Articles
December 2011, Pages 46-48
New York City and Tri-State News
Longtime Journalist Describes Iranians as Most Pro-American People in Middle East
By Jane Adas
Scott Peterson, who has covered the Middle East for The Christian Science Monitor for more than 15 years, currently is the newspaper's bureau chief in Istanbul. He is also a photographer for Getty Images and author of Let the Swords Encircle Me: Iran—a Journey Behind the Headlines, and in a Sept. 28 appearance at Princeton University he discussed "Iran and the Arab Spring."
Through his photographs of people in a variety of situations, Peterson sought to provide a fuller view of life in Iran than what he described as the one-dimensional, demonizing image that bipartisan politicians and the mainstream media serve up in the U.S. Although Americans imagine Iranians to be screaming "Death to America" at every opportunity, Peterson said he has found Iranians to be the most pro-American people in the Middle East. He was in Tehran the night in 1998 when Iran defeated the U.S. to win soccer's World Cup. The street erupted with joy, he recalled. When a small group of men approached with American flags to burn, people in the crowd pushed them away—but took the flags and waved them as well.
For three decades, Iran's 1979 revolution that deposed the shah was the only example in the region of people power overthrowing a regime, Peterson noted. He described Iranians as "proud of their template" and dismissive of their Sunni Arab neighbors still living under dictatorships—even though many Iranians have since viewed their revolution as hijacked by neoconservative elements within the country. Then came the 2009 election when, in spite of an 85 percent turnout—the only statistic that can be trusted, according to Peterson—President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared the winner of a second term by two to one. Millions took to the streets, but this time people power "was crushed and put on ice." Since then, Peterson has not been allowed to return to Iran.
Although it did not succeed, Iran's experience in 2009 was instructive for Arabs. Peterson cited two lessons: the democracy activists' use of social media, and what can happen when a regime is ruthless and not afraid to kill its own people. Official Iran's reaction to the nonviolent revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia was to celebrate them as an "Islamic Awakening." Peterson depicted the popular attitude among Iranians as both consternation and certainty that the pro-democracy movement will eventually get to their country. He told of a cartoon that shows Ayatollah Khamenei pushing a row of dominoes—the first labeled Tunisia, then Egypt, and so on—but the dominoes are arranged in a circle. Giving the example of an interview with a soldier confessing great shame over his actions in 2009, Peterson noted that the government's brutality that year created such internal problems that it no longer can count on its security forces to crush the next movement.
Palestinian Statehood? Implications Of a U.N. Resolution
The Ralph Bunche Institute held an Oct. 4 forum at the CUNY Graduate Center on "Palestine Statehood? Implications of a U.N. Resolution." Center director Thomas Weiss posed the question, "Why, at this time, did President Abbas present an application for membership in the U.N.?" to a panel comprising a Palestinian, an Israeli, and a career U.N. diplomat.
Prof. Ghassan Shabaneh, whose research is on building Palestinian statehood, posited the goal of a global forum in which Israel no longer can act with impunity and will be held accountable for its actions. He views the U.N. bid as Abbas' apology to the Palestinian people for the failure of Oslo.
Prof. Dov Waxman, co-author of Israel's Palestinians: The Crisis Within, described Israel's fears, which he considers exaggerated: legal accountabity, which Israelis call lawfare, and increased diplomatic isolation. Now that Palestine's application is "in committee" at the Security Council, Waxman added, Israelis feel they have dodged a bullet because the delay will take away any momentum. Waxman acknowledged that the Quartet has outlived its usefulness, the Road Map is defunct, and the peace process has been a charade. What is needed, he concluded, is an alternative framework—but he thinks nothing is likely to happen until after the American elections.
Alvaro de Soto recently ended a 25-year career at the United Nations during which he led negotiations that brought an end to the war in El Salvador. He then turned to Cyprus and the Middle East. His 2007 End of Mission Report condemning the U.S. for Middle East failures caused a stir when it was leaked to the press.
De Soto views Abbas as a negotiator by nature rather than a man of confrontation, and suspects he went to the U.N. with great reluctance, compelled by a confluence of three circumstances. To debunk the argument that Palestinians are not fit to have their own state, Prime Minister Salam Fayyad began building institutions, which have now been certified by the World Bank. Second, the Obama administration demanded that Israel freeze settlement construction as a precondition to negotiations, something the Palestinians had never done. The Palestinians couldn't be less pro-Palestinian than the U.S. president, De Soto reasoned, so Abbas had no choice but to insist on the same. Then Obama backed down, leaving Abbas hanging. Third, the Arab Spring could not bypass Palestine.
De Soto characterized the Israeli and U.S. argument that Palestine going to the U.N. is incompatible with negotiations as completely illogical. Even if Palestine becomes a member state, he pointed out, the situation will still require negotiations. According to De Soto, a rule of diplomacy is that when a problem seems intractable, change the context. This may already be happening with the Arab Spring, where Israel's neighbors will now take public opinion into account. In this changed context, De Soto concluded, creating conditions that make negotiations almost impossible is suicidal, driving off a cliff with the U.S. playing Thelma to Israel's Louise.
Marwan Bishara at Princeton
Marwan Bishara, Al-Jazeera's senior political analyst and author of the upcoming book The Invisible Arab, presented "an analytical journey" of the 20-year peace process at Princeton on Oct. 6. Bishara identified problematical aspects built into the process. Neither side thought the timing was advantageous, he noted—Palestine, with the Cold War ended and the PLO discredited during Bush, Sr.'s Gulf war, felt too weak; Israel, "not convinced by the limits of its victory," believed that with more time it could extract even more gains. For both, Bishara said, "the peace process was a continuation of the conflict by means of negotiations." Therefore, with neither side willing to commit to an end game, the process remained transitional, proceeding by steps with seven interim agreements that achieved very little.
The U.S. exacerbated the situation because, as Israel's closest ally, it is not an honest broker. Asked if Washington should impose a solution with sticks and carrots, Bishara responded that it is geopolitically not acceptable for Israel's best ally to impose anything. He recommended that the best role for Washington would be to admit failure and back off. At the least, it should stop throwing wrenches in the international movement, such as using its veto in the Security Council on Israel's orders.
Bishara views the Arab Spring as the "Palestinization of the Arab world." He acknowledged that Arab dictators have exploited the question of Palestine for their own legitimacy, but argued they were able to do so successfully because Palestine is a central concern in the Arab world; with more democracy, the people will be even more pro-Palestinian. This is why, Bishara explained, those who formerly preached democracy, such as Natan Sharansky who so influenced George W. Bush, are now in a state of panic, and why Palestinian hopes and imagination are higher than ever in both the Islamist and nationalist trends.
Meanwhile, Israeli society has undergone radicalization, with the political center having moved rightward. Settlers are now part of the political establishment, Bishara pointed out, with 16 members of the Knesset and 4 cabinet ministers living in illegal settlements. The settlements have expanded so massively—from a population of 75,000 in 1991 to more than 300,000 in the West Bank alone, not counting East Jerusalem—that Bishara considers separation in two separate, contiguous states impossible without serious ethnic cleansing. Nor does he think it likely that settlers will agree either to be evacuated or to become citizens of a Palestinian state. Therefore Bishara sees no way out any time soon. "We will need all the help we can get from peace-loving people," he concluded, "and also some miracles."
"A Separation" Screened at New York Film Festival
Iranian director Asghar Farhadi's outstanding film "A Separation" was screened at this year's New York Film Festival. Voted Best Film at the 2011 Berlin International Film Festival, where Best Actress and Best Actor awards went to the entire female and male ensembles, it is Iran's official entry for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. In introducing "A Separation," Farhadi asked the audience to put aside any preconceptions and to forget what country the film is coming from. Critics have described it as a marital drama, a film about morality, a legal thriller, a coming-of-age film; Farhadi calls it "a detective story without any detectives."
The film depicts an urban, middle-class couple on the point of separating. When the wife moves to her parents' house, their 11-year-old daughter remains with her father. He must then find someone to take care of his Alzheimer-stricken father while he is at work in a bank. Razieh, a pregnant working-class woman, takes the position, bringing her young daughter to work with her and not telling her out-of-work husband. Troubles ensue, of the sort familiar to humanity everywhere. Pride leads to mistakes of words said and unsaid. Most remarkable is how Farhadi treats each of these honorable but flawed characters with empathy. The wise viewer will neither presume, nor be quick to judge.
Those bringing an agenda to the film will interpret it through their particular lens. One critic, an evident feminist, sees Razieh as a drudge who "gets no respect and is oppressed by her own religious sense." Another decides the film is a "depiction of national alienation in Iran." When asked if European responses were different from Iranian ones, however, Farhadi responded that they were not—that similarities between people of different cultures were greater than their differences. "It's politicians who try to present people as different from each other," he added.
Already a huge success in Iran and Europe, "A Separation" will be released in the U.S. by Sony Pictures Classics on Dec. 30.
Jane Adas is a free-lance writer based in the New York City metropolitan area.
