June 5, 1967 My Zero Hour

 My memory recedes with the passing of the years. I have few memories before June 5, 1967. I have very vague memories of the day of the move to Ma`adi in 1964; another memory of huddling up in my parents’ room listening in total silence to Oum Kalthoum sing Inta Omry for the first time, as my father had a microphone in front of small transistor radio connected to a reels recorder. I remember sitting with my grandmother on a sofa hand feeding chicks and then remember being at the family cemetery where she was buried in 1966. Other than these tidbits, I remember nothing, but then I have vivid memories starting from the 1967 war.

I remember the euphoria of impending victory over Israel and the patriotic songs on the morning of the 5th of June.  I remember the civil defense volunteers and the shouts of “taffi ennour” to turn off the lights. I remember having all the windows covered with blue paper and tape. I remember the sonic booms, the sound of distant explosions and the sounds of the anti aircraft guns.

We lived on the very edge of Cairo, immediately behind our house, literally adjacent was a military camp with anti aircraft guns. I was later told that those were so old, dating to WWII. On the 3rd or 4th day of the war an Israeli plane flew so low over our house, I was on a second floor balcony, I still remember how close it was. 

I can’t remember exactly when it became clear that we, Egypt, lost the war, but I remember sitting in the dark watching president Nasser’s speech and my late brother shouting back at the TV, no you can’t resign now. I remember loud terrifying sounds of sonic booms and the heavy thud of bombing immediately after the end of the speech. 

June 5, 1967 was the beginning of forming who I was. I remember the various events that ensued from the suicide of of the minister of defense, to the downing of an Egyptian civilian jet coming back from Libya by the Israelis, the plane had on it the mother of one of the kids in the area. 

The War of Attrition that followed the original war, lasted for over two years, lots of sonic booms over Cairo, fear of Israelis exploding bridges over the Nile. An elementary school had some 248 children killed in the delta, got me convinced that Israel could target us. Whenever we heard the air raid sirens or sonic booms, it was sheer terror. I was more frightened of being targeted at the school than at home, adjacent to the military camp. Only few years ago, I read that Israel apologized for the bombing of the elementary school as a mistake, no one told me then.

These events, a very long time ago, still have a profound effect on who I’m today. Yet, I was extremely lucky, I was far away from any actual bombing, I didn’t see any rubble,no blood. I think of the people of Gaza, the children, people young and old, who seem to live through real and immediate hell and I can only imagine the lifelong effect.

This morning, I was reading an account of the Palestine Riots of 1921, some 200 people died, those were perhaps some of the earliest deaths post the Balfour Declaration. A full 100 years later and sadly, it doesn’t not seem like the wars and the killings will stop anytime soon.

Ayman S. Ashour

The War Against Palestine

The ongoing tragedy of Gaza ignites a mixture of feelings of deep sadness and anguish. Israel’s daily demonstration of brutality and military ferocity fills our screens with images of the sufferings of innocent, helpless people. Civilian casualties are facts of war; however, the ratio of civilian deaths and injuries caused by Israel’s highly trained and well-equipped military is mind numbingly high. While the Israeli Government is indeed entitled to launch war to protect its citizens, it seems conveniently to forget that it also has the ultimate responsibility for protecting the citizens of the occupied territories. Israel, with the support of the USA and the international community, has refused to accept an independent Palestinian State without a comprehensive peace agreement and, accordingly, Israel, is responsible for protecting the civilians of Palestine. Hamas, a terrorist organization, actually has no legal standing and no responsibility towards the people of Gaza, Israel does! What ratio of inadvertent civilian deaths does the Government of Israel consider acceptable? And if, Hamas is indeed using innocent civilians as human shield, the question remains the same, what ratio of civilian deaths does Israel consider acceptable, remembering, that Israel, not Hamas, who holds the responsibility for protecting the lives of the non combatants in the occupied territories.

Naturally, when a defenseless population is being so ruthlessly attacked, any force fighting back is seen as righteous and courageous resistance. While the resurgent anti Islamist wave has caused many in the Arab World to turn a blind eye towards the suffering in Gaza and blame Hamas for it, indeed a small loud minority has actually been voicing support for Israel. Yet, the majority of Arab and Muslim people have again been seduced by the daring of Hamas, they are seen as the only force in the Arab World actually standing up to Israeli aggression and defending the defenseless. Once again, Hamas have become heroes and are now being labeled the Resistance. Alas, it is not the State of Israel that Hamas and the so-called Palestinian and Islamic Resistance are resisting, indeed it is Palestine, the State of Palestine is resisted by an unholy alliance of both Hamas and the Israeli right wing Government of Benjamin Netanyahu.

The days of armed resistance against Israel were the days when Israel said there was no such thing as Palestine, when Israeli spin was all about Jordan being the Palestinian state, when Golda Meir told the world, it was she, who was indeed a true Palestinian, but just didn’t like the name Palestine.  All of this came to an end with the Oslo Accords; Israel recognized the Palestinians as people and the road towards the Two State Solution commenced. The Israeli right wing never liked the Two State Solution and neither did Hamas, both rejected it, both for their own distinct reasons. The Israeli hawks fundamentally believe that any sacrifices made by Israel would endanger it needlessly and they believe that time is ultimately, on their side, much like it has been since the Arab rejection of the 1947 UN Partition Plan.  Benjamin Netanyahu articulated his positions over the years, from the days of his youth, when he went by Ben Nitay, to his years in the opposition as a Likud leader; his acceptance of peace in Government has been nothing but mere lip service, his actions speak of his strict adherence to his earlier beliefs.

Moreover, Hamas, unwittingly but with full diligence, does aid the Likud in achieving their objective of thwarting the establishment of a Palestinian state. It is indeed such a sad irony that the military wing of Hamas, named after Izza’din Al- Qassam, a man whose violent anti Jewish hate in the twenties and thirties contributed to the ascent of Jabotinsky and his more exclusive brand of Zionism; Hamas follows in his very same disastrous footsteps. It is hard not to wonder what the shape of Palestine would be today had it not been for the massacre of Jews in Hebron and Safed. For it was only following these tragedies that Nationalist Zionism dominated the Jewish agenda in Palestine. Likud co-opts Hamas’s words and actions again and again to achieve its racist exclusionary goals.

Hamas leadership is keenly aware of the impossibility of eradicating a state that enjoys vast military and technological superiority and has wide backing from world powers. So, what drives Hamas to continue in a winless fight?  Ultimately it is hate! Hate both for the injustice and for those who it sees as responsible for that injustice and hate for Jews.  Hamas leadership has redefined short-term victory to mean the ability to fight submission to the will of Israel; sadly at the expense of the defenseless people of Gaza. Moreover, under Hamas’sdoctrine, no peace is possible without eradicating Israel, so with the current power disparity, the struggle must continue for hundreds of years if need be. Neither side must know or live in peace and normalcy the conflict must remain open-ended. Today, Hamas’s immediate struggle is against the Two State Solution. Such a strange set of goals for a war and, Hamas’s long-term resistance to Israel translates into immediate resistance for the establishment of a Palestinian State!

Many Arabs and Muslims dream of the re-establishment of Palestine in its full historic boundaries and remain invested in the idea of reversing the gross injustice that befell the people of Palestine. Yet, the sons and grandsons of the those Israelis who massacred the Palestinians in 1948 and burnt their villages following their flight are hardly responsible for the crimes of their fathers and grandfathers. Fact is absolute justice is, not only not attainable, but it is also impossible to define and achieve without new major new injustices.

Despite of their difficult lives as refugees, in the 1970’s the Palestinians used to pride themselves for being the most educated amongst Arab people and boasted about having higher percentages of advanced academic degrees than most Arabs. These days are long gone; the refugee camps are over filled and today Palestinians face crises in education, in employment and in healthcare. Today, the Palestinians suffer a great deal for basic human dignity and are becoming poorer every year.  For Palestine from the River to the Sea is a luxury dream, only the ordinary people of Palestine pay for. It is time for the Arab and Muslim intellectuals to speak up for the people of Palestine, whose lives today are ultimately more important than the land and the historic justice.

Rather than counting the number of rockets from Hamas, Israel should be looking at the ratio of explosive power and destruction and ask itself for how long it can escape international justice and accusations of war crimes and genocide, how long can it work to evade the establishment of a Palestine. Hamas cruelty towards the people of Palestine today, resisting the establishment of an independent Palestine in the West Bank and Gaza to keep the conflict going, hoping that future generations can eradicate Israel, is a crime against the people of Palestine who deserve the best they can have now, today!

Ayman S. Ashour

August 3, 2014

In Search of Balance: Al Jazeera Verdict In Egypt Today

A strange mix of feelings of sadness, dismay and anger arise in me as I read seemingly endless attempts from many Egyptians to justify and defend the court ruling against the Al Jazeera journalists in Egypt, here are some of my reflections and thoughts on this:

1. I don't view Al Jazeera Arabic as normal media or press, I view it as enemy state propaganda outlet, it reminds me so much of the Soviet Radio during the years of the cold war, it is pathetic, cheap, non relenting propaganda.

2. Al Jazeera English has many top notch reporters and professionals who have been trying to do a credible job and seem to have more professional more balanced overall editorial management, but they have been used by their Arabic Language sister company mentioned above.

3. I don't believe Al Jazeera English correspondents and other professionals working in Egypt are affiliated with Muslim Brothers, work for them or conspire with them and I don't believe that the evidence against them, I read about in the press, has shown them to be enemies of Egypt.

4. I believe that Egypt is right to arrest, deport and fine those who break its laws.

5. I acknowledge that there are thousands of Egyptian and foreign reporters reporting and writing at times negative and / or highly critical news and analysis of Egypt, yet appear to have not been interfered with, which is good and is indeed a legitimate argument to defend Egypt's position, being focused on Al Jazeera. Yet, the Dutch Journalist, who was being tried in absentia with Al Jazeera staff, appear to have no affiliation with Al Jazeera.

6. It is also very clear that the space for dissent in Egypt is narrowing and we see many Egyptians voices silenced from Bassem Youssif to Belal Fadel and many others. It is hard to deny this as a fact.

7. I have a great deal of sympathy with the view that Egypt is facing a very serious war with a very difficult enemy and that combating the threat of violent terrorism is a TOP priority for Egypt. I do believe that this would naturally have an impact on freedoms. Years in the security industry have taught me the difficulty of balancing issues of security with privacy, convenience and freedoms in general; true in Egypt as it is in USA or Australia.

8. I have a great deal of sympathy with the view that Egypt has always had authoritarian and totalitarian tendencies and desire to curb dissent and the government has had a history of using the worst means to silence liberal non Islamist opposition to protect the ruling regimes, often at the expense of the country itself and its future.  Accordingly, using terrorism as an excuse to suppress freedoms should not be just allowed to happen with no opposition.

9. I do believe it is critical for Egypt, as a state to avoid the collapse that can be witnessed in so many failed states in the Middle East, the examples of Libya, Yemen, Syria and Iraq are chilling and frightening and I have sympathy with the tens of millions of ordinary Egyptians, who are willing to turn blind eye to suppression of freedoms to preserve the State from collapsing.

10. Sadly, I believe that insensitivity by some of the liberal forces in Egypt to the grave Islamist threat that Egypt is facing, is causing them to challenge the State authority. With tens of millions of tired and frightened ordinary Egyptians wanting the State to reestablish its authority, the ill timed courage is resulting in deeper suppression of freedom, with popular consent, this is most distressing of all. My hope is that the vigilance against the excesses of the State would be confronted through means other than the hated and futile street protests.

AA
June 24, 2014

They hate us!

They are horrible to us! they hate us so much, they don’t think of us as humans. It is so deep in them, this hatred; it is very naïve of us to think that we can be at peace with them, that one day we can have a normal relationship with them.

They kill our people indiscriminately, they don’t care if they are killing a young boy or girl, an old man or women, a mother, a disabled person, a pregnant woman

Their hate blinds them so much they just want to wipe us, all of us, out!

And just look at them ..whenever they had the chance to have power over us, they tormented us. They ethnically cleansed their lands of us, they disposed us ...humiliated us!

The only language they understand is power and force. We have to be careful not to get fooled thinking that we can ever have real peace with them, they want more, they want us out, all of us out. They can’t conceive any form of coexistence with us and we can’t coexist with them!

These are virtually the same sentiments, thoughts, words that I get from my friends and acquaintances across the political, religious and ethnic spectrum.

This is what I hear and read from most Jews and Israelis thinking of Palestinians, Arabs or Muslims and, not surprisingly, an identical, word for word, emotion for emotion to what I get from most Palestinians, Egyptians, Muslims, Arabs, etc.

Perhaps awareness of the mutuality of anxiety, anger, uncertainty, fear and sadness driven from these ideas and thoughts of the other, awareness of how identical they are, and the mirror image  on the other side can open some eyes, a small hope for peace in this large sadness of war, fear and hopelessness.

AA

November 18, 2012

Farting Against Thunder

It is a crude British expression, but I can’t shake the image it creates as I think of Gaza. Not only is it a crude expression, it is inappropriate in many important ways. Flatulence may be offensive but it’s generally harmless. Yet the Hamas rockets are more than just offensive, they kill and maim and, no doubt, cause fear, panic and nightmares. Moreover, Hamas rockets are not just innocent or involuntary flatulence, they are deliberate creations that people work very hard to produce, move and launch. Many die for their sake; these are not just simple farts! The rockets are aptly named Qassam, after a man who spent his life in futile fighting and who played a hand in planting seeds of hate beyond his declared targets. Qassam was fighting everyone and everywhere and was engaged in killing innocent civilians; just as his namesake rockets do today.

The image of thunder is also inappropriate. Thunder is not manmade, it is an act of God and it surely is indiscriminate in its effect. Indeed, conspiracy theorists in the Middle East absolve the Arabs in general and the Palestinians in particular of all blame by assigning almost God-like qualities to Israel and the USA. Much like Saddam was said to have invaded Kuwait because the US made him do it, or that Hezbollah was forced into starting the 2006 war in Lebanon by Israel’s manipulation, or that Hamas massacred Fateh in Gaza as part of an Israeli plot to justify the ensuing blockade and misery. The all-powerful USA and Israel are always scheming and plotting and Egyptians, Palestinians, Lebanese or Arabs have no will of their own and merely play their pre ordained role in the theater with Israeli directors and American producers.

What makes the image stick in my mind are the parallels in terms of scale. Thunder is infinitely more powerful than mere flatulence, so as I listened yesterday to the very articulate Bibi Netanyahu recounting the number of rockets to justify the massive Israeli retaliation, I thought that the sheer tonnage of explosives is a much more appropriate measurement rather than just mere numbers. The explosives on all of the Hamas and Jihad rockets over the last ten years may not add up to just one hour of Israeli bombings. Thunder is an act of God, which does not discriminate, so the young innocent helpless sisters and many others are slaughtered by the brutal thunder. The rockets are in a peculiar way similar to flatulence, they damage those around them more than those far from them. They must, however, make the Hamas operatives feel better after they release them.


With nearly 400 people dead, thousands injured and perhaps two million people living days on end in terrible anxiety and fear, would such a silly little expression be appropriate even to think about let alone to write about and share? How can this horrible suffering go on and on and all we get is the same as we’ve seen over the last sixty years? More condemnations of Israel, more arguments from Israel about self defense and more cruel tales of the thousands of innocent civilians being mere collateral damage? Israel: the rockets are awful granted, and they should be condemned, but at what price of Palestinian blood are you willing to stop to eliminate the rockets? Would a thousand dead Palestinians children be too much to eliminate the Qassams for one month? Why only one month? Because surely they will come again! How much cruelty on ordinary people will you dish out to punish Hamas?

For Americans and for the USA, how can we tolerate sitting in silence, witnessing such horror, such massacre? Is this the kind of self defense we had in mind when we supplied Israel with a huge arsenal of deadly weapons? Does Israel need our latest technology for this? What ratio of innocent civilian to Hamas fighter deaths are we unwilling to accept? Haven’t we finally learnt in Iraq that we save more of our troops by working harder to protect the ordinary people?

And Hamas, how many dead Palestinian children is it worth for you to keep launching rockets? Do you want all Gazans to suffer so your fighters can savor the joy of killing one or two Israeli kids every month? Is the total destruction of Gaza and the killing and maiming of thousands of Palestinians worth it, so that you can just carry on with your rockets?

December 31, 2008
AA

Selling Out in Boston

I am sitting at a large table covered with nice white cloth, laid out for three course dinners for ten guests. Only eight of us are at the table and two empty seats are to my left. A cheerful man comes and sits to my left and introduces himself in English. Even though this is an Arab American gathering, perhaps the vast majority doesn’t actually speak Arabic, many are second and third generations, few are even fourth and fifth generation. We are in Boston, the roots of the Arab American community run somewhat deeper than many may believe; Boston had more Arabic language newspapers in the 1890’s than most cities in the Arab speaking Middle East.

The cheerful man is from Lebanon originally, must have been in the US for at least twenty years. I am never very good judging age but he could be anywhere between thirty five and forty five with graying hair and a constant smile with a very friendly demeanor. We speak of Lebanon I tell him of my time in Beirut as a child pre and in the very early days of the civil war. For three years, I spent my long summer holidays and sometimes also winter breaks in Beirut where my father worked at the time. I mostly have very fond memories of Lebanon. The Israeli sonic booms were scary, the PLO or other factions check points were even to me then as a child not so scary but strange. With my Egyptian Arabic language giving my origin away easily, I felt that I had to bear the brunt of Egypt’s disengagement agreement with Israel in 1974, it got better when I learnt to sound more like the Lebanese.

Back to Boston, so I am chatting with my new neighbor about the “old country”, always a favorite topic in a gathering like this for both immigrants like two of us and even those who have known no other country but the USA. He asks, have you been to Lebanon recently? I said I have not, but I have such great memories, I used to walk all over the city and I recite several names of districts and other landmarks. I then mention that going to Tel Aviv and Haifa earlier this year somehow reminded me of Beirut a lot. This was the end of the chit chat and we plunged deep into a political discussion.

My new friend, while not a Palestinian, is not about to “sell” the Palestinians “out”. Wham ..here, it comes, so my visit to Israel is “selling out” Palestine? My friend came to the dinner with progressive Jews who did not “sell out”. He is Lebanese, he could just ignore Palestine and “sell out”. Well my friend, I feel deeply for the suffering of the Palestinian people and for the justice of their cause, but my main way of expressing a commitment to this cause is through dialogue and engagement. There is enough propaganda out there, from both sides; while grossly uneven in the main stream with a general bias always in favor of Israel, this is not how I wish to express my commitment.

There are many progressive Jews, I know, some are my friends, but they are not the ones I am looking for a dialogue with! Why not? … Because I want to understand what the mainstream Israelis and Jewish Americans think, I want to know where they are coming from. ….. Do I try to convince them of the justice of the Palestinian cause? Well …my friend in a dialogue, a true dialogue, at least the way I try to practice it, I focus on expressing my own ideas and narratives rather than trying to form or manipulate the opinion of the other. So, you just sit and talk as normal as if no issues with Palestine? I too could just “sell out”? I tell my friend that if through my dialogue I help one or two people every year look at things differently, then I am satisfied. He insists but what do you talk about? Do you just accept their story? No I don’t, I give them my narrative and listen to theirs. I tell my friend, I am not really interested in spending my energy getting the average Joe away from his Celtics game to talk to him about the justice of the Palestinian cause. Joe Average will vote many other issues before this issue become central to him, if he votes at all and I add jokingly I am Lakers fan anyhow. Wham again; I am not sure which is worse being a Lakers’ fan or having visited Israel. My friend is getting to the point where he is losing patience with me.

Justice, basic dignity for the people of Palestine will happen with peace; peace will happen when enough Israelis and American Jews feel that peace is a serious possibility and believe that peace is a genuine goal for the Palestinians and their supporters, not just a short term step on the path of more war. In my dialogue, I am seeking to know the “Zionist Enemy” directly and I want them to know me; because I believe peace is really possible and with it justice for the people of Palestine. Turning all Israelis into progressive Jews is not a realistic path to peace, we need peace with those we disagree with on very fundamental and difficult thorny issues, we need peace with the “enemy”; yes this is indeed possible!

The first award for the gathering is to radio program on Palestine broadcast on Boston College Radio on Sunday mornings. I think my friend is part of this program or affiliated with it somehow. This program has created so much hostility and a lot of people have tried unsuccessfully to take it off the air, a big round of applause. The Palestinian voice is being “heard” in Boston, or should I say it is being broadcast in Boston …not everyone is a sell out! And the Celtics are winning too!

AA

July 14, 2008

Designer Partners

On the Sixtieth Anniversary of the Creation of Israel …Is it time to reconcile?

The Israeli and the Palestinian peace camps would love the luxury of shaping the agenda of each other; they both yearn for a peace partner who would make their job easy, who would help them sell peace to their war-weary and hate-filled folk. Yet they don't have the luxury of designing the opposite side to appeal to a larger percentage of their respective populations. The Israeli peace camp remains oblivious to the colonialist aspects of Zionism and simply wishes for all the pre 1967 atrocities and suffering to be simply washed away and forgotten, just like what happened with the Native American or African slave trade centuries ago. The Palestinian peace camp wants a far more outspoken Israeli peace camp that is willing to admit the past wrongs.

The Israeli peace camp needs Palestinians who can talk about the Jewish suffering and offers affirmation that Israel has the right to exist. Yet virtually all peace advocates on the Palestinian and Arab side feel to their bones that Israel never HAD the right to come into existence in 1948. They argue Israel HAS the right to exist now but did not have the right to come into existence in Palestine in the first place. Had Zionism opted for a homeland in an alternate place it would have had that right, had it been empty of an indigenous native population. The compromise secular Zionism made to attract the religious elements was Palestine ...that compromise will forever mean the issues of rights of the natives will remain and Zionism dream of a Jewish state forever is threatened. So in short, the basis under which Arab and Palestinian peace advocate support Israel's right to exist now is the historical suffering for both people and practical thinking knowing that any other option will only lead to more needless displacement and suffering. The Palestinians can never buy into Zionism!

Most forward-looking open-minded people have a great deal of trouble with the concept of ethnic democracy. If a US group was to advocate putting a limit on the numbers of Hispanics, Chinese, Arabs or Jews say in California or Florida so that these places remain predominantly Anglo White and Christian we would all be up in arms accusing them of racism, bigotry anti Semitism and what have you. As it happened California is already majority non-white! What moral, legal or other basis would one have for claiming that 1948 Israel has to remain forever predominantly Jewish? I seriously doubt that any sane worldly Israelis who want to think of the world as their oyster really want a large ghetto for a country. It is hard to envision the European treaty that offers Israel membership to the EU restricting the number of gentiles who can live & work in Israel. A good guess is that the Israeli peace camp needs this hallow argument to help to convince others who maybe fearing that they will overwhelmed into a being a minority yet again. It is not difficult to understand this position. The Israeli peace camp clings on to the notion of a Jewish state forever because it still clings on the glories of 1948 and the courage and commitment of the Sabra generations.

Yet, if we look at the other side of the equation, which is how can one help the Palestinians peace camp gain more momentum, it has to be based on a practical way forward NOT principles. A principle like a Jewish State forever makes it hard to recruit people based on practicality and reconciliation. It invites the very logical reaction of rejection; on the grounds of history, morality and future looking multi cultural borderless world. Maybe we can find more willingness to agree guarantees of a Jewish state for the next 50 years just as China guaranteed Hong Kong way of life for 50 years than a guarantee based on a principle enshrined in Zionism.

Yet the Palestinian and Arab peace camp needs to articulate to its own people its views about its support for Israel right to exist. In an Arab world full of maps that show no evidence of Israel and newspapers that continue to shy away from the mere mention of Israel, opting for the “Zionist Entity” instead, the Arab peace camp must talk of the many generations of Jews born and raised in Israel with no other home. It must also articulate its rejection of the often-rampant discrimination against minorities in the Arab World. The Arab and the Palestinian peace camps must be more outspoken in rejecting violence and in offering commitment to genuine peace. It needs to help the Israeli peace camp convince its people that the Palestinians and Arabs want peace because they believe in peace and not because of the strength of Israel, not because of the fear of home demolitions, collective punishment or the long brutal arm of the IDF.

The sad thing about the Middle East conflict is that the extremists on both sides offer each other far more help than the peace advocates do. The Israeli hardliners could not have hoped for a better designed nemesis than Hamas & Islamic Jihad and vice verses; they help each other convince their target audience that peace is not possible and violence is the only way; designer enemies indeed! Shame that the peace advocates struggle with the lack of designer models.

AA

6 April 2008

Once Upon A Country ...Once Upon A Peacemaker - Book Review - Sari Nusseibeh

This is a truly important book for anyone wishing to understand fully the Arab / Palestinian - Israeli conflict. It sheds tremendous light on very important events, thus far not fully presented from the Palestinian side, especially that of the non rejectionist Palestinian camp. Sari Nusseibeh is a truly visionary man with tremendous courage and is a highly gifted activist and indeed very clever politician despite his own denials.

I have thoroughly enjoyed, and was often moved by, the first half of the book which dealt with the history of Nusseibeh's family and contained his even handed description of the events leading to 1948 and all the way through the 1967 war and his subsequent return to live in Palestine with his British wife. Nusseibeh's portrayal of the lives of the Palestinians between the wars of 1948 and 1967 was very helpful.

In the second half of the book Nusseibeh hammers in, over and over again, on the tacit unspoken alliance of the extremists on both sides and shows how Israel supported the creation of Hamas as a counter weight to the Fateh and PLO. He coherently and very persuasively presents the thought process that he went through to move from the one state solution to the two state solution and demonstrates very effectively the threats that prolonging the conflict would cause to it.

Nusseibeh was often right at the center of things or at least presents himself as such; we see him as a leading figure in standing up to the Israelis and to the Islamists, we see him as the key engine behind the first intefada, or uprising, and we see him winning the respect and approval of Yasir Arafat. In this, second, half, this book moves from being a truly exceptional account of the personal and family history more into an aggrandizing politician's memoir. This should not reduce nor detract from the tremendous personal sacrifice and commitment Nusseibeh made to his cause.

I have heard of the peace work of Dr. Nusseibeh and read some of his articles and interview for some years and while I admire him more than any other Palestinian public figure, this book troubled me in a number of ways. Unlike the other three Palestinian memoirs, originally written in English, that I have read (Gada Karami, Fay Kenfani & Edward Said) Nusseibeh sought to justify every action he has ever taken, to defend his various historic positions and to settle the scores with those of differing views. Most unlike the other three biographies, the book contained virtually no retrospective sole searching whatsoever and important topics such as his obvious passion and skill for politics vs. his academic eccentric persona were packaged for the purpose rather than thought through. Nusseibeh repeatedly simply presented himself as the reluctant professor, yet left us wondering about his very savvy organizational, political and survival skills. He seemed to know exactly how to deal with wily old Arafat, Hamas, the Israeli intelligence and the various factions of the PLO yet retain the freedom to advance his own agenda as well as build important relationships with Israelis.

The tremendous heights, in which, Nusseibeh holds his father, a former Governor of Jerusalem, ambassador and member of cabinet gives the feeling of an immature biography lacking in the distance to be objective. Indeed the first half of the book contains rework of the some of the father's own unpublished memoirs. Obvious points such as the father's commitment to an idealistic form of pan Arabism, albeit non Bathist and non Nasserist, and Nusseibeh own movement into being Palestinian nationalist, seeing Palestine being in natural alliance with Israel did not cause him to reflect further on the role and thinking of his father. A respectful critique and contrast of the views would have enhanced and not hindered the understanding of his father and need not be disloyal to his memory.

Most grating perhaps is the competitiveness displayed with other Palestinian peace advocates and the various attempts at discrediting them. This was particularly evident in describing the efforts that led to the Geneva Accord, which Nusseibeh referred as the plan by the name of the Israeli negotiator, thus marginalizing the Palestinian partner. At some point Nusseibeh clearly fell out with Hanan Ashrawi and Dr. Barghouti, both articulate advocates of the Palestinian cause and for peace and coexistence with Israel, he made his disdain of them very obvious and has not troubled himself to analyze their positions even in retrospect.

On the Eve of the Anniversary of the Yum Kippur / Ramadan War and the Cold Peace between Egypt & Israel

Normalization would have been a good example to defeat the rejectionist ideology of both sides

The last time the first day of Ramadan and Rosh Hashanah coincided was thirty three years ago; that was the year of the “war to end all wars” according to Anwar el Sadat which started on Yum Kippur or the tenth of Ramadan. I celebrated the first day of Ramadan this year at the house of Jewish friends joining them for their Rosh Hashanah dinner to break my fast. On the way back from dinner I was reflecting on an Al Jazeera TV news program that I saw a while back which showed images of Sadat’s first moments visiting Israel and then the famous pictures of Sadat, Begin and Carter and their big hand shake. The Jazeera program focused on the failure of the normalization between Egypt and Israel and had two guests, the former Israeli ambassador to Cairo and an Egyptian writer. The anchorwoman did not hide her delight at the failure of normalization; the Israeli guest did not seem to have much coherent to say and was not allowed to say much anyhow. The Egyptian guest was full of solidarity with the Palestinians and rejection of the peace process, full of slogans from the Nasser era about Egyptians never forgetting their Arabism. There was really no debate, an Israeli complaining about the Egyptian Government failure to push normalization and an Egyptian complaining about the Egyptian Government for pushing normalization.

The anchorwoman failed to challenge the Israeli ambassador over the early days of the peace between Egyptians and Israelis when ordinary Egyptians welcomed Israelis visiting synagogues in Cairo and Alexandria with applause and when, much to the dismay of most Palestinians and Egyptian Arab nationalists and religious fundamentalists, the overwhelming sentiment in Egypt was pro peace with Israel. It was the Israeli suppression of the two intefadahs, Israel’s continued brutality and injustice against ordinary Palestinians and the rising wave of religious intolerance in the region that eventually led to the shifting in the views of ordinary Egyptians. The anchorwoman also failed to challenge her Egyptian guest over his secular Arabist rationale which is clearly out of step with the Islamic identification that dominates the Egyptian street nowadays. Further she failed to challenge him over the successful normalization in sectors such as Sinai tourism and the number of Egyptian workers in Israel.

There is little doubt that peace between Egypt and Israel is cold and normalization has largely failed. Whether this is a good or a bad thing for the Palestinian cause, which the anchorwoman and her Egyptian guest clearly support, is the question at hand. Watching Al Jazeera, one feels that the default position is that to reject Israel is to be more supportive of the Palestinians.

However, when you have a recipe that has not worked for some 60 years is it perhaps worth re-examining it? Could the venting of hate and anger at Jews, Israelis and their supporters by Arabs and Muslim commentators, who clearly only want the best for the Palestinians, constitute an act of self indulgence and intellectual laziness that can no longer be indulged? Does commitment to the Palestinian cause and solidarity with them prevent their supporters from taking a more analytical approach of the merits of normalization?

Many Arab and Muslim Americans blamed Sharon for the collapse of the prospects for peace over the last 6 years. Could a more successful normalization between Egyptians and Israelis have made Sharon’s case more difficult? As someone who has actively engaged in promoting peace and dialogue in the Middle East for many years I am amazed at how many Israelis actually believe that the Jews of Europe came to mostly empty land in Palestine and the deep rooted hate for Jews and anything Jewish by Arabs and Muslims is what led to the conflict over the last hundred years. Israelis are fed a version of history full of the suffering of the Jews, the massacres of Jews in Hebron in 1929 and in Baghdad in 1941 and again 1969 etc. These events, in the long shadow of the undeniable horrors of the Holocaust, feed a version of history where the wars of 1948 and 1967 are seen as self defense. Even the 1956 Suez war, now fully confessed to by Israel’s co-conspirators as a war of aggression on Egypt, continues to be taught in Israel as a campaign of self defense.

Most Arab and Muslim commentators including many here in the USA appear to have standardized on a language that absolve the Palestinians from blame for electing Hamas. The argument goes something like this: … the Palestinians really wanted the Fateh agenda for peace with Israel but Fateh is so corrupt and incompetent domestically and Hamas has been helping people on the ground. The argument goes on to voice respect for the legitimacy for the Palestinian choice and democracy. Some more sophisticated commentators blame Bush and Sharon for their rejection of Arafat and for their failure to deliver results to his successor Abbas as Israel continued with its violence against the Palestinians and continued to expand settlements and to grab more land from the Palestinians in the West Bank and especially around Jerusalem. While all these points are may indeed be legitimate, here too I would argue that the Palestinians now have made a huge mistake and have chosen their leaders poorly at a crucial point. Democracies make mistakes and Democratic elections that produce legitimate governments can be described legitimately as mistakes. Stronger nations can afford to make mistakes; the Hamas election has proven an expensive mistake for the Palestinian people everywhere.

Should the Arab and Muslim Americans who are strongly committed to supporting the Palestinian people refrain from criticizing the Palestinian choice and refrain from describing Hamas as a terrorist organization? Should we continue to defend the view that an elected Palestinian Government can move back on recognizing Israel and prior “peace” agreements. Should we stay in silence watching the Palestinians inflict self damage with their new elected leaders incompetently presenting the case for Palestine? Should we too take the line of Al Jazeera that normalization is bad business? Should we too buy into describing those who get themselves killed while attempting to kill some random Israeli civilians as martyrs? Should we too here in the US use the Israeli war crimes and their decades long oppression of the Palestinians as a legitimate excuse for everything? Will we be helping the Palestinian cause more by keeping quite and hoping that the new Israeli Government with the party Sharon established at its helm will, out of its own sense of justice or its desperate need to be recognized by the Hamas led Government, actually do something for the Palestinians?

As of today the Palestinians and the Israelis are now ruled by those who reject the possibility of peaceful coexistence and reconciliation in any meaningful form. It is highly unlikely that the real peace prospects for Israelis and Palestinians will move forward in the near future. I would argue that for those who advocate real, just and lasting peace on both sides it is important to speak out now and it is vital to find ways to prove that normalization does work and there is no genetic pre wiring hatred of all things Jewish in the hearts of all Muslims. It is tough to speak out in the middle east except in support of the corrupt Governments, discredited Socialist Arabism or of course the more fashionable narrow Islamic fundamentalism; those of us in the West and particularly in the US should not shy away from speaking out for peace even in such dark times.

Thirty three years ago fasting Muslims and fasting Jews fought one another on a massive scale in the desert of Sinai and on the Golan Heights, for the sake of the memory of the thousands who lost their lives in that war and all the other Arab Israeli wars let’s overcome the hatred and work towards reconciliation; neither side has the option of prevailing by force. Only through dialogue, building trust and understanding the conflicting narratives will there ever be justice and peace in the Middle East.

October 1, 2006

Irreconcilable Narratives from 1967 to 2006

I was only seven years old then, but I still remember the frightening sound of the Israeli war planes up in the sky and the sound of the distant bombing and that of the Egyptian anti aircraft guns. We lived on the edge of Cairo adjacent to some nondescript military installation with whom we had a dispute over a small piece of property that was part of our house and would eventually become our one car garage. This was back in June 1967, just off school and looking forward to the summer and maybe a holiday on the Mediterranean beaches in Alexandria. I feel somewhat a fraud because these days have had such an impact on my life; Cairo was far away from the real center of the war and while hundreds of thousands from each of the three big cities of the Suez Canal had to flee their homes I am not really aware of any civilian destruction in Cairo itself. Yet those days of fear, panic and of nightly shouts of “tafou el nour” telling us to turn the lights off have left their mark on me.

Ten years later, while living in England, I would seek out Israelis to know how it felt on their side, what were they thinking, I would visit a synagogue in Manchester and attend meeting with Jewish Groups. Many years later I am still active in dialogue in person and on the internet advocating reconciliation and peace in the Middle East. I have now come to accept that there will NEVER be one set of facts surrounding the 1967 war; was it a war of self defense or a war of aggression? Why were the Egyptian POW’s brutalized by the Israelis? Why did Israel immediately (and later too) annex territory and just a few years later started a colonizing settlement policy? Was Egypt’s Nasser really a threat to Israel or just a loud mouth? How come the Egyptian army was not even on an “alert state”? But why did Nasser threaten to blockade the Red Sea? How come Israeli intelligence knew so much about Egypt that the Arabic Service of Radio Israel broadcast helpful hints to the students taking General Secondary School Certificate just few days before the start of the war yet thought that Egypt was really a threat? Can Israel be blamed to taking Nasser’s bravado seriously?

I now accept that there is no real factual answer to these questions. Each side has its narrative, its own proprietary set of facts that can be substantiated with loads of logic and evidence, yet diametrically opposing and irreconcilable. This was in the dark ages before the internet, blogs, 24 hours news station like CNN, BBC and Al Jazeera. Somehow I thought such contradictions in the basic facts ..what really happened could never be repeated in the Middle East. I was wrong! I have just returned to Boston from a business trip to Europe that included a four day side trip to Egypt. So, I was in the US for the start of the 2006 hostilities watching CNN and listening to NPR, moved on to the CNN International & BBC and then on to Al Jazeera, Al Manar (Hezbollah’s very own TV station) and Egyptian Government and opposition newspapers and talking to friends, relatives and strangers about the events.

Where best to start, simply the very basic facts are disputed and hence the positions that people take are radically different. While it is hard to generalize I will attempt to portray the basic facts as seen in my predominantly pro Israel US community & US media, a glimpse of Europe and lastly in Egypt. The Israeli Palestinian conflict is much more complex and so I will attempt to focus on the Lebanese Israeli war except of course the Palestinian dimension does play a very important role and supporting evidence of the various conflicting facts. Much of what follow will essentially be generalizations that aimed at capturing the main themes.

In the US, the situation is very clear cut. Hezbollah is already listed as a terrorist organization; the fact that it is a member of a Government we recognize is explained away as part of our support for the Lebanese Cedar Revolution aiming at ridding Lebanon’s of Syria’s occupation and national reconciliation. Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza and from Lebanon; Palestinian terrorists kept on firing rockets on Israel and actually carried a raid on Israel taking an Israeli soldier hostage. Israel attacked Gaza in self defense to silence the rocket attacks and to free its hostage; innocent Palestinians civilians were killed while Israel pursued armed terrorists; Israel had no choice but to attack those who attack her and these terrorists hide in civilian areas so there is bound to be civilian causalities; the onus is on the Palestinian terrorists, the Palestinian Authority which is clearly complicit in the terrorism and for the civilians who harbor them.

Hezbollah invaded the internationally recognized and undisputed border of Israel and killed Israeli soldiers and took two of them hostage. Hezbollah acts were essentially in support of the Palestinian terrorist and part of their hate of Israel, which they refuse to recognize, has a right to exist. The timing may have been motivated by Iran and its nuclear issues. The US must support Israel as a very active partner in the War on Terror or WoT. In this war, like Iraq and Afghanistan civilians will die but it is ultimately for their own good to liberate them from oppressive terrorists. This sort of logic is very prevalent across the entire political spectrum in the US not just in the strongly pro Israel community where I live. The limited voices of dissent mainly focus on the scale of destruction of Lebanon and the evacuation of the US citizens from Lebanon. Very few faint voices go beyond that and the vast majority of people see Israel very much doing the right and responsible thing.

European media including CNN International which is in competition with BBC World rather than Fox News and most people I talked to believe Israel’s version of the events on Lebanon but not Gaza. A relatively small minority buys the current hostility as part of the WoT, indeed most don’t see Iraq’s war as part of WoT either. There is a fair amount of sympathy for the Palestinians but not necessarily Hamas and Hezbollah is negatively viewed as a repressive terrorist organization that provoked Israel and was responsible for so much kidnapping, death and destruction for many years. The view of Israel is less glowing and there is tremendous sympathy with the Lebanese people and anger at both Hezbollah and Israel for killing civilians.

The Egyptian narrative is entirely different. The vast majority of the people I talked to, in fact everyone I talked to, believe that Hezbollah never ventured into internationally recognized Israeli territory but into an area that Israel has occupied since 1982. Israel has refused to hand this territory back to Lebanon claiming it was never part of Lebanon and was indeed part of Syria. Hezbollah attacked Israeli occupation forces and took two Israeli soldiers prisoners not hostage. Hezbollah is on record that while it does not recognize Israel it is a nationalist Lebanese movement and it leaves the struggle of Palestine to the Palestinians; its aims are purely liberating all Lebanese territory and freeing Lebanese hostages held in Israeli prisons. Hezbollah only fired rockets on Israeli towns after Israel attacked Beirut and its original operation was against Israeli military not civilians. I had not heard this version of events before I arrived in Egypt. The headline of the opposition newspaper “El Wafed” cried “Revenge …Revenge ..Revenge” after the Qana massacre which was shown in graphic details on al Jazeera and Al Manar TV and also on CNNI. El Wafed, the party that was re-established in the 70’s with a strong capitalist roots and alignment to the west has had to go fully populist and blatantly anti Semitic (contrary to its 1919 roots) to criticize the Government as incompetent and has called for freezing or canceling Egypt’s peace treaty with Israel, probably knowing fully well that this would not be done. The Muslim Brotherhood was critical of Saudi Islamic rulings blaming Hezbollah and I have heard that some Wahabi influenced Imams were roughed up by the worshippers after the Friday prayers for taking anti Hezbollah positions. The general feeling is that Israel’s attack was premeditated and was waiting for an excuse; Israel military incursion into the area it occupied from Lebanon since 82 was the original provocation. Iran is no threat to Israel and it needs nuclear weapons to protect itself from the US & Israel.

In the lazy days of summer on the Egyptian Mediterranean coast people were completely occupied with the events and very sad of the destruction of Lebanon and the cruelty of Israel. Opposition parties are racing to attack the Government over trade with Israel and various trade unions and professional syndicates are kicking out members who have been engaged in “normalization” with Israel. The Opposition papers are as one sided and populist as Fox News; it is all Bill O’Riley without the ugly purple ties and as anti Semitic as he is anti Muslim & Arab if not a tad more. While talking heads on CNN & Fox talk with authority over Sunni and Shiite splits, they are clearly ignorant of how this sectarian issue plays such a minor role in countries such as Egypt which has virtually no Shiites but its majority Sunni Muslims has a very strong spiritual alignment with Shiite Islam not seen in countries such as Iraq.

I have always been very interested to learn more about the lives of the 1948 Palestinians who remained in Israel, those often referred to as Israeli Arabs who make up nearly one fifth of the population of Israel. When I heard that one of Hezbollah rockets landed in Nazareth and killed 2 children and saw on CNN the crowded streets I guessed it must have been the Palestinian part of Nazareth, later I heard on the BBC that it was indeed the case. I saw an interview with the distraught father on al Jazeera just once. I asked many of the people in Egypt I met if they knew that Palestinian kids were being killed by Hezbollah rockets, many people had no idea and were shocked. When I mentioned that Haifa shelters had Palestinian and Jewish Israelis in them they were surprised and somehow uncertain what to think. With so many CNN and other American reporters in the North of Israel I would have expected much more reporting on the Israeli Arabs, their living conditions, adequacy of shelters and the like but that too was lacking. The relative silence on the Israeli Palestinians or Arabs was virtually the only thing in common. Their existence is annoying inconvenience to both sides; their lack of adequate participation in Israelis society as an embarrassment to those wanting to present Israel as a liberal egalitarian society and whatever participation they do have in the Israeli society is too much for those who believe Israel is total evil that can never be reconciled with. At least there is some common ground but not much room for hope from this!


AA
Aug 5, 2006

Sand Storms

Often time as I run in Boston my mind takes me back to Cairo, the city of my childhood, and I look at the Charles River but I really see the mighty Nile before me. The long Mass Ave Bridge transforms itself to Qaser el Niel Bridge; Longfellow becomes Abu el Ala’a Bridge and Cambridge become Zamalek. Not last night, that wasn’t the Charles River I was running by, it was the Tigris. The cars going by me were not cars they were Cruise missiles. I heard the air raid sirens too, three times in fact and I never heard the all- clear! Last night I run in Baghdad, under bombing! As I ran last night, I thought of myself a traitor, doubly so. As I went running last night, I pictured myself on the streets of Baghdad and I felt fear, I felt helpless and I felt sorrow.

I was not anti war, but I have now become anti war. All I wish for now is sand storms …sand storms and more sand storms that will slow down the tanks, make it difficult for the laser to see, difficult for the planes to fly difficult for the killing to go on. Sandstorms that will prevent Iraqis from killing anyone, its own sons or America’s finest. Just sand storms, bad enough to stop the killing but not to increase the misery and the suffering.

Saddam Hussein represents the absolute worst calamity that has hit the so-called Arab World. His propaganda machine, his internal security apparatus, his torture chambers, his killing squads, his ethnic cleansing, his belated false commitment to Islam and his pretend care for the Palestinian struggle have lasted for way too long, far too many years. He has killed too many people, tortured and tormented too many people and his thugs have raped too many people and destroyed too many families and villages. I, for one, want him gone.

I supported the US policy in tightening the noose around Saddam’s neck. I supported the military build up that forced him to accept UN inspections and lowered his standing in the eyes of the whole world including those who supported him in his brutal invasion of Kuwait. I would have even supported and offered my help in a war to remove him, but such war had to be sanctioned by international law and had to be very clear and public about its objectives.

I can’t support the current war. Call me inconsistent! I am not a politician I don’t have to be consistent, I only write to get my feelings and thoughts out…to communicate what I now, right this minute, think is right, not to prove that what I thought was right three weeks or two years ago turned out just that.

This war started out almost like vendetta by the Bush Administration. In my eyes the US failed to prove any real danger from Iraq to us here in US. It looked to me more like electioneering and a focus group driven war, a war to show Bush as resolute leader and in the process to get rid of one nasty thug. I was willing to go along with that but the Bush Administration in its bullying of the UN and later in its defiance of the UN changed the equation, for me, completely. It is no longer just about Saddam losing; it is also about Bush winning.

Last night as I ran on the bend of the Tigris in the heart of Baghdad, I felt so much for the Americans POW’s, the kid from New Jersey and Shawna from Texas, the young mother, the Asian American kid, I wanted to reach out across the TV screen and hug them, I want to bring them back to their kids, mothers, fathers, husbands and wives, I wanted them home. I felt the same way about the little olive skin Iraqi boy screaming with the white bandages around his head, I so wanted to comfort him. And the young Iraqi man whose brains were literally blown out and pieces of his skull and hair were barely attached to the rest of him made me just want to die to get out of this whole horrible mess. These images can’t escape from my mind, the dread in Shawna’s eyes and the pain in the eyes of the Iraqi boy and the skull fragments with hair on them. I wanted this war over now, I wanted the bombing over me to stop, I wanted the all-clear siren, wanted it in the worst way.

The Bush Administration may well be wining the public relations war in US; not me! though, they had me but no more. I am appalled by the double standards and their lies. I can’t believe the propaganda war coming out of the Bush Administration directed at me! at us; Americans! What is this stuff about a coalition, am I supposed to believe that having starving countries like Eritrea in the coalition as a substitute for France. Is distant El Salvador the equivalent of Europe’s largest economy Germany and is Bulgaria with its heritage of compliance under Warsaw Pact a substitute for including Russia? Why lie to me about a coalition, why not tell me, we are doing this alone? I resent the insult to my intelligence. Tony Blair does not dare talk about a Coalition of the willing, I respect his honesty.

Come the issue of POWs and treatment of POWs. Again I am disturbed by the double standards. The US took it in its own hands to define who is a POW and who is an “unlawful enemy combatant” during and after the very legitimate invasion of Afghanistan. Those captured were shown on TV in shackles. Instead of showing the world that supported our liberation of Afghanistan our respect for the rule of law, we aimed to redefine the law. On to Iraq, AOL and most US TV showed Iraqis in civilian cloths surrendering and being told to kneel down before their captors, in another shot Iraqi captives were shown marching with their hands over their heads. We can’t win hearts and minds through double standards, but do we care? I don’t think so! the Bush Administration seem to have bought into the Fouad Ajjami & Paul Wolofwitz doctrine, that the Arabs and Muslims will not like America no matter what, so we should not care one iota about their views and get on with doing the right thing.  It is the American hearts and minds that the Administration is really after not those in the Middle East, Europe or even Eritrea.

I am sick of the soft questions of vast majority of American media, I am sick of an American correspondent’s incitement to the military to “take out” Iraqi media, I am sick of American press not asking the really tough questions about Geneva Convention and about the human cost of the war. I am sick of media acting as if covering military product exhibit. I am sick of idiotic use of words such as terrorism that only ultimately serves to equate the Anglo-American “liberation” forces with the Israeli occupation forces. More importantly, why not comment on the fact that the Iraqi Army is a conscript army? As liberators we don’t want to shoot Mohammad or Ali to free their parents and we should indeed expect that Ali’s mom and Mohammad’ dad may not really object to being used as human shield to protect their kids. Mohammad & Ali never enlisted, they were forced into the service. As an American patriot and an American by choice, I fear we got it so badly wrong. We are surrendering American values. Our news briefings are sounding somewhere between the Sharon Spokesman and Tariq Aziz; we are creating whole new definitions for the law .. for morality ..for accuracy in reporting …and for truthfulness.

I find myself also so sick with the reversal of roles that seem to be happening now. Twelve years ago, after Saddam invaded Kuwait, he offered to get out of Kuwait if Israel got out of the West Bank. Much of the world denounced this “linkage” and while many Palestinians and sadly some distinguished Arab Americans fell for it, his whole offer was not taken seriously by anyone. Nowadays guess who is offering linkage? It is the Bush Administration that is over and over again promising to tackle the Palestinian suffering as soon as its gets its way with Saddam. Surely if tackling the Palestinian problems is the right thing to do, it has nothing to do with the threat of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Will the Palestinians have to wait for the rest of the axis of evil, or is Iraq enough?

Al Jazeera and the new all news Arab media seem to have actively sided with Saddam and his army. A naive, but perhaps understandable reaction, to the Bush Administration failure to offer consistent and coherent reasons for the war and simple knee jerk reaction to the involvement of foreigners in our own messy affairs; and not any foreigner ..after all the US is the staunchest ally of the oppressive enemy Israel. So Al Jazeera and the so-called Arab street want to see more Iraqis and others fight America and die fighting America. No one talks of a simple non-cooperation with an uninvited occupation. Why not promote or even discuss refusing to fight for Saddam but also refusing to be liberated. A bus load of Iraqis charging an American tank is not an act of nationalist courage or Islamic commitment; it is neither ..it is the product of ignorance and misinformation ..it is the product of people being lied to by their own Government and by the free independent media, above all it is waste …a terrible waste of life. Jazeera and other Arab media are absolutely right to call it an Anglo American invasion but to claim that suddenly the brutal butcher Saddam is now DEFENDING Iraq or fighting on behalf of Islam and the all important Arab pride is a lie. Jazeera never quite makes the claim explicitly; it is however made over and over again in many ways that it never need to be verbalized.

Islamic authorities, the worlds over seem to be producing new fatwa’s by the hour. How can such a complex issue be resolved so simplistically by declaring that fighting against the invasion is an Islamic duty and those who die fighting against the occupation to be martyrs? Surely for this issue to be subject to Islamic legal interpretation the fatwa givers would have had to take account of all the facts and then issue a legal Islamic opinion. What facts have they taken into consideration and how sure are they of these facts? In accordance with Islamic jurisprudence, just like any legal codes, many issues have to be weighed and dissected. Do the fatwa’s address the crimes of Saddam? What do they make of the possibility that the Anglo-American invasion would indeed result in freedom for the Iraqis? Or do they simply adopt a view that anything America touches in the Muslim World is evil? Where are the dissenting Islamic views? How can the Sheikh of Al Azhar encourage martyrdom through suicide attacks against Anglo American forces; how can he square that with the Quranic commandment not to destroy ourselves? How many mosques must Saddam Hussein bomb and how many hundreds of thousands of Muslims must Saddam kill and how many rape squads must he employ before Sheikh Al Azhar can see that standing by Saddam is not really a commitment to Islam?

As I ran last night in Baghdad my brain was working so hard, in over drive trying to make sense of it all. I wanted sand storms, just sand storms.. I certainly don’t want Saddam Hussein to win ..As a Muslim, does that make me a traitor? Not in the least, Saddam is not fighting for Islam, Saddam’s party is nothing if not anti Islamic to its very core. During the Gulf War of 1991 the bombing of Iraq, a so-called Islamic state never bothered me, I so desperately wanted his defeat and the end of his atrocities. The US courageously jumped into the aid of the Bosnian Muslims when the whole world stood idly by watching the massacres. I don’t want Saddam to come out victorious. But, I am a traitor; I don’t want Bush to be proven right in his defiance of international law, and in his deceit about coalitions and in his contrived causes for the timing of the war. So as I run I can only wish for sandstorms and more sandstorms to stop these horrible sirens of air raids in my head. I want sand storms to silence the fatwa’s that trade in my religion that appeal to popular sentiment as cheap politicians do and in the process push more innocent Iraqis to their death. I want sand storms to help me put my own skull back together to re-find my non-conflicted identity, my whole being.

I worry about my own American identity in all of this. Is my opposition to this war and my desire for the killing to stop now an expression of conflict of identity or maturity of identity? I just don’t know, but my struggle with identity and disturbing images is nothing, those who are suffering are the troops and the civilians in Iraq, all of them.. I am just passing through their city of sorrows, city of rivers of blood.

As a Muslim, I am angry at the use and abuse of Islam. I am angry to see Islam evoked by Saddam Hussein’s propaganda  and at millions of Muslims the world over not getting clarity from their leaders but rather political driven hallucinations and racist hate of the west under the name of fatwa. I think of the difficulty we have every year agreeing on a day to start our fast in Ramadan…of the many different Muslim debates on such a silly, divisive and marginal issue ..they then speak out …not now ..it is all silence. As if standing by Saddam is so very clearly Islamic, just like looking above your head and seeing the full moon in Ramadan …no argument then about the holy month..where is the dissent? Where is it, when it really matters?

I want our young soldiers to come back safe and sound; I don’t want them to be victims of propaganda, to be objects of hate the world over. I want Shawna to come back to her young child and I want the killing to stop. I don’t want a victor in this, because I can’t see truth prevailing and I see a clear victor as a recipe for more war in Iran, Libya or Korea. I just want blinding engine-stopping sand storms. And I run harder and harder to get my skull back together and to get home and as I cross Commonwealth Avenue I hear the massive explosions and my whole being is shaken ..shaken, desperate for sandstorm, desperate for sound Arab, Muslim, American and world leadership.

AA
April 6, 2003