A democratic Egypt may save Palestinian and Lebanese lives

When Israel and Egypt signed a peace treaty in 1979, one of the big dividends for Israel was the removal of a major military threat on their doorstep.  Egypt had participated in wars against Israel in 1948, 1956, 1967 and 1973.  But since the Camp David peace treaty, Israel has been able to wage war on the Palestinians and other Arab states like Lebanon without having to worry about Egypt’s military stepping in. 

That may change once again if a democratic Egypt emerges from the uprising shaking the Mubarak regime.  Israel has been watching the unrest in Egypt closely and has begun to publicly air their support for the Mubarak dictatatorship. 

The potential for a radical change in the regional status quo–one where Israel has shored up peace treaties with Jordan and Egypt, making it the preeminent military power in the region with no contest–has Israel’s military worried.  Ethan Bronner’s latest report in the New York Times quotes Giora Eiland, “a former national security adviser and a senior fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University,” as saying:

During the last 30 years, when we had any military confrontation, whether in the first or second Lebanon wars, the intifadas, in all those events we could be confident that Egypt would not try to intervene militarily

A democratic Egypt may make Israel more reticent about waging a reprise of the devastating assaults on Lebanon in 2006 and Gaza in 2008-09, which has been openly talked about in the Israeli press and among Israeli officials.  A democratic Egypt that would reflect popular opinion in the country would also strike a blow against the Israeli/Egyptian siege of Gaza, as Eli Lake points out. 

And the importance of this, measured in human lives, cannot be underestimated:  An Israel that is afraid of an Egyptian response to their assaults could save Palestinian and Lebanese lives.

Close U.S. ally and new Egyptian VP Soliman ‘keeps the domestic beasts at bay’

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has appointed Omar Soliman, the country’s head of intelligence, as vice president in Mubarak’s first big move following continuous days of protest that are threatening to end his regime.  But Soliman’s appointment will not placate the Egyptian demonstrators–Democracy Now! producer Sharif Abdel Kouddos, who is on the ground in Egypt, reports that Egyptians have begun “chanting against Omar Suleiman.”

Cables written by U.S. diplomats released by WikiLeaks over the past two months point to why Soliman’s appointment is looked at with disdain by Egyptians: he is extremely close to President Mubarak and the United States.  Furthermore, Soliman is closely linked with the U.S. “extraordinary rendition” program, in which the CIA abducted suspected terror suspects and sent them to U.S. allies to be tortured, as well as a key player in Egyptian policy towards the Palestinians, according to various WikiLeaks cables.

A dispatch written in 2006 from the U.S. embassy in Cairo reports that Soliman “wields enormous influence over national security policy and is known to have the full confidence of Mubarak.”  A 2007 cable titled “Presidential Succession in Egypt” similarly notes that Soliman’s “loyalty to Mubarak seems rock solid,” and raises Soliman as a potential successor to Mubarak.

U.S. officials see Soliman as an indispensable ally in the region, and hold meetings with him regularly.  Cables released by WikiLeaks show that Soliman met with Admiral Michael Mullen in April 2009; Congressional delegations in January 2008 and May 2008; and with General David Petraeus in July 2009.

Tellingly, a May 2009 cable classified by the U.S. ambassador to Egypt says that “EGIS Chief Omar Soliman and Interior Minister al-Adly keep the domestic beasts at bay, and Mubarak is not one to lose sleep over their tactics.”  These tactics, as outlined in various reports written by human rights organizations, include arbitrary detention, torture a clampdown on political dissidence.

Jane Mayer’s award-winning book The Dark Side details Egypt and Soliman’s cooperation with the U.S. “rendition” and torture program, which began in 1995:

The United States offered its rich resources to track, capture and transport terrorist suspects globally–including access to a small fleet of aircraft.  Egypt embraced the idea immediately.  “What was clever was that some of the senior people in Al Qaeda were Egyptian,” [Michael Scheur, former head of the CIA's "Bin Laden Unit"] said.  “It served American purposes to get these people arrested, and Egyptian purposes to get these people back, where they could be interrogated.”  Technically, U.S. law required the CIA to seek “assurances” from Egypt that rendered suspects wouldn’t be tortured.  But even during the Clinton Administration, this obligation appears to have been little more than a sham…

Each rendition was authorized at the very top levels of both governments….The long-serving chief of the Egyptian central intelligence agency, Omar Suleiman, negotiated directly with top Agency officials. [Former U.S. Ambassador to Egypt] Walker described the Egyptian counterpart, Suleiman, as “very bright, very realistic,” adding that he was cognizant that there was a downside to “some of the negative things that the Egyptians engaged in, of torture and so on. But he was not squeamish, by the way.”

Israel and its American friends want to stop the Egyptian ‘earthquake’

The Israeli government and its many friends in the U.S. media are rushing to support the brutal Mubarak dictatorship as it copes with the most serious challenge to its rule.

As I noted yesterday, Israel is worried about a reliable ally being toppled next door. The Israeli government recently told journalists that there is “an earthquake in the Middle East … but we believe the Egyptian regime is strong enough and that Egypt is going to overcome the current wave of demonstrations.”

M.J. Rosenberg reports on “AIPAC’s Egypt miscalculation” at Media Matters.

Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic joins the lobby’s misgivings about the uprising in Egypt here:

Fifty years of peace has meant propping up dictators for fifty years.

3) Is that such a bad thing? Friends of mine like Reuel Gerecht believe that Arabs, given their druthers, might choose Islamist governments, and that would be okay, because it’s part of a long-term process of gradual modernization. I’m not so sure. I support democratization, but the democratization we saw in Gaza (courtesy of, among others, Condi Rice) doesn’t seem particularly worth it.

Lee Smith, a neoconservative at the Hudson Institute, laments in the Weekly Standard that Gamal Abdel Nasser “owns the affections of the Egyptian masses”:

That is to say, we don’t know exactly what the protestors want. There are those who hate the regime because it jails and tortures bloggers and those who hate it because it won’t make war on Israel.  No doubt some of the young are just fed up they have never known another Egyptian ruler in their lifetimes. Some of the youth are democrats and others are decidedly not.

It is not always a good thing when people go to the streets; indeed the history of revolutionary action shows that people go to the streets to shed blood more often than they do to demand democratic reforms. Perhaps it is an appetite for activist politics that explains why so many Western observers are now captured by the moment. Otherwise, it would be hard to explain why it seems as if no one had learned from the failures of the Bush administration’s freedom agenda—namely the Palestinian Authority elections that empowered Hamas—or could remember its successes. The Iraqis and Lebanese went to the streets, too, and our allies there are under pressure and ignored not only by the Obama administration, but also by a press corps and intelligentsia that mostly seems just fascinated by the spectacle of Arabs throwing themselves against a wall, regardless of the outcome.

The posture of Goldberg and Smith is striking.  They were certainly not airing such anti-democratic sentiments when the Iranian “Green Revolution” was going on.  But now that a revolt is threatening a pillar of the U.S./Israeli order in the Middle East, an order that is suffocating the people of Palestine, their zest for democracy fizzles.  This will be noted.

Mother of Bilin martyrs: we will not be stopped

This article/interview originally appeared in the Electronic Intifada:

The village of Bilin in the occupied West Bank was quiet on 12 January 2010, but reminders of the violence that hits the village every Friday during the weekly demonstration against Israel’s illegal wall were visible. Posters of Jawaher Abu Rahmah were hung up and taped to signs and walls around the village. It had been nearly two weeks since Jawaher was killed on 1 January 2010 as a result of severe inhalation of tear gas fired by the Israeli military at a demonstration the previous day. In the immediate aftermath of her death, the Israeli military attempted to deflect blame for the killing by spreading misinformation, assisted by the right-wing blogosphere and the Israeli and US media about Jawaher. Israel’s propaganda, though, was quickly refuted by eyewitnesses to the death.

Jawaher was not the only member of the Abu Rahmah family whose life was taken by Israeli military violence. In April 2009, during a similar protest against the wall, an Israeli soldier fired a tear gas canister directly at Bassem Abu Rahmah, Jawaher’s brother, which hit him in the chest and killed him.

The Electronic Intifada contributor Alex Kane met with Soubhiya Abu Rahmah, the mother of Bassem and Jawaher, in Bilin. Hamde Abu Rahmah, Jawaher’s cousin and a photojournalist, translated for the interview.

Alex Kane: It’s been almost two weeks since Jawaher was killed. How are you feeling?

Soubhiya Abu Rahmah: I am not feeling good. I am very sad about my loss. I have been sick, and you know, when you lose somebody in your family, and it’s your daughter, it’s your daughter. Now two people I have lost. It’s really sad.

AK: Where were you when you found out that Jawaher was really ill?

SA: Before that day, I quit my work, because I wanted to take a holiday. In the morning, I made food, and after that I went to go visit my neighbors. It’s like I knew about her dying. After this, we went — me and my daughter [Jawaher] — close to the wall to watch the demonstration, and my daughter said, “I have to go back to the house,” and she left me. When she left me, that’s when it happened. She got tear gassed, and after that Jawaher went to the ambulance to go to Ramallah.

AK: Were you supportive of Jawaher going to the demonstrations?

SA: Yes, I was supportive. I was myself there many times, but because I am really sick, I cannot move. But my daughter, and her brothers, they were going.

AK: What’s your response to the Israeli military’s allegations about Jawaher — that it wasn’t their fault, that she was sick, that she had cancer, all of those allegations?

SA: They are just lying. I saw many papers from the doctors. She has nothing, her health was okay, she did not have any cancer. They always lie.

AK: Given that Jawaher and Bassem were both killed while demonstrating in Bilin, do you still think it is worth it for the protests to continue?

SA: Yes, for sure. When the army keeps doing this stuff, and the Israeli government steals more land, yes for sure I support the protests. Everyone will have to do something against them. We have never stopped, we will not be silent about this.

AK: Do you and your family plan on taking any legal action against the Israeli military over Jawaher’s death?

SA: We are looking, we will see. There’s a lawyer specifically for the wall, and he will see what can happen about Jawaher.

AK: Are there any messages you would like to say to those in the US?

SA: I have to say, for the American government, they have to make Israel stop doing this, to stop killing people, to stop stealing more land from the people here, stop throwing these weapons, these chemicals. Many people get sick from these things and many people die in Palestine, and they have to do many things against Israel to stop them, because they really do not care about anyone. They do what they want. The big reason why Jawaher died was because she took in so much tear gas, and she could not breathe. When she was at the demonstration, she was running from the tear gas, and she tried to go back to the village, and she took in so much of this and she couldn’t breathe and that’s why she died. That’s why they have to stop this.

The Egyptian intifada and what it may mean for Israel/Palestine

The Egyptian uprising against the Mubarak regime is historic and important in its own right.  But it may also lead to significant changes in the region that could be positive for the Palestinian cause.  Israel is worried about a reliable ally being toppled next door.

The Mubarak dictatorship is a core pillar of the U.S./Israeli order in the Middle East, an order that completely ignores the wishes and aspirations of people on the ground.  The U.S. and Israel are scared of the new order that is to come.

As As’ad Abu Khalil notes at his blog, “the Israeli strategy in the Middle East has been firmly set on the continuity of the Sadat-Mubarak dictatorship.”  Israel’s peace agreement with Egypt in 1979 removed a military threat to Israel and secured millions of U.S. dollars and military support for the Egyptian dictatorship.  The Mubarak regime got carte blanche for its repressive rule.

Currently, there is extensive cooperation between Egypt and Israel.  Cables obtained by WikiLeaks, and published by Counterpunch, reveal that the Israeli military coordinated bombing runs with the Egyptian military during the 2008-09 assault on Gaza and closed the Rafah border when told in advance that Israel’s ground invasion was to begin.  WikiLeaks’ documents shed further light on Egypt currently building a wall meant to choke off smuggling tunnels into the Gaza Strip.

The fall of the Mubarak regime, which is what the youth revolt currently sweeping Egypt is calling for, could mean a number of things related to the siege of Gaza, continued efforts to crush Hamas and the political situation Israel finds itself in.

All told, what happens in Egypt will not stay in Egypt.  It will have ripple effects across the Middle East, and especially in Israel/Palestine.

 

Palestine Papers: Admiral Mullen says Palestinian state is a U.S. ‘cardinal interest’ after raising troop deaths

General David Petraeus backed away from uttering similar words, but it’s clearly a view that holds wide currency in the U.S. military establishment:  ending the Israel/Palestine conflict is a core U.S. interest that affects the safety of U.S. soldiers.  Haaretz picks up (though they bury it) that U.S. Admiral Michael Mullen echoes the “linkage” argument in a document published by Al Jazeera as part of the “Palestine Papers.”

Notes from a June 16, 2009 meeting quotes chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat as saying that Admiral Mullen told Mahmoud Abbas:

You’re the most important person in the Middle East. Arabs and Muslims have only one thing on their mind: Palestine. So, we want to help you establish a Palestinian state… I have 230,000 troops in Iraq & Afghanistan and I am bringing back 10 each week draped in American flags or in wheelchairs. This is painful for America. Because I want to bring them back home, a Palestinian state is a cardinal interest of the USA. Washington today is different from Washington yesterday

This is the realist argument the Israel lobby goes beserk over.

The truth that the ‘Palestine Papers’ has broken into the mainstream: Israel is the obstacle to peace

The release of the “Palestine Papers,” Al Jazeera’s leak of thousands of documents relating to Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, is creating space in the American mainstream for this central truth:  it is Israel’s fault that there has not been a peace agreement with the Palestinians.

Jonathan Cook, a journalist based in Nazareth, writes that “hundreds of leaked confidential Palestinian documents confirmed the suspicions of a growing number of observers that the rejectionists in the peace process are to be found on the Israeli, not Palestinian, side.”  This fact, which has been obscured by Israeli propaganda since the collapse of the Camp David talks, is pushing its way into U.S. media coverage as well as into the reactions of liberal American Jewish groups to the papers.

The Washington Post reports:

For Israel, the documents could prove problematic because they show the earnestness with which the Palestinians pushed for a deal, despite Israeli protestations that they have no partner for peace

Jeremy Ben-Ami, the executive director of J Street, told the Jerusalem Post that the documents highlight “the ongoing intransigence of the Israeli government.”

In a statement, Americans for Peace Now said:

These documents — if authentic — highlight a reality that peace process cynics have long sought to deny: Israel has a far more real “partner” than it has ever been willing to admit. The documents underscore the fact that, sadly, Israel has not capitalized on the opportunity for peace this partner represents.

The Los Angeles Times‘ Edmund Sanders similarly writes:

For one thing, the documents show that Palestinian leaders appeared to be far more willing to cut a peace deal than most Israelis — and even many Palestinians — believed.

In contrast to Israelis’ portrayal of Palestinian leaders as rejectionists, the Palestinians come across in the papers as the side best-prepared, with maps, charts and compromises, even broaching controversial tradeoffs that went beyond what their own people were likely ready to accept.

Even the Wall Street Journal has something similar to say:  Charles Levinson writes that “Israel, meanwhile, is portrayed in the documents as slowing the Mideast peace process by turning down unprecedented Palestinian concessions.”

The only major American newspaper that didn’t report this central theme that has emerged from the “Palestine Papers” is the New York Times, which published Ethan Bronner’s “analysis” claiming that the documents “open a door” on peace talks.

While this initial coverage is just a start, the release of the “Palestine Papers” should, and has to potential to, upend U.S. media’s understanding of the conflict

Palestine Papers: Why there will never be a State of Palestine

This piece originally appeared in Mondoweiss:

One core lesson from the “Palestine Papers,” Al Jazeera‘s leak of secret documents on Israeli-Palestinian negotiations from 1999 to 2010, is that there will never be a State of Palestine, living side by side with Israel.  This was known before, but the papers confirm it.  The mainstream narrative–that Israel and the Palestinians have been talking for nearly 20 years and are very close to reaching an agreement but just have to sit at the table for a little more time–is not credible anymore.  Why has Israel refused the Palestinian Authority’s offers, which offered up most of East Jerusalem, major illegal settlement blocs and a complete denial of the rights of Palestinian refugees?

Writing in Al Jazeera, Alastair Crooke offers this explanation:

Zionists are also likely to conclude that a Palestinian state, established alongside Israel, would be active in efforts to generate international support for the principle of minority rights in Israel – and thus threaten the Zionist basis of the state by delegitimizing their state as racist.

Ultimately the issue of differential rights for Jews and non-Jews is not in principle eased by establishing a Palestinian state. Its magnitude may be reduced from 40-50% to 20%, but the inherent contradiction remains unresolved – in either outcome. Against this ambivalent calculus, it is not surprising that the Zionist argument for keeping borders undefined, leaving Palestinians in deliberate uncertainty and hostage to their good conduct, whilst holding on to water and land resources, has trumped other Israelis arguing for downsizing the differential rights problem, and improving the minority’s treatment – albeit short of granting full rights to non-Jews in all matters. This is the calculus that has predominated. This is why we do not have a Palestinian state.

‘The Palestine Cables’: WikiLeaks exposes Egypt, PA cooperation with Israel during Gaza assault

This is the fifth installment of my column on WikiLeaks and Israel/Palestine at Mondoweiss.  You can read all the installments here.

The left-wing publication Counterpunch has obtained eleven U.S.-authored cables “accessed” from WikiLeaks that deal solely with “Operation Cast Lead,” the 2008-09 Israeli assault on Gaza.  Kathleen Christison, a former CIA analyst and co-author of Palestine in Pieces, has the scoop:

Though the cables often simply rehash Israeli press reporting, providing little new insight into Israel’s attack or the planning behind it, they show with pitiless clarity the U.S. government to be little more than a handmaiden and amanuensis of the Israeli military machine.

The State Department cables also reveal for the first time that while Israel waged a devastating assault on the Gaza Strip, eventually killing an estimated 1,400 Palestinians, Egypt and the Palestinian Authority (PA) were actively working with Israel.  Previous cables from WikiLeaks revealed that Israel had “consulted” with Egypt and the PA prior to the beginning of “Cast Lead.”  The PA denied the allegations then.

A December 29, 2008 cable from the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv reports (in bold on the Counterpunch page on the leaks):

At 16:00 on December 28, the IDF bombed the Phiadelphi corridor along the Gaza-Egypt border, destroying 39-40 smuggling tunnels. No Egyptian border guards were harmed. IDF contacts have repeatedly told DATT that the targeting of the tunnels was coordinated with Egypt, and that they had passed the coordinates of the attack points to the Egyptians to enable them to ensure the safety of their border forces.

A January 4, 2009 cable from Cairo notes:

As of 1500 hrs. local on January 4, Egyptian military contacts said Egypt closed the Rafah border crossing on January 4 after the Israelis gave advanced warning of their ground invasion and additional air strikes on the smuggling tunnels along the Gaza-Rafah border

One December 30, 2008 cable from Jerusalem details the contacts made between the PA and Israel regarding protests against the assault in the West Bank:

PA commanders complained about IDF use of live ammunition, responsible for three Palestinian fatalities in December 27-28 protests. MG [Thiab Mustafa] Ali [the commander of the Palestinian security forces] said IDF commanders told them live ammunition is the last resort when dealing with Palestinian demonstrators, and IDF rules of engagement only authorize it when the lives of IDF soldiers or Israeli citizens are at immediate risk

Despite the “complaints,” the next section of the Dec. 30 cable notes that “both sides” agreed to “increase coordination”:

PA commanders said they told IDF officers that President Abbas and PM Fayyad both directed them to avoid situations that could develop into confrontations with the IDF. The security chiefs said Abbas and Fayyad passed a message to all Palestinian factions, at a PLO Executive Committee meeting on December 29, that only peaceful marches away from flashpoints would be permitted. PA commanders noted they have no control on over B/C areas such as Qalandiya and Nil’in, and would need IDF approval to move PA forces to those areas to prevent clashes between protesters and the IDF…

PA commanders said their IDF counterparts agreed to expedite coordination and movement requests and exchange information on possible disturbances, as both sides have an interest in preventing West Bank violence. They said both sides also agreed not to leak substantive discussions about the meeting to the press, given the sensitivity of security coordination in a time of Palestinian outrage over events in Gaza.

The new leak of what Al Jazeera is calling the “Palestine Papers” are likely to confirm the WikiLeaks revelations by publishing “details of the PA’s security cooperation with Israel” over the next few days.

The NYPD’s Islamophobia Problem

Tom Robbins of the Village Voice has a disturbing report on the New York Police Department’s (NYPD) use of an anti-Muslim video as part of its “counter-terror” training for police officers:

It was a spectacularly offensive smear of American Muslims. The film is called The Third Jihad. It is 72 minutes of gruesome footage of bombing carnage, frenzied crowds, burning American flags, flaming churches, and seething mullahs. All of this is sandwiched between a collection of somber talking heads informing us that, while we were sleeping, the international Islamist Jihad that wrought these horrors has set up shop here and is quietly going about its deadly business. This is the final drive in a 1,400-year-old bid for Muslim world domination, we’re informed. And while we may think there are some perfectly reasonable Muslim leaders and organizations here in the U.S., that is just more sucker bait sent our way.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations is calling for a probe into the NYPD’s use of the film. What’s more disturbing than the video itself, though, is the fact that the NYPD has a documented record of employing anti-Muslim tropes as part of its “counter-terrorism” program since the September 11, 2001 attacks.

As I reported in November 2010 for the Gotham Gazette, the biggest blemish on NYPD-Muslim relations came in 2007 with the publication of a report for the department titled “Radicalization in the West: The Homegrown Threat“:

The report detailed the process by which it saw some American Muslims as being “radicalized” into terrorists and said that, while Americans Muslims are “more resistant to radicalization than their European counterparts, they are not immune.”

The Council on American-Islamic Relations promptly criticized the report, saying, “Its sweeping generalizations and mixing of unrelated elements may serve to cast a pall of suspicion over the entire American Muslim community.” In the wake of the report, the Muslim American Civil Liberties Coalition formed and critiqued the report for presenting “a distorted and misleading depiction of Islam and its adherents.”

Following meetings with Muslim organizations, the police department quietly issued a two-page clarification that stressed that the “NYPD’s focus on al Qaeda inspired terrorism should not be mistaken for any implicit or explicit justification for racial, religious or ethnic profiling.”

While Muslim organizations welcomed the clarification, criticism of the report remains.

“It’s not clear what the NYPD really thinks, because it’s leaving the bulk of its assertions and its conclusions in place,” said Faiza Patel, who works with the Brennan Center for Justice’s Liberty and National Security Project. The clarification “didn’t address all of [the Muslim community's] concerns. The way it was done — really kind of hidden there — makes it seem as if the police department is talking out of two sides of its mouth.”

And after Najibullah Zazi came to New York City in 2009 in an alleged failed attempt to carry out bombings on NYC transit targets, the Joint Terrorism Task Force, of which the NYPD is a member of, arrested Zazi and also conducted raids in Flushing, Queens.  Heather Appel of City Limits documented Flushing residents’ outrage at the FBI and the NYPD’s practices:

Almost two months after a suspected terrorist visited New York, setting off a chain of law enforcement activities including police raids of homes in Queens, activists are methodically collecting and recording complaints from Queens residents who allege a spectrum of harassment by law enforcement from verbal abuse to home entry without a warrant. The complaints will be logged by CUNY School of Law and given to Joseph M. Demarest Jr., the assistant director in charge of the FBI’s New York City office.

Ever since Najibullah Zazi, a Colorado resident born in Afghanistan who also lived in Pakistan and Queens, spent a night at the apartment of an old friend in Flushing, Queens, many Flushing residents have felt under siege by law enforcement. Zazi is in custody on terrorism conspiracy charges – after police found he had bought bomb-making materials and compiled bomb-making instructions on his computer – while his host for one night in September, Naiz Khan, is free. But others in the neighborhood say that since the Joint Terrorism Task Force raided several apartments Sept. 14 in an effort to find co-conspirators or evidence, everyday life has become more uncomfortable if you are – or might look like you are – Muslim or of Afghan or Pakistani descent.

As the above examples show, the most recent revelation of the NYPD’s flirtation with Islamophobia is no anomaly.