provide complete transparency to maintain their credibility. They’ll also have to respond to and seek to shape public opinion.

On the other hand, Alterman remarked, television has shifted from an educational role to an entertainment role, with TV providing spectacle instead of analysis. Stations are having difficulty financing programs. Arab audiences aren’t yet a good target for advertising and marketing is not so advanced, Alterman contends, so many stations turn to governments to cover their losses. Governments can prevent themselves from being criticized, but if they try to exert influence with their stations in the only way they know, the old rules no longer apply; the viewer will merely point his dish in a different direction.

Aziz Fahmy, chief correspondent for the Middle East Broadcasting Company in Washington, DC said that before the Gulf war there was no Arab TV news and a large credibility gap between Iraq’s propaganda machine and other Arab government presses. In the first four days of Iraq’s occupation of Kuwait, there was a news blackout. As a result all Arabic TV stations started airing CNN. That proved government-owned media didn’t work.

If there is a hot story, there will be competition for the news, Fahmy said. Another station will report it even if yours does not, and you’ll lose viewers. Freedom of the press is advanced through this competition, Fahmy concluded.

Mohannad Khatib, vice president of Interlink Corporation, a TV production company specializing in Arabic-language programs, discussed the financial viability of stations. At a cost of $60 to $70 million a year to run a satellite network, most stations are closely affiliated with a Gulf state to help finance themselves. As a result, they do not have a totally independent editorial policy.

Turning to the Internet, Alterman said it may not have the same impact as satellite dishes. Discussion groups on the Internet can involve dialogue between expatriate Arabs living abroad and Arabs in the Middle East, with no restrictions. But it is easy to monitor the sites an individual visits, if someone really wants to.

Also, many Arabs cannot read and write in English, the predominant language of the Internet. Web browsers and search engines can retrieve in English and translate into Arabic. That software is still expensive, however, as is Internet access in the Middle East.

—Delinda C. Hanley

Photographs from Ein el Hilweh Refugee Camp

Peter Fryer is a British photo-journalist with a mission. Having lived and worked for many years among the Palestinian refugees dispersed in Lebanon, Syria and Jordan, he was commissioned in 1997 by Save the Children UK to conduct photography workshops for children in the Ein el Hilweh camp in southern Lebanon. As part of a national tour, Fryer spoke April 13 at the Center for Policy Analysis on Palestine in Washington, DC, where he showed slides of his own and the children’s work.

In his black-and-white photographs, Fryer tries to counter the prevailing images of terrorists and stone-throwing shibab by showing the families and faces of Palestinian refugees. “If I can’t talk to and communicate with people when I’m taking their photograph, it’s not worth taking,” he says.

Fryer quoted a resident of the Rashdiya camp near Sur in southern Lebanon who described himself as “50 miles and 50 years away from my homeland.” In addition to showing the connection between the villages they fled in Palestine and their present situation, Fryer often collects stones from their home villages to take to his friends in southern Lebanon. “Stones don’t set off metal detectors,” he observed.

The same theme that underlies Fryer’s own work formed the basis of the Save the Children project: “It’s about identity,” Fryer stated. “I don’t want to teach photographers, I want to empower the children to ask questions...They are the ones who have the ideas.”

The 10- to 15-year-old participants—10 girls and 10 boys—were selected before Fryer arrived at Ein el Hilweh from children who had demonstrated “an enthusiasm for learning.” Each workshop lasted seven days—extended from five at the children’s insistence. “The kids would work four or five hours each morning,” Fryer explained, “take a break, and then shoot their neighborhoods and friends in the afternoon and evening.”

Each night the students would write in their diaries, Fryer said, “about their problems, their families, their villages, what they wanted to do with their lives in the future.”

“This is the fourth generation of children to live in Ein el Hilweh,” Fryer reminded the audience. He told how, when asking a group of kids what they wanted to be, among the usual responses of doctor, nurse or pilot, one young girl said, “I would like to be a tourist.”

Save the Children UK, with $400,000 in funding from the British lottery, is organizing two yearly workshops for each of the next four years in Palestine. The project will also have its own Web site, linking Palestinian children with children in the UK.

—Janet McMahon

Senate Briefing on Jerusalem, Christianity and the Holy Land

American Committee on Jerusalem (ACJ) President Dr. Rashid Khalidi and Father Drew Christiansen, S.J., a board member of Holy Land Ecumenical Christian Foundation (HCEF) held a luncheon briefing on Jerusalem April 7 in the Senate’s Hart building on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. They discussed the situation in Jerusalem today as Israeli policies change the character of the city before final status negotiations, and they also described recent Vatican and European Union positions on the city.

The ACJ is a coalition of major Arab-American organizations dedicated to promoting a solution to Jerusalem which accommodates the attachments of the three faiths to the city and the political aspirations of both peoples, Palestinians and Israelis. The HCEF is an organization committed to improving the lives of Christians in the Holy Land by developing bonds of solidarity between them and Christians in the United States.

Dr. Khalidi, who is director of Middle East Studies at the University of Chicago, said the position of the world community, including the United States, is that “the status of Jerusalem today is unresolved and open to negotiation,” and that “East Jerusalem is occupied territory. As such, it is subject to the terms of U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, which calls for Israeli withdrawal from occupied territory in exchange for peace. Moreover,” he continued, “under the terms of the 4th Geneva Convention, it is illegal for the occupying power to settle its population there,” a position “recently reaffirmed by the European Union and the Vatican.

“While all of Jerusalem has been under Israeli jurisdiction since 1967,” Dr. Khalidi continued, “it remains a deeply divided, segregated city where Palestinians are subject to gross discrimination. This includes the demolition of Palestinian homes, 162 of which were destroyed in East Jerusalem since 1993, and where as many as 2,000 Palestinian homes have been demolished since 1967.” Khalidi said, “By confiscating their ID cards, Israel has forced thousands of native-born Palestinians out of their city. In housing, sanitation, roads, school, medical services, and other aspects of municipal life, Palestinians are second-class citizens.”

Dr. Khalidi discussed Palestinian national aspirations in Jerusalem, which Palestinians, like Israelis, see as their national capital and the symbol of their national existence. Palestinian institutions in Jerusalem are subject to harassment and closure, he said, while the city’s economy is strangled by Israeli closure policies preventing West Bank and Gaza Strip Palestinians from entering Jerusalem. More than two million Palestinian Christian and Muslim residents of the Holy Land are denied free access to their sacred sites in Jerusalem, which is a flagrant violation of their freedom to worship. Entry permits for Palestinians are hard to obtain even on major religious holidays.

Israel seeks “to efface as much as possible its Arab character, whether Islamic or Christian,” Khalidi told the audience, taking away land (over a third of East Jerusalem and 40 percent of West Jerusalem after 1948) and using discriminatory efforts in archeology, tourism, museums, urban planning and zoning.

ACJ calls for a lasting equitable solution in Jerusalem based upon these provisions: 1) No monopoly over sovereignty in Jerusalem for either side. Jerusalem can be capital to both countries. 2) Palestinians and Israelis must have full and equal rights in all aspects of municipal governance. 3) No religion and no nationality can be privileged or pre-eminent in Jerusalem.

In his remarks, Father Drew Christiansen, senior fellow at Georgetown University, talked about the “rapid disappearance of the Christian population in the land of Jesus.” In the Palestinian self-rule areas the Christian population has shrunk from about 10 percent of the total 50 years ago to about 2 percent. He blamed Israeli policies for the diminished Christian numbers. “Chief among these have been the withdrawal from Palestinians of Jerusalem residency permits and the denial of building permits for construction, expansion and repair of housing in the Old City and East Jerusalem,” Father Christiansen said. Because many have ties or relatives in the West, Christians have emigrated to escape the hardships of life under occupation.

Father Christiansen said Israeli accusations that the Palestinian Authority has orchestrated Christian persecution are wrong. The PA has been firm in dealing with any anti-Christian actions.

Spelling out the views of the Holy See on Jerusalem, he called for “a special stature for Jerusalem, which would affirm the city’s universal religious significance as home to three monotheistic religions.” Guarantees should include 1) equal rights and services of adherents of the three faiths in Jerusalem; 2) the three religious communities should be able to function freely in all dimensions of their communal lives; and 3) they should have freedom of access to the holy places for all pilgrims, local (i.e., Palestinians) as well as international.

Both speakers agreed the question of Jerusalem is “eminently resolvable.” The way the world resolves this problem will be the way conflicts will be solved in the next millennium, they predicted.

—Delinda C. Hanley

Villanova University Symposium on “Iraq: History, People and Politics”

Several hundred people attended a two-day April 9 and 10 symposium on Iraq at Villanova University, near Philadelphia. The extensive program was designed to provide background for the difficult political decisions which must be made by the United States and other United Nations members to halt what most of the speakers described as the “genocide” resulting from present United Nations sanctions imposed on that historic country.

The symposium was organized by Dr. Sayed Omran, director of Villanova’s center for Arab and Islamic studies and Dr. Shams Inati of the Villanova faculty. The audience, which included many students and faculty members from the several universities in the area, were welcomed to the program by Rev. Kail Ellis, the university’s dean of arts and sciences.

The first panel, which considered Iraq’s “History and Civilization,” was moderated by Dr. Thomas Ricks of Villanova. Dr. McGuire Gibson of the University of Chicago, who has done extensive field archeology work in Iraq, spoke on “Ancient Mesopotamia, World Heritage under Threat.” Dr. Shams Inati led the audience through “Baghdad in the Golden Age: A Historical Tour,” and Dr. Hala Fattah provided “a Historical Overview of Modern Iraq, up to and Including the Saddam Regime.”

Speakers at the second panel on “Cultural Dimensions,” moderated by Dr. Omran, included Dr. Muhammad as-Sa’dun of Ohio State University, a prominent Iraqi artist, who provided an introduction, with slides, to “Contemporary Iraqi Art”; Dr. Hussein Kadhim of Dartmouth University, who discussed “Iraqi Literary Contributions”; and Dr. Shahrazad Qasim Hasan of Nanterre University of Paris, whose presentation on “Performance of Urban Music in Baghdad,” included recordings.

Banquet speakers were the Rt. Rev. Thomas J. Gumbleton, auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Detroit, and former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, both of whom gave eyewitness accounts of the death and suffering in Iraq as a direct result of the continued U.N. sanctions, for which they placed primary responsibility on the United States.

The second day’s session opened with a showing of the film “The Children are Dying: Stop the Sanctions.” The film charges that 570,000 Iraqi children had died as of December 1995 as a result of the sanctions.

The third panel on “Sanctions and Their Impact” was moderated by Dr. William Werpehowski of Villanova University. Speakers included Dr. Asad Baker of the University of Illinois at Chicago, who spoke on “the Crisis of Deformity and Death”; Rania Masri of North Carolina State University, who spoke on “Ecological Decay, a Serious Consequence of the Sanctions”; Dr. Abbas al-Nasrawi of the University of Vermont, who spoke on “Sanctions and the Economy”; and Rev. G. Simon Harak, S.J., and Kathy Kelly, founder and coordinator of Voices in the Wilderness, who vividly described their personal observations in Iraq since the imposition of sanctions.

The fourth panel, “Unity in Diversity,” was moderated by Dr. Samira Hajj of New York University. Speakers were Dr. Laith Kubba of Al-Khoei Foundation, who described “The Socio-Political Culture”; Rev. Sarhad Jammo, vicar general of U.S. Chaldeans, who spoke on “The Iraqi Christian Community at a Crossroad”; Dr. Edmund Gharib, of American University in Washington, DC, who spoke on “The Kurdish Issue”; and Dr. Joice Wiley, University of South Carolina, who spoke on “The Iraqi Shiites.”

The final panel on “Regional and International Politics” was moderated by Dr. Hafeez Malik of Villanova University. Speakers included Dr. Naseer Aruri of the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth, who spoke on “Iraq and the U.S.”; Richard Curtiss of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, who spoke on “Iraq in the Regional Context”; Edwardo Cohen of the Other Americas Radio Journal, who spoke on “News Coverage of Iraq in U.S. Media”; and Dr. Atif Kubursi of McMaster University, who spoke on “Water and Oil Never Mix, Except in Iraq.”

Co-sponsors with a number of departments of Villanova University were the American Friends Service Committee and the (Quaker) Peace and Concerns Standing Committee of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting.

—Donna Bourne