Category Archives: Arab-Israeli Conflict

Paul on Gaza

Arab-Israeli Conflict, Israel, Palestine, YouTube Watch

The election circus is over for another four years; at least it is less a rhetorical political cliff than a slippery slope. But I recently came across a C-Span Youtube video of Representative Ron Paul (who is sure to run again for the GOP nod) speaking in congress in 2009 against a resolution to support Israel’s invasion into Gaza (which is why he will never win). It is well worth viewing again, politics aside. You can see it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Yb3vF6Vcjr0#!

Nader on Gaza

Arab-Israeli Conflict, Israel, Palestine


Palestinians gather around an enormous crater after an Israeli air strike levelled a building in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip; photograph for REUTERS by Ibraheem Abu Mustafa

Israel-Palestine: What is the U.S. National Interest?

By Ralph Nader, The Nader Page, Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Israeli elections are coming up in January so it is Palestinian hunting season again. Israeli cynics call it a time “for mowing the grass.”

Out comes the well-worn playbook by Israel’s militaristic government that has worked to silence Israeli politicians and citizens who want a two-state solution. This is an opportunity to use and test advanced weaponry from the U.S., compliments of U.S. taxpayers, and squelch ongoing peace efforts, small and large, by Palestinians, Israelis and international peace advocates.

The playbook’s first chapter is provocation to upset a tense but workable truce with Hamas, the elected government of Gaza. Hamas was encouraged at its creation years ago by both Israeli and U.S. backers to counter the secular Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Bit of a blowback there.

Israeli government leaders are expert provocateurs when they wish to seize land, water or prisoners and upset any movement toward a peace that would create a viable Palestinian state back to the 1967 borders, which includes East Jerusalem. When Israel came into being in 1948, it soon broke a UN truce and doubled its territory by taking the large area known as the Negev desert, whose refugees ended up in the Gaza Strip. Now 1.6 million encircled and impoverished humans, blockaded and under siege by Israel, try to survive in an open-air prison little more than twice the size of the District of Columbia.

Israel’s strategy of breaking cease-fires and truces over the years has been documented by Princeton University history professor emeritus, Arno J. Mayer, in his scholarly book Plowshares into Swords: From Zionism to Israel (Verso, 2008). Continue reading Nader on Gaza →

Kicking the Palestinian down (the Road)

Arab-Israeli Conflict, Election 2012, Israel, Palestine


“The Bearer of Burdens” painting by Suleiman Mansour

Candidates ignore plight of Palestinians
By Nadia Hijab, The Hill, October 25, 2012

As a Palestinian-American, I awaited the presidential debate on foreign policy with anticipation, given the massive U.S. military footprint in the region of my birth.

I confess to being torn in my attitude to the candidates. From a Palestinian perspective, I know there is little difference: Neither would take effective steps to end Israel’s 45-year occupation, challenge its illegal building of settlements, or shake its draconian hold on Jerusalem.

Their record speaks for itself. President Barack Obama soon gave up on the Israeli settlement freeze he pushed early in his tenure. American and Israeli troops are even now participating in a joint missile-defense exercise The New York Times described as “the largest in the history of the two countries’ relationship.” Continue reading Kicking the Palestinian down (the Road) →

Academic Freedom and Professional Responsibility

"Arab Spring", Anthropology/Sociology, Arab-Israeli Conflict, Islamophobia, Teaching Resources, Terrorism Issue


“Death of Socrates” by Jacques-Louis David, 1787, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Academic Freedom and Professional Responsibility:
A Handbook for Scholars and Teachers of the Middle East

Attempts to undermine professors’ abilities to teach and do research are increasingly directed at scholars who seek to provide a contextualized and critical view of recent international developments and their interaction with US foreign policies and practices.

The first draft of the handbook was based on research undertaken by the Taskforce on Middle East Anthropology to understand available institutional resources, as well as on ethnographic interviews conducted with academics who have encountered obstacles in their teaching and scholarship. The handbook was revised in 2012 by a group of current graduate students and recent PhDs in Middle East Anthropology, at the behest of the original handbook committee.

The revision aimed to evaluate the current atmosphere of academic freedom via a survey distributed to faculty and graduate students studying the Middle East, update the document to reflect legal changes that impact the ability of academics to carry out their scholarship and teaching, review major controversies over academic freedom since the original version of the handbook was published, and update links, citations, and contact information.

The handbook provides concrete suggestions for how to respond to attacks on academic freedom and to avoid them in the first place. It considers the potentials and limitations of internal university structures, professional organizations, legal recourse, and media outlets. Finally, it contains useful pedagogical tools for dealing with difficulties in the classroom, and an informative bibliography of recent writings on academic freedom.

“Academic Freedom and Professional Responsibility: A Handbook for Scholars and Teachers of the Middle East” (2012). Click here for information on how to download a pdf of this report.

Romney up against the wall

"Arab Spring", Apocalypse Watch, Arab-Israeli Conflict, Election 2012, Israel, Journalism and Media, Palestine


The gaffes of Republican nominee Mitt Romney have put him up against the wall several times, including the Wall Street Journal op-ed pages. But his latest “stump” in Israel, with the obligatory picture of Romney at the Wailing Wall, has even brought out a critique from the New York Times editorial page. Romney is visiting Israel and veering hard to the right, even outdoing the neocons that fueled our invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Here is what the editorial says, followed by my own comments.

Mr. Romney Stumps in Israel

Mitt Romney made a point of insisting that he would adhere to an unwritten rule and often violated rule about candidates not criticizing each other or contradicting American foreign policy on foreign soil. About the only effort he made to keep that promise during his stop in Israel was to avoid mentioning President Obama by name.

Beyond that, with some of the biggest investors in Republican politics in tow, Mr. Romney made no effort to disguise the target and intent of rhetoric that was certainly inflammatory but largely free of any sense of how we would carry out policies he was championing.

The message — on Iran, Jerusalem, the Palestinians — was all anti-Obama: Mr. Romney would be a much better friend to Israel than Mr. Obama ever could be. He would be much tougher on Iran. He would recognize Jerusalem as the capital. For good measure, he insulted the Palestinians by declaring that cultural differences — not decades under Israeli occupation — are the reason Israelis are more successful economically. It’s hard to say how this could affect policy if he were president, but it is not encouraging.

The real audience for Mr. Romney’s tough talk was American Jews and evangelical Christians, some of whom accompanied him on his trip. He is courting votes and making an aggressive pitch to donors, including Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire casino magnate with the hard-line pro-Israel views who is spending more money than any other American — $100 million — to defeat Mr. Obama. Continue reading Romney up against the wall →

Where is the salam dunk?

"Arab Spring", Arab-Israeli Conflict, Egypt, Ethics, Terrorism Issue


The epitome of Arabic greetings is salam alaykum, peace be upon you, but it seems that the Middle East harbors more harb (war) than peace these days. It can be argued that this is hardly new for a region that has seen more warfare over time than any other. Perhaps the characterization of the region as the Holy Land has as much to do with the amount of human blood spilled on its soil as for the number of prophets preaching peace. But today’s news cycle is particularly sad because nowhere does there seem to be much hope for furthering the peace that most people are dying to achieve. The violence drones on and on.

As former President Mubarak lies in a coma, many Egyptians are once again flooding Tahrir Square to contest the military’s coup-like takeover of political power, although perhaps it should be styled a makeover, since they have held de facto power all along and will continue to do so no matter who is elected. To Egypt’s south far less individuals took to the streets in Khartoum, protesting the Sudanese government. Although Somalia has been pushed out of the major news cycle, the situation there remains as volatile as ever. Crossing over into Sinai, an Israeli construction worker was killed a few days ago and in the escalating tension Hamas has fired rockets at Israel and Israel has launched air raids in Gaza. Syrian violence continues but without the pretense of powerless monitors and the repaired helicopters that were being shipped from Russia. In Iraq pilgrims continue to be targets of bombs and pay for their devotion with their lives. In Yemen the military commander of the brigade that drove Ansar al-Sharia out of their southern base was killed earlier in the week by a suicide bomber. Even in Turkey there has been recent violence from Kurdish nationalists.

Long ago one of the prophets in this region said the immortal words: Blessed are the peacemakers. But how can they be blessed if they are absent? Why does the curse of the warmakers seem to outweigh efforts at peace? If Indeed we recently witnessed an “Arab Spring,” the reality is that spring is part of a seasonal cycle and not eternal. The “fall” of dictatorial regimes is still playing out, but the cold sectarian winds blowing out hopes for peace and the frosted rhetoric of intolerance do not bode well for the tender blossoming of sought freedoms. The region needs a Gandhi, not an Osama or an Assad. The region needs a salam dunk, not a harb to the right. But, if history is any gauge, there will still be no blessings to confer in tomorrow’s news cycle.

How much more blood will be spilled?

"Arab Spring", Afghanistan, Arab-Israeli Conflict, Egypt, Iraq, Israel, Libya, Palestine, Syria, Tunisia


Painting of St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre by François Dubois, a Huguenot painter born circa 1529 in Amiens

Here in America summer is well on its way as most colleges have already finished their spring terms, public schools will in less than a month and the beaches start to fill up. People will complain about the high price of gas and brace themselves for an onslaught of political advertising in which billions of dollars that might have helped the poor abroad will be wasted on the media madness we foolishly think is democracy at its best. Forget the dream of “one man/woman, one vote” in a system where corporations and billionaires see if they can buy elections in our red state/blue state electorality.

In Egypt the first round of voting is over and what a choice: the Brotherhood candidate or the old regime hack. Damn those Brits for not letting Saad Zaghlul take Egypt into the 20th century. Imagine if the map drawn up after World War I on that infamous Churchillian napkin had actually given autonomy to the various ethnic groups, including the Kurds, in the region instead of mandating the old Ottoman precincts. The protests that erupted over a year ago just about everywhere have a long fuse. Yes, the last dictators have fallen in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and Yemen. But the future in all these countries is full of potholes that the IMF will not be able to pave over; nor will Saudi billions make life all that much better for the millions of people suffering economic hardship more than ever.

And the blood keeps spilling, a flood only matched by the tears of those who mourn the dead. Continue reading How much more blood will be spilled? →