Chemical Attack in Syria?

Posted on August 28, 2013 by iPouya

I am no supporter of the Ba’ath dictatorship in Syria, but the circumstances of the chemical attack in Damascus are very suspicious and Eisa Ali illustrates why: “So lets see which makes more sense:

1) Assad, with the upper hand in the battlefield, launches a chemical attack knowing full well it would provide the “red line” the west have been waiting for to get involved. This western attack will turn the tide and cause the rebels to win. Assad, knowing this, has taken care over the last two years to keep the west out of getting involved with air strikes and a no fly zone ala Libya. Despite this he decides to launch the attack when UN inspectors are in the country.

2) the rebels, suffering massive setbacks on the battlefield, facing huge anger from the population in areas they claim to be liberating and infighting over loot and other issues with other groups including other rebels and the Kurds, need to turn the tide on what is turning out to be a complete catastrophe. Looking for a reason to bring the west in on their side to change the tide, they launch the attack when UN inspectors are in the country, to influence global opinion and give Hague and Obama the smoking gun they need to attack Syria.

You decide.”

Posted in Syria | 3 Comments

Mubarak’s Release

Posted on August 22, 2013 by iPouya

We are at the highest peak of the counter-revolution in the Arab Uprisings. The Saudi-UAE-backed Egyptian coup is now commandeering the release of Hosni Mubarak.  His release should lay to rest any delusion that the Sisi-coup in Egypt was the 2nd phase of the 2011 revolution.  This couldn’t be farther from the truth.  This is certainly not the 2nd phase, but the total undoing of the 1st phase.

Although the Arab Uprisings began in Tunisia, Egypt and its Tahrir Square became it’s headquarters. As such, the counter-revolution’s focal point is also in Egypt, but it’s architects are in Riyadh and those that support and sustain the Al-Saud dictatorship. These same architects have usurped what was a popular uprising in Syria that started in Dera’a and transformed it into a mercenary jihad a la the Afghanistan of the 80s.  These same architects invaded Bahrain in the spring of 2011 to bolster a regime that was on its last leg. And of course, they have stamped out the revolutionary movement that has repeatedly tried to surface on its own territory, specifically in eastern province and the city of Qatif.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, if we want to see genuine revolution in the Middle East, the first regime that must fall is the Saudi regime. It and its billions of dollars in oil money are effectively financing the counter-revolution with only one purpose in mind: Preventing the rise of democratic forces so as to not inspire democratic forces in Saudi Arabia.  For the Saudis, this is about self-preservation and self-preservation does not only entail security clampdowns at home, but preventing democratic forces from gaining power anywhere in the Middle East – even if it means spending billions abroad and financing the most ruthless forces, whether a military junta in Egypt or a mercenary jihad in Syria.

Posted in Arab Spring | 1 Comment

Al-Qaeda expands in Syria via Islamic State

Posted on August 16, 2013 by iPouya

The Washington Post: A rebranded version of Iraq’s al-Qaeda affiliate is surging onto the front lines of the war in neighboring Syria, expanding into territory seized by other rebel groups and carving out the kind of sanctuaries that the U.S. military spent more than a decade fighting to prevent in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In the four months since the Iraqi al-Qaeda group changed its name to reflect its growing ambitions, it has forcefully asserted its presence in some of the towns and villages captured from Syrian government forces. It has been bolstered by an influx of thousands of foreign fighters from the region and beyond.

The group, now known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, is by no means the largest of the loosely aligned rebel organizations battling to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and it is concentrated mostly in the northern and eastern provinces of the country. But with its radical ideology and tactics such as kidnappings and beheadings, the group has stamped its identity on the communities in which it is present, including, crucially, ­areas surrounding the main border crossings with Turkey.

Civilian activists, rival rebel commanders and Westerners, including more than a dozen journalists and relief workers, have been assassinated or abducted in recent months in areas where the Islamic State has a presence.

Most of the cases are being kept quiet for fear of jeopardizing the victims’ release, but the escalating pace of disappearances is turning already-dangerous parts of rebel-held territory into effective no-go areas for many Syrians as well as foreigners, deterring aid efforts and media coverage and potentially complicating future attempts to supply more-moderate factions of the rebel Free Syrian Army.

A rapid ascent

With multiple groups competing for influence, the Islamic State cannot be held responsible for all the incidents that have occurred in Syria. Jabhat al-Nusra, the original Syrian al-Qaeda affiliate, which has resisted efforts by the Islamic State to absorb it, maintains a robust presence in many parts of the country. Criminal gangs also have taken advantage of the vacuum of authority to carry out kidnappings for ransom, mostly of Syrians.

But at a time when the Islamic State is undergoing a revival in Iraq, killing more people there than at any time since 2008 and staging a spectacular jailbreak last month that freed hundreds of militants, the push into Syria signifies the transformation of the group into a regional entity. The U.S. military — which referred to the organization as al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) — claimed it had subdued AQI by the time the United States withdrew from Iraq in 2011.

Evidently it did not, said Bruce Hoffman, director of security studies at Georgetown University, who thinks Syria is even more strategically significant for the group than Iraq. Syria’s location — the country shares borders with Turkey, Israel, Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon — gives al-Qaeda a foothold in the heart of the Middle East, Hoffman said.

“There are a lot of reasons to worry that Syria will emerge as an even more powerful variant of what Afghanistan was more than 30 years ago,” he said.

Nonetheless, the Islamic State’s rapid ascent and aggressive methods have put it at odds with more-moderate rebel factions and with local communities, calling into question how long the group can sustain its role. In the eastern provincial capital of Raqqah, which has emerged as the Islamic State’s biggest stronghold, clashes with more-moderate rebel units erupted twice over the weekend, killing at least 13 rebel fighters and civilians, according to residents.

Meanwhile, residents there have been staging near-daily protests demanding the release of people thought to have been abducted by the Islamic State, foremost among them a renowned Italian Jesuit priest, the Rev. Paolo Dall’Oglio, who spent decades living in Syria before he was expelled last year for his opposition sympathies. His whereabouts have been unknown since he arrived in Raqqah late last month to attempt to open an interfaith dialogue with the Islamic State.

Others who have been abducted in Raqqah include the head of the newly formed provincial governing council, a top official with the humanitarian assistance arm of the main Syrian Opposition Coalition and the local commander who led the capture of Raqqah from government forces in March.

“They kidnap anyone who opposes their point of view,” said a Raqqah activist who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of safety concerns.

Uneasy alliance

The Islamic State also coexists uneasily in many places with Jabhat al-Nusra, which it sought to absorb in April. Jabhat al-Nusra’s leader, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, is a Syrian who fought with al-Qaeda in Iraq, then returned in 2011 to set up a Syrian counterpart. He rebuffed the merger attempt.

That set the stage for a contest of wills with his Iraqi counterpart, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, in which Jabhat al-Nusra has sought to label itself as the more Syrian — and less extremist — of the two groups. On Saturday, the State Department said it believed that Baghdadi has relocated to Syria.

In some areas, such as Raqqah, most Jabhat al-Nusra followers readily acceded to the announced merger, facilitating the Islamic State’s rapid ascendancy. In Hama province, a Jabhat al-Nusra leader who criticized the extremism of the Islamic State was detained by that group’s fighters until he recanted his comments.

In one town close to the Turkish border, al-Dana, Islamic State fighters consolidated their authority by shooting people who demonstrated against them, confiscating the weapons of the local unit of the Free Syrian Army and beheading its commander.

Influx of foreign fighters

An accelerating stream of foreign volunteers is helping reinforce the Islamic State, which has been able to build on networks developed during the insurgency in Iraq.

A Lebanese security official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to talk to the media, estimated that at least 17,000 foreigners had joined rebel forces in Syria, most of them from Saudi Arabia and Tunisia, a figure in excess of the number that U.S. officials have given. Iraqis, too, are playing an important role, especially in the east, Syrians say, though their numbers are more difficult to measure because they traverse the long border virtually unchecked.

The influx has helped the Islamic State gain an advantage over Jabhat al-Nusra in some recent battles, including the capture of Menagh air base in Aleppo last week and an offensive in the coastal province of Latakia, said Aaron Zelin, who researches jihadi activity at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

“At least perception-wise, it appears the Islamic State is doing the better job,” he said. “In the last four to six weeks, they’ve really stepped up their game and highlighted that theirs are the most capable fighters in the field.”

The Islamic State also has sought to win hearts and minds. A video posted over the weekend showed them distributing toys, including Teletubbies, at a gathering held in Aleppo to mark the Eid al-Fitr religious holiday.

The gift-giving suggests that the extremists have learned some lessons from Iraq, where they alienated local populations with their harsh tactics, and point to another key advantage they have over the loosely structured Syrian rebel units drawn from the communities that rose up against Assad in 2011, according to Charles Lister of the defense consultancy IHS Jane’s. “They’re highly organized, and that allows them to present themselves as an organization capable of running a town,” he said.

And unlike in Iraq during the insurgency, Islamic State fighters don’t have to contend with U.S. forces hunting them down, said Brian Fishman, a former director of research at West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center who is now with the New America Foundation. “They can plan better and discipline better, and that is dangerous.” he said.

Posted in Syria | 1 Comment

Egypt Today

Posted on August 14, 2013 by iPouya

Are people still refusing to call the coup against Egypt’s first democratically elected president a coup? In case there’s any doubt as to whether it’s a coup or not, please read the news today. It’s been very disheartening to read from my friends on facebook about how the coup against Morsi was a revolution. This couldn’t be any farther from the truth. The point being, I feel obligated to assert, is not that Morsi was good or bad, but that however dumb and inept he may have been, he enjoyed a democratic mandate and should have been voted out of office when his first term was up – if that was to be his fate. This all shows that Mubarak was not the only problem before the January 2011 uprising. He presided over an entire apparatus that was entrenched. Changing the figurehead was a start but the apparatus that entailed the military elite, the financial elite, and the Mubarak era judicial elite, all enduring and ousted Egypt’s first democratically elected president. If 2011 was to be a total revolution, all the Mubarak era centers of power should have been swept away. In 1979 Iran, the revolution, with all its faults and shortcomings, was at least total in the sense that the billionaires that sought to preserve the Shah’s status quo, his military, legal, and media apparatus were all put to flight, or worse. The question begs, how did Morsi intend to further the 2011 revolution when all the Mubarak era centers of power, the so-called “deep state,” remained largely untouched?

Posted in 22 Khordad | 1 Comment

Humiliation of Israel in South Lebanon: Unreported by Western Media

Posted on August 14, 2013 by iPouya

As’ad AbuKhalil: My friend Amer was commenting to me how the failed Israeli terrorist “commando” raid in South Lebanon did not receive much coverage in the Western press. It is true, failures of Israel don’t get reported in the Western media. But there are other reasons as to why this raid by Israel did not get coverage in the Western media: They don’t want to cover violations by Israel of UN Security Council Resolution 1701.

Imagine for a second that a commando unit of Hezbollah were to violate the ceasefire line and enter occupied Palestinian territory on a mission of violent/espionage nature. Can you imagine the international uproar? Can you imagine the statements by the White House and State Department spokespersons? Can you imagine the statements by EU officials? Can you imagine the reaction by the UN secretary general? Can you imagine the reactions by Western ambassadors in Lebanon? And can you imagine the reactions of the puppets of Saudi Arabia in Lebanon?

But Israel did not even hide the story although it did not reveal the nature of the terrorist mission. A terrorist state that has been accustomed to violating the Lebanese border since 1948, and which used to casually send death squads and hit-teams deep inside Beirut (and farther north), is now deterred by a volunteer resistance movement (and the ideology and foreign alliances of this movement is not relevant here). Israel was caught red-handed in the act of a terrorist violation of Lebanese territory, while UNIFIL stood by counting the stars in the skies over Lebanon. A force that was ostensibly sent to protect Lebanon from Israeli attacks (that is what they deceptively and falsely tell the Lebanese people) and to help implement Resolution 1701, did not bother to intervene and did not even make denunciatory statements or declarations. UNIFIL merely said that its role is to “identify” violations, but no more. If that is the case, why does UNIFIL need the weapons that it possesses?

Israel now operates in a different context. The Palestine Liberation Organization (for reasons largely related to Arafat’s unwillingness to create a formidable military force in Lebanon and for the collaborationist role that the Lebanese Army had played in the service of the Israeli enemy for decades prior to 1984) failed to pose a deterrent threat to Israel. Thus, the Israeli terrorist army never was reluctant to violate Lebanese air, territory, and sea in order to perpetrate espionage and terrorist attacks in Lebanon. The recent episode underlines a basic achievement of the Lebanese resistance movement (which was started – lest we forget – by communist organizations back in 1978): that Israel does not have the ability to roam freely in Lebanon, to kill and to spy. For the first time since 1948, Lebanon now has a force that protects it from Israeli aggression, and that force – shamefully for Lebanon – is not the Lebanese army, which has no heroism in its entire history, unless one counts its massacres in refugee camps or in the streets of Beirut against civilian demonstrators.

But what is quite appalling is that no Western government and no Western journalist bothered to inquire, even by raising token questions, about the purpose of the failed Israeli raid in South Lebanon. It is not related to the utter racism that lies (non-dormant) behind every Western policy in the Middle East. The potential victims of the Israeli terrorist raid would have been Arabs, while a Hezbollah raid in Israel would have resulted in the injury or death of precious Israelis. This is only one of the reasons why the failed raid did not generate media coverage (and it did not generate media coverage in the Arab oil and gas media either).

Willingly, Western media have been promoting for decades the myth of the invincible and infallible Mossad: all evidence that contradicts the propaganda myth of the Mossad has to be discarded.

But the fact remains: Israel once again was humiliated by a band of resistance volunteers (and their ideology and foreign policy alliances of their organization are totally irrelevant here) in South Lebanon. This little country with the failed state and incompetent army, and the country that Zionists always believed would be the weakest link in the Arab world, has been able to humiliate the Israeli army repeatedly on the battlefield. The country that was expected to be the first or second Arab country to sign a peace treaty with Israel now stands as the symbol of defiance and resistance against Israeli aggression and occupation. This – and not some silly gigantic hummus dishes or some illusory Lebanese “discoveries” of cures for cancer that an-Nahar keeps bragging about – should make the people of Lebanon proud, very proud.

Posted in Hezbollah, Lebanon | 1 Comment

Al Jazeera: “US bankrolled anti-Morsi activists”

Posted on July 10, 2013 by iPouya

[This article is a bombshell that is making its rounds on social media…a must read.] Al Jazeera: President Barack Obama recently stated the United States was not taking sides as Egypt’s crisis came to a head with the military overthrow of the democratically elected president.

But a review of dozens of US federal government documents shows Washington has quietly funded senior Egyptian opposition figures who called for toppling of the country’s now-deposed president Mohamed Morsi.

Documents obtained by the Investigative Reporting Program at UC Berkeley show the US channeled funding through a State Department programme to promote democracy in the Middle East region. This programme vigorously supported activists and politicians who have fomented unrest in Egypt, after autocratic president Hosni Mubarak was ousted in a popular uprising in February 2011.

The State Department’s programme, dubbed by US officials as a “democracy assistance” initiative, is part of a wider Obama administration effort to try to stop the retreat of pro-Washington secularists, and to win back influence in Arab Spring countries that saw the rise of Islamists, who largely oppose US interests in the Middle East.

Activists bankrolled by the programme include an exiled Egyptian police officer who plotted the violent overthrow of the Morsi government, an anti-Islamist politician who advocated closing mosques and dragging preachers out by force, as well as a coterie of opposition politicians who pushed for the ouster of the country’s first democratically elected leader, government documents show.

Information obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, interviews, and public records reveal Washington’s “democracy assistance” may have violated Egyptian law, which prohibits foreign political funding.

It may also have broken US government regulations that ban the use of taxpayers’ money to fund foreign politicians, or finance subversive activities that target democratically elected governments.

‘Bureau for Democracy’

Washington’s democracy assistance programme for the Middle East is filtered through a pyramid of agencies within the State Department. Hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars is channeled through the Bureau for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor (DRL), The Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI), USAID, as well as the Washington-based, quasi-governmental organisation the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).

In turn, those groups re-route money to other organisations such as the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute (NDI), and Freedom House, among others. Federal documents show these groups have sent funds to certain organisations in Egypt, mostly run by senior members of anti-Morsi political parties who double as NGO activists.

The Middle East Partnership Initiative – launched by the George W Bush administration in 2002 in a bid to influence politics in the Middle East in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks – has spent close to $900m on democracy projects across the region, a federal grants database shows.

USAID manages about $1.4bn annually in the Middle East, with nearly $390m designated for democracy promotion, according to the Washington-based Project on Middle East Democracy (POMED).

The US government doesn’t issue figures on democracy spending per country, but Stephen McInerney, POMED’s executive director, estimated that Washington spent some $65m in 2011 and $25m in 2012. He said he expects a similar amount paid out this year.

A main conduit for channeling the State Department’s democracy funds to Egypt has been the National Endowment for Democracy. Federal documents show NED, which in 2011 was authorised an annual budget of $118m by Congress, funneled at least $120,000 over several years to an exiled Egyptian police officer who has for years incited violence in his native country.

This appears to be in direct contradiction to its Congressional mandate, which clearly states NED is to engage only in “peaceful” political change overseas.

Exiled policeman

Colonel Omar Afifi Soliman – who served in Egypt’s elite investigative police unit, notorious for human rights abuses – began receiving NED funds in 2008 for at least four years.

During that time he and his followers targeted Mubarak’s government, and Soliman later followed the same tactics against the military rulers who briefly replaced him. Most recently Soliman set his sights on Morsi’s government.

Soliman, who has refugee status in the US, was sentenced in absentia last year for five years imprisonment by a Cairo court for his role in inciting violence in 2011 against the embassies of Israel and Saudi Arabia, two US allies.

He also used social media to encourage violent attacks against Egyptian officials, according to court documents and a review of his social media posts.

US Internal Revenue Service documents reveal thatNED paid tens of thousands of dollars to Soliman through an organisation he created called Hukuk Al-Nas (People’s Rights), based in Falls Church, Virginia. Federal forms show he is the only employee.

After he was awarded a 2008 human rights fellowship at NED and moved to the US, Soliman received a second $50,000 NED grant in 2009 for Hukuk Al-Nas. In 2010, he received $60,000 and another $10,000 in 2011.

In an interview with the Investigative Reporting Program at UC Berkeley, Soliman reluctantly admitted he received US government funding from the National Endowment for Democracy, but complained it wasn’t enough. “It is like $2000 or $2,500 a month,” he said. “Do you think this is too much? Obama wants to give us peanuts. We will not accept that.”

NED has removed public access to its Egyptian grant recipients in 2011 and 2012 from its website. NED officials didn’t respond to repeated interview requests.

‘Pro bono advice’

NED’s website says Soliman spreads only nonviolent literature, and his group was set up to provide “immediate, pro bono legal advice through a telephone hotline, instant messaging, and other social networking tools”.

However, in Egyptian media interviews, social media posts and YouTube videos, Soliman encouraged the violent overthrow of Egypt’s government, then led by the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party.

“Incapacitate them by smashing their knee bones first,” he instructed followers on Facebook in late June, as Morsi’s opponents prepared massive street rallies against the government. Egypt’s US-funded and trainedmilitary later used those demonstrations to justify its coup on July 3.

“Make a road bump with a broken palm tree to stop the buses going into Cairo, and drench the road around it with gas and diesel. When the bus slows down for the bump, set it all ablaze so it will burn down with all the passengers inside … God bless,” Soliman’s post read.

In late May he instructed, “Behead those who control power, water and gas utilities.”

Soliman removed several older social media posts after authorities in Egypt took notice of his subversive instructions, court documents show.

More recent Facebook instructions to his 83,000 followers range from guidelines on spraying roads with a mix of auto oil and gas – “20 liters of oil to 4 liters of gas”- to how to thwart cars giving chase.

On a YouTube video, Soliman took credit for a failed attempt in December to storm the Egyptian presidential palace with handguns and Molotov cocktails to oust Morsi.

“We know he gets support from some groups in the US, but we do not know he is getting support from the US government. This would be news to us,” said an Egyptian embassy official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the media.

Funding other Morsi opponents

Other beneficiaries of US government funding are also opponents of the now-deposed president, some who had called for Morsi’s removal by force.

The Salvation Front main opposition bloc, of which some members received US funding, has backed street protest campaigns that turned violent against the elected government, in contradiction of many of the State Department’s own guidelines.

A longtime grantee of the National Endowment for Democracy and other US democracy groups is a 34-year old Egyptian woman, Esraa Abdel-Fatah, who sprang to notoriety during the country’s pitched battle over the new constitution in December 2012.

She exhorted activists to lay siege to mosques and drag from pulpits all Muslim preachers and religious figures who supported the country’s the proposed constitution, just before it went to a public referendum.

The act of besieging mosques has continued ever since, and several people have died in clashes defending them.

Federal records show Abdel-Fatah’s NGO, the Egyptian Democratic Academy, received support from NED, MEPI and NDI, among other State Department-funded groups “assisting democracy”. Records show NED gave her organisation a one-year $75,000 grant in 2011.

Abdel-Fatah is politically active, crisscrossing Egypt to rally support for her Al-Dostor Party, which is led by former UN nuclear chief Mohamed El-Baradei, the most prominent figure in the Salvation Front. She lent full support to the military takeover, and urged the West not call it a “coup”.

“June 30 will be the last day of Morsi’s term,” she told the press a few weeks before the coup took place.

US taxpayer money has also been sent to groups set up by some of Egypt’s richest people, raising questions about waste in the democracy programme.

Michael Meunier is a frequent guest on TV channels that opposed Morsi. Head of the Al-Haya Party, Meunier – a dual US-Egyptian citizen – has quietly collected US funding through his NGO, Hand In Hand for Egypt Association.

Meunier’s organisation was founded by some of the most vehement opposition figures, including Egypt’s richest man and well-known Coptic Christian billionaire Naguib Sawiris, Tarek Heggy, an oil industry executive, Salah Diab, Halliburton’s partner in Egypt, and Usama Ghazali Harb, a politician with roots in the Mubarak regime and a frequent US embassy contact.

Meunier has denied receiving US assistance, but government documents show USAID in 2011 granted his Cairo-based organisation $873,355. Since 2009, it has taken in $1.3 million from the US agency.

Meunier helped rally the country’s five million Christian Orthodox Coptic minority, who oppose Morsi’s Islamist agenda, to take to the streets against the president on June 30.

Reform and Development Party member Mohammed Essmat al-Sadat received US financial support through his Sadat Association for Social Development, a grantee of The Middle East Partnership Initiative.

The federal grants records and database show in 2011 Sadat collected $84,445 from MEPI “to work with youth in the post-revolutionary Egypt”.

Sadat was a member of the coordination committee, the main organising body for the June 30 anti-Morsi protest. Since 2008, he has collected $265,176 in US funding. Sadat announced he will be running for office again in upcoming parliamentary elections.

After soldiers and police killed more than 50 Morsi supporters on Monday, Sadat defended the use of force and blamed the Muslim Brotherhood, saying it used women and children as shields.

Some US-backed politicians have said Washington tacitly encouraged them to incite protests.

“We were told by the Americans that if we see big street protests that sustain themselves for a week, they will reconsider all current US policies towards the Muslim Brotherhood regime,” said Saaddin Ibrahim, an Egyptian-American politician opposed Morsi.

Ibrahim’s Ibn Khaldoun Center in Cairo receives US funding, one of the largest recipients of democracy promotion money in fact.

His comments followed statements by other Egyptian opposition politicians claiming they had been prodded by US officials to whip up public sentiment against Morsi before Washington could publicly weigh in.

Democracy programme defence

The practice of funding politicians and anti-government activists through NGOs was vehemently defended by the State Department and by a group of Washington-based Middle East experts close to the programme.

“The line between politics and activism is very blurred in this country,” said David Linfield, spokesman for the US Embassy in Cairo.

Others said the United States cannot be held responsible for activities by groups it doesn’t control.

“It’s a very hot and dynamic political scene,” said Michelle Dunne, an expert at the Atlantic Council think-tank. Her husband, Michael Dunne, was given a five-year jail sentence in absentia by a Cairo court for his role in political funding in Egypt.

“Just because you give someone some money, you cannot take away their freedom or the position they want to take,” said Dunne.

Elliot Abrams, a former official in the administration of George W. Bush and a member of the Working Group on Egypt that includes Dunne, denied in an email message that the US has paid politicians in Egypt, or elsewhere in the Middle East.

“The US does not provide funding for parties or ‘local politicians’ in Egypt or anywhere else,” said Abrams. “That is prohibited by law and the law is scrupulously obeyed by all US agencies, under careful Congressional oversight.”

But a State Department official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the issue’s sensitivity, said American support for foreign political activists was in line with American principles.

“The US government provides support to civil society, democracy and human rights activists around the world, in line with our long-held values, such as respecting the fundamental human rights of free speech, peaceful assembly, and human dignity,” the official wrote in an email. “US outreach in Egypt is consistent with these principles.”

A Cairo court convicted 43 local and foreign NGO workers last month on charges of illegally using foreign funds to stir unrest in Egypt. The US and UN expressed concern over the move.

Out of line

Some Middle East observers suggested the US’ democracy push in Egypt may be more about buying influence than spreading human rights and good governance.

“Funding of politicians is a problem,” said Robert Springborg, who evaluated democracy programmes for the State Department in Egypt, and is now a professor at the National Security Department of the Naval Postgraduate School at Monterey, California.

“If you run a programme for electoral observation, or for developing media capacity for political parties, I am not against that. But providing lots of money to politicians – I think that raises lots of questions,” Springborg said.

Some Egyptians, meanwhile, said the US was out of line by sending cash through its democracy programme in the Middle East to organisations run by political operators.

“Instead of being sincere about backing democracy and reaching out to the Egyptian people, the US has chosen an unethical path,” said Esam Neizamy, an independent researcher into foreign funding in Egypt, and a member of the country’s Revolutionary Trustees, a group set up to protect the 2011 revolution.

“The Americans think they can outsmart lots of people in the Middle East. They are being very hostile against the Egyptian people who have nothing but goodwill for them – so far,” Neizamy said.

 

Posted in Egypt, US Foreign Policy | 2 Comments

The Ouster of Morsi

Posted on July 4, 2013 by iPouya

A peaceful uprising coupled with a military coup has ousted the Muhammad Morsi, the president of Egypt. I was driving up the Bay and listening to the news live on Al Jazeera English and I was shocked. I do not like Morsi nor do I believe he’s changed much since the victory of the revolution (the blockade of Gaza persists), but the overthrow of a democratically-elected president is a terrible precedent.

There are many things to consider regarding his ouster. First, the precedent means that the next democratically-elected president in Egypt could be ousted too. It strengthens the role of the Egyptian military in Egyptian politics. And since the Egyptian military is bankrolled by the US and is very close to the US, it further strengthens the role of the US in Egyptian politics. This is unwise not only because it constitutes imperialism but foreigners should never be trying to determine the outcome of another country’s political battles. The thinking is that if the US barely knows what’s best for itself, how can it know what’s best for a country on the other side of the globe?

Additionally, the Muslim Brotherhood is a seasoned organization enduring decades of repression. They will not take this lying down. Revolutionary protests movements are typically for those who do not have the option of the ballot. And if revolutionary movements are not viable because of the regime’s authoritarian nature, then armed struggle becomes likely. The message sent to the Brotherhood is that the ballot is not a viable means of participating in power. If the street becomes closed off to them as a means of political expression, then armed struggle becomes a likely alternative.

This is precisely what happened in the early 90s in Algeria. The Islamists were on the verge of an electoral victory but the military stepped in to cancel the elections. The Islamists fractured into armed gangs waging a brutal armed campaign that along with the atrocities of the state killed over 150,000 people in a decade of fighting.

The Muslim Brother is a peaceful organization but it certainly has militant strands within it and I’m sure some factions are now calling for and organizing plans for attacks. This is all very dangerous and worrisome.

Allow me to reiterate, I do not like Morsi and generally enjoy arrogant and power hungry leaders falling from grace but objectively speaking, it does indeed set a terrible precedent, especially in the context of a region that is yearning for and learning democracy. Furthermore, being that Egypt is the largest and most influential Arab country, the impact of this overthrow can have a very negative effect on the whole region.

He should have been allowed to finish his presidency and if people were unhappy they should have voted him out. I also loathe the fact that the Saudi and UAE dictatorships congratulated the ouster.

The only good thing I see from all this at this point, and this may all be a bit premature, is that it puts all leaders, even democratically elected ones, on alert. If you do a poor job in office, you could possibly meet the same fate.

Posted in Egypt | 4 Comments

Iran the Winner of the Arab Spring?

Posted on June 17, 2013 by iPouya

On March 7th I participated in my 4th HuffPost Live discussion, this time joined by Flynt Everett. I argued that Iran’s regional clout had been weakened by the Arab Spring and that it was an opportune moment to reach an agreement with Iran over its nuclear program since history shows that Iran is much more inclined to compromise when it’s threatened and/or isolated. I had even written an article about the point for Tehran Bureau.

Leverett posited the antiquated rejoinder that Iran was the main winner of the Arab Spring and was at the pinnacle of his power, especially since Egypt had broken with the US over Iran and was moving closer to a reconciliation with Iran.

I argued in the discussion and in the Tehran Bureau article that Egypt was not in fact moving closer to Iran and that although Egypt’s Morsi had defied the US and gone to Iran for the NAM summit, he spoke, to the dismay of Iran’s leaders, in solidarity with the Syrian uprising. I further argued that the Bahraini regime has endured the Arab Spring and had shored up its anti-Iranian rhetoric while, most importantly, Iran’s main regional ally, Syria, was severely weakened because of a ruthless war.

It could have been easier to portray Iran a winner of the Arab Spring immediately after Mubarak’s fall but that analysis would only have been short-term.

To further highlight Iran’s declining star as a result of the Arab Spring, the Muslim Brotherhood, from which Egypt’s president hails, has recently called for an anti-Shi’ite jihad in Syria, which naturally affect’s majority-Shi’ite Iran.  The Arab Spring has indeed morphed into a Sunni-Islamist uprising that is increasingly hostile to Shi’sim.

There are even reports that Iran is preparing to send a brigade of Revolutionary Guards (4,000 strong) to Syria. The Arab Spring could take an even sharper turn for the worse for Iran if it gets bogged down in the Syrian War.

Posted in Arab Spring, Iran | Comments Off on Iran the Winner of the Arab Spring?

Reconstructing a Persian Past: Contemporary Uses and Misuses of the Cyrus Cylinder in Iranian Nationalist Discourse

Posted on June 11, 2013 by iPouya

Ajam Media Collective: Recently, the Cyrus Cylinder, an imperial decree that dates from the sixth century B.C., left its home in the British Museum to be displayed on a museum tour across the United States until the end of the year. Its trip across the pond has been the focus of a plethora of news articles and press releases praising the ancient edict as the embodiment of “true” Persian culture and reminding the Iranian diaspora that this object purportedly bears witness to a democratic and tolerant past.

Reconstructing a Persian Past: Contemporary Uses and Misuses of the Cyrus Cylinder in Iranian Nationalist Discourse

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Recently, the Cyrus Cylinder, an imperial decree that dates from the sixth century B.C., left its home in the British Museum to be displayed on a museum tour across the United States until the end of the year. Its trip across the pond has been the focus of a plethora of news articles and press releases praising the ancient edict as the embodiment of “true” Persian culture and reminding the Iranian diaspora that this object purportedly bears witness to a democratic and tolerant past.

Cyrus_Cylinder_front

The front of the Cyrus Cylinder. Much of the actual text is lost to us today.

The excitement surrounding the Cyrus Cylinder is part of a broader phenomenon of rejoicing in a pre-Islamic past while simultaneously ignoring how its history has been systematically reinterpreted to fit contemporary political goals. This version of history is an ideological narrative that obscures nuance while inflating the relevance of an ancient history in the modern era. The legacy of the representation and misrepresentation of the Cyrus Cylinder is as old as the artifact itself. These interpretations are deeply intertwined with twentieth century Iranian history and the Pahlavi regime.

Since its rediscovery in 1879, the Cyrus Cylinder has been the focus of study for many generations of scholars, each hoping to elucidate the sociopolitical environment of Cyrus’ rule. The object, however, has been imbued with various and changing meanings informed by political and social circumstances not necessarily extrapolated from its contents since its rediscovery. The social biography of the Cyrus Cylinder is a compelling one, for its purpose has historically changed to match the needs of leaders in each time period, beginning with the era of Cyrus the Great until today.

After the Persian imperial conquest of Babylon, the Cyrus Cylinder was written by the government in the voice of Cyrus II of the Achaemenids that addressed the people of Babylon in their language, Akkadian. It assured them that the Babylonian gods, especially Marduk, held Cyrus in good favor and allowed him to conquer Babylon swiftly, and that he would increase offerings of ducks and geese to the Babylonian gods to stay on their good side. It also claimed Cyrus made the sanctuaries of the gods permanent, and “gathered together all of their people and returned them to their settlements.”

According to Josef Wiesohofer, a leading scholar on Ancient Persia, the text of the Cyrus Cylinder can be divided into six distinct sections. It begins with a condemnation of Nabonidus, the previous Babylonian king, asserts Cyrus’ lineage, and then details Cyrus’ arrival in Babylon. It continues to outline prayers and sacrifices to Marduk, reaffirm that people are living in peace, and highlight Cyrus’ plans for erecting buildings.

Far from being progressive or unique, Cyrus allowed for the sacrifices and rebuilt areas to placate newly conquered peoples more swiftly. His edict used traditional Babylonian political processes and mimicked Nabonidus’ Cylinder in multiple ways, suggesting that Cyrus was imitating a commonly acknowledged political formula of his era. Both cylinders described the rulers as “king of kings, king of the four corners,” indicating a continuity in acceptable ruling titles in the region. Additionally, and perhaps more importantly, the role of religion is central to both cylinders. Much of both edicts are dedicated to describing the lengths at which the rulers, Nabonidus and Cyrus, took to restore temples and glorify the Babylonian gods.

Although Cyrus is believed to have been Zoroastrian, his cylinder makes no mention of the Zoroastrian deity Ahura Mazda, and only focuses on Marduk and other lesser Babylonian gods. The repetition of Marduk throughout the edict’s text was by no means random or a mistake; Cyrus chose Marduk to win the favor of the Babylonian people. The previous king of Babylon, Nabonidus, had privileged the moon-god Sin above all other gods, including Marduk, the primary god of the Babylonians. Cyrus had been mindful of the Babylonians’ discontent with Nabonidus and wanted to preempt any calls against his conquest by quelling their religious concerns.

Had Cyrus attempted to restructure social institutions in every conquered region, he would have failed in spreading his imperial sword as far as he did.

The Achaemenid dynasty followed Cyrus’ protocol and continued to use religion as a political tool to spread the Persian Empire as far as possible. For example, Cambyses II, the son of Cyrus II, worshipped Egyptian gods after his conquest of Egypt. It was not until Darius I that the Achaemenids definitively promoted themselves as Zoroastrians. By creating a divine connection between himself and Ahura Mazda, Darius I succeeded in consolidating political power in an otherwise tumultuous period. It is evident, then, that both Cyrus and Darius used religion as a means to further their own political careers and empires.

Fast forward more than two thousand years to the nineteenth century. Until 1879, the Cyrus Cylinder remained buried where it had originally been offered to the Babylonian gods. The Cyrus Cylinder was excavated in 1879 in Babylon, present-day Iraq, by the Assyrian-British archaeologist Hormuzd Rassam. European historians linked the cylinder to the Book of Ezra and the freeing of Jews from Babylon, believing the Cyrus Cylinder as evidence for the biblical story.

It was not for another century, however, that the Cyrus Cylinder would draw the attention of the Iranian public. Iran’s last shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, worked extensively to bring the Cyrus Cylinder to the fore of public attention to create an image that appealed to his people, as well as others worldwide. The popular understanding and glorification of the Cyrus Cylinder, commonly referred to now as a symbol of religious freedom, is rooted directly in modern Iranian politics of the twentieth century.

Mohammad Reza Shah took the Cyrus Cylinder and liberally interpreted the sacrifices as a promise of religious freedom. Drawing upon Cyrus’ Biblical legacy, Mohammad Reza Shah presented the Cyrus Cylinder as a defender of all religions, removing it of its specific imperial context and creating a symbol of religious freedom where there was none. He then declared the Cyrus Cylinder as the “First Declaration of Human Rights” in 1968, hoping to bring positive attention to Iran’s history to deflect the international community’s increasing criticism of his authoritarian rule. A few years later, Mohammad Reza Shah organized the incredibly ostentatious anniversary celebration of 2,500 year monarchical rule in Iran. In the same year, to further commemorate Cyrus II’s rule, the Shah gifted a replica of the clay artifact to the United Nations in 1971.

During his rule, the Shah was accused of widespread human rights violations for torturing and executing political opponents to his regime. So brutal was his reign that Amnesty International eventually identified Iran as the world’s top human rights offenders in 1976. In particular, the infamous cruelty of Iran’s secret police SAVAK had tarnished Mohammad Reza Shah’s progressive image. In order to draw attention away from these egregious abuses, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi launched a campaign to connect his rule with that of Cyrus the Great. Ironically, the idea that the Cyrus Cylinder was the first human rights document emerged from the lips of a dictator. His campaign to recreate Iran’s public image was often linked to a racialist agenda of Persian supremacy at the expense of a more cohesive national identity.

Despite the Shah’s attempts to make his autocratic rule more popular amongst Iranians, his extravagant spending on the 2,500 year anniversary celebration of monarchical rule backfired and provoked even more discontent amongst people. Mohammad Reza Shah is responsible, however, for inventing a new life for the Cyrus Cylinder—one which has been used by Persian nationalists of all stripes to reclaim the ancient empire.

Pahlavi’s attempt to restore dignity to his throne has spawned a tradition of romanticizing ancient Persia in order to deflect attention from contemporary struggles. Since the 1970s, many Iranians have been guilty of exaggerating the contents of the Cyrus Cylinder, claiming that Cyrus freed all slaves, allowed himself to be democratically elected by Babylonians, and promised freedom of religion. These claims, among others, are either entirely fabricated or dramatic deviations from the text. In fact,  Babylonia was expected to send a tribute of 500 slave boys to the Achaemenid king every year. And yet, these are the most commonly cited “values” of the Cyrus Cylinder. Scholars, including Josef Wiesehöfer, C.B.F. Walker, and Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones have done scholarly research on the Cylinder and the social milieu discounting these claims. These exaggerations helped legitimize Pahlavi’s regime by reinventing the past to distract from the present.

reinventing the past to distract from the present.

Thanks to Mohammad Reza Shah’s campaign, some contemporary Iranians refer to the Cyrus Cylinder as if it were the answer to current problems faced in Iran and in the diaspora. The Cylinder has become a source of pride for many, but unfortunately this esteem recycles a dictatorship’s fantastic projections onto an artifact of empire, repeating the process of inventing a noble back story instead of addressing the misuse of history for contemporary political projects.

The Cyrus Cylinder continues to be re-appropriated in a similar fashion by government elites today, denoting continuity in two governments’ approaches towards Iranian antiquity. During the Cyrus Cylinder tour to Iran in 2010, the Cyrus Cylinder was unveiled underneath the Iranian flag, and a Cyrus impersonator was honored by Ahmadinejad with the gifting of a chaffiyeh, worn by soldiers in the Iran-Iraq war and identified with the Basiji paramilitary today. The combination of current national symbols of the flag and chaffiyeh with Cyrus the Great and his cylinder indicates a desire to create a holistic national identity, drawing upon both an ancient imperial legacy and a modern culture imbued with Islam.

Ahmadinejad’s welcome, which tied the present day to the past, resembles Pahlavi’s recreation of the symbol in the 1960s and 70s, as both tried to link their own rule and modernity to that of Cyrus II. His attempt to co-opt the secular nationalist symbol and subsume it under a religious nationalist identity, however, backfired in many ways. His actions estranged other factions in the government, revealing the controversial nature of the Cyrus Cylinder in the eyes of some government officials today and leaving his reverence of the artifact to be ridiculed.

This year, the Cyrus Cylinder is on loan from the British Museum, touring the US from March 9th through December 2nd, making stops in D.C., New York, Houston, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Disturbingly, the Cyrus Cylinder has been welcomed to the US by the same American congressmen who have pushed for devastating economic sanctions in Iran (see here and here). By touting the Cyrus Cylinder as the foundation for future human rights charters, some have seen the celebration of the historical artifact as a way to counter the current media blitz on Iran’s nuclear program. Historians and archaeologists of Iran, however, recognize these claims as the projection and downright insertion of modern values into an ancient text.

The meanings of objects change based upon the perspectives of the reader. A 2,500-year-old object should be analyzed in its own context, not through twentieth century universalist legal definitions. By accepting the lofty claims made about the Cyrus Cylinder, we are not only promoting false deviations from the text, but we are privileging an imperialist narrative that deserves scrutiny. Through demystification and demythification of these objects, one can better analyze the development of nationalist symbols in the modern period and their ability to obscure realities of the present and the past.

Posted in Iran | 1 Comment

Iran’s 2009 Protests Haunt Upcoming Elections

Posted on May 26, 2013 by iPouya

Here is my most recent article at the Huffington Post: On May 21, 2013, Iran’s Guardian Council, the powerful 12-member body charged with vetting hopefuls for the Iranian presidency, determined that Iran’s former president, Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani, 78, was unfit to run again for the position due to his advanced age. The fact that Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati is Rafsanjani’s elder by nearly a decade and is the chairman of the same council that disqualified the former president indicates that there are probably other motives behind the decision.

Rafsanjani was one of the most trusted lieutenants to Ayatollah Khomeini, the leader of Iran’s 1979 revolution that ushered in the Islamic Republic. Furthermore, Rafsanjani was Speaker of Parliament in the 80s and served two terms as president (1989-97). He currently heads the Expediency Council, the body empowered to arbitrate legislative disputes between the parliament and the Guardian Council. A seasoned politician with such credentials and youth (by comparison to Jannati) had a seemingly strong résumé for the position. So why was he prevented from standing in the election?

Many analysts have rightly suggested that personal rivalries within Iran’s centers of power are to blame. Some have concluded that there was a falling out between Ayatollah Khamenei, Iran’s current Supreme Leader, and outgoing president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and the former now seeks a more loyal, obedient, and malleable president. That the eight approved candidates are very close to Khamenei gives credence to this point.

Accordingly, Haddad Adel is the father-in-law to Khamenei’s son, Ali Akbar Velayati is the leader’s top advisor, Saeed Jalili and Hassan Rohani are both Khamenei’s appointees to the powerful Supreme National Security Council, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf is a former police chief appointed by Khamenei and currently serves as the Mayor of Tehran, Mohsen Rezaei is his longest serving chief of the Revolutionary Guards (1981-1997), and Mohammad Gharazi is a figure close to the leader.

The most important reason for disallowing Rafsanjani from standing, however, is rooted in the unprecedented post-election turmoil of 2009.

In the summer of 2009 and in the weeks before the presidential election, thousands of supporters transformed the campaign of their candidate, reformist and former prime minister Mir Hussein Mousavi, into a street movement. Some even used the campaign as a cover to demonstrate against the government as a whole. So threatening was this movement that on the eve of the vote, Brigadier General Yadollah Javani, the Deputy Commander of Political Affairs for the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, accused the campaign of being part of a “velvet revolution” and promised that “any kind of velvet revolution will not be successful in Iran.”

Subsequently, when the results were announced and the incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared the winner, many Mousavi supporters emphatically alleged fraud and launched a protest movement that drew millions onto the streets. On June 15, 2009, for example, Tehran’s mayor Mohammad Baqir Qalibaf (the same Qalibaf now running for president) estimated that three million people marched on the capital city alone. Protests of this magnitude were undoubtedly the largest since Iran’s historic 1979 revolution.

The protests may have reached a bitter end at the hands of a brutal crackdown, but the movement’s long-term effects continue to haunt the authorities.

Until 2009, the Iranian government always urged the electorate to participate in any and all elections. The fear was that low voter turn-out would be a vote of no confidence for the Islamic Republic. Today, and as a consequence of 2009, the Iranian government’s first priority is not a free or fair election, or even one in which a majority of the electorate participate. The priority now is a quiet and uneventful election and that’s the main reason why Khamenei loyalists are allowed to run and Rafsanjani is disqualified. If only the loyalists run then the worst case scenario for the Iranian government is a low voter turn-out. But if Rafsanjani were allowed to run then the outcome is too dangerously unpredictable for the authorities.

Indeed, in 2009, Rafsanjani backed the protest movement, Mousavi, and the other reformist candidate, Mehdi Karroubi, thereby garnering the favor of protesters. What’s more, when the Iranian government flooded the streets with security personnel to stamp out the movement, protesters began strategically using special events like political holidays or Friday prayers as a cover to come out and renew their demands to annul the election results and protest the government as a whole. They even used the occasion of Rafsanjani’s Friday sermon more than a month after the election to continue their protests.

The Iranian government wants to prevent the simmering opposition from surfacing and using a Rafsanjani candidacy as a cover to reignite 2009’s protest movement. This is an especially pressing point in the context of regional uprisings that have in recent years challenged and in some cases succeeded in ousting their autocratic leaders.

Lastly, this may quite possibly be the final presidential election in Iran as Khamenei has indicated his preference for scrapping the presidency in favor of a parliamentary system where the parliament elects a premier. This too may be a consequence of 2009 since it is far more difficult for the opposition to rally around one candidate when it is the parliament and not the electorate that chooses the premier.

Naturally, all this does not bode well for democracy in Iran.

Posted in 22 Khordad, Iran | 3 Comments

Stephen Hawking’s support for the boycott of Israel is a turning point

Posted on May 13, 2013 by iPouya

The Guardian: A standard objection to the Palestinian campaign for the boycott of Israel is that it would cut off “dialogue” and hurt the chances of peace. We’ve heard this again in the wake of Professor Stephen Hawking’s laudable decision to withdraw from Israel’s Presidential Conference in response to requests from Palestinian academics – but it would be hard to think of a more unconvincing position as far as Palestinians are concerned.

One of the most deceptive aspects of the so-called peace process is the pretence that Palestinians and Israelis are two equal sides, equally at fault, equally responsible – thus erasing from view the brutal reality that Palestinians are an occupied, colonised people, dispossessed at the hands of one of the most powerful militaries on earth.

For more than two decades, under the cover of this fiction, Palestinians have engaged in internationally-sponsored “peace talks” and other forms of dialogue, only to watch as Israel has continued to occupy, steal and settle their land, and to kill and maim thousands of people with impunity.

While there are a handful of courageous dissenting Israeli voices, major Israeli institutions, especially the universities, have been complicit in this oppression by, for example, engaging in research and training partnerships with the Israeli army. Israel’s government has actively engaged academics, artists and other cultural figures in international “Brand Israel” campaigns to prettify the country’s image and distract attention from the oppression of Palestinians.

The vast majority of Palestinians, meanwhile, have been disenfranchised by the official peace process as their fate has been placed in the hands of venal and comprised envoys such as Tony Blair, and US and EU governments that only seem to find the courage to implement international law and protect human rights when it comes to the transgressions of African or Arab states.

When it comes to Israel’s abuses, governments around the world have offered nothing but lip service; while dozens of countries face US, EU or UN sanctions for far lesser transgressions, it has taken years for EU governments to even discuss timid steps such as labelling goods from illegal Israeli settlements, let alone actually banning them. Yet the peace process train trundles on – now with a new conductor in the form of John Kerry, the US secretary of state – but with no greater prospects of ever reaching its destination. So, enough talk already.

The Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS) aims to change this dynamic. It puts the initiative back in the hands of Palestinians. The goal is to build pressure on Israel to respect the rights of all Palestinians by ending its occupation and blockade of the West Bank and Gaza Strip; respecting the rights of Palestinian refugees who are currently excluded from returning to their homes just because they are not Jews; and abolishing all forms of discrimination against Palestinian citizens of Israel.

These demands are in line with universal human rights principles and would be unremarkable and uncontroversial in any other context, which is precisely why support for them is growing.

BDS builds on a long tradition of popular resistance around the world: from within Palestine itself to the Montgomery bus boycott in Alabama to the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. Historically, boycotts work.

During the 1980s opponents of sanctions against apartheid South Africa – including, notoriously, the late Margaret Thatcher – argued instead for “constructive engagement”. They were on the wrong side of history. Today, Palestinians are lectured to drop BDS and return to empty talks that are the present-day equivalent of constructive engagement.

But there can be no going back to the days when Palestinians were silenced and only the strong were given a voice. There can be no going back to endless “dialogue” and fuzzy and toothless talk about “peace” that provides a cover for Israel to entrench its colonisation.

When we look back in a few years, Hawking’s decision to respect BDS may be seen as a turning point – the moment when boycotting Israel as a stance for justice went mainstream.

What is clear today is that his action has forced Israelis – and the rest of the world – to understand that the status quo has a price. Israel cannot continue to pretend that it is a country of culture, technology and enlightenment while millions of Palestinians live invisibly under the brutal rule of bullets, bulldozers and armed settlers.

Posted in Palestine | 1 Comment

The Failed Neocon Attempt to Destroy an Iranian American Anti-war Organization

Posted on May 10, 2013 by iPouya

From a former AIPAC insider, M.J. Rosenberg: The war over war with Iran has many battlefronts. Inside Washington, the battle line is between a small coalition of peace and security, non-proliferation and religious groups opposing war and favoring a peaceful solution to the stand off with Iran, and a well-funded war machine comprising neoconservative organizations who believe war with Iran should have started years ago.

A central organization within the anti-war coalition is the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), the largest Iranian-American grassroots organization. NIAC has been at the forefront of opposing war, favoring diplomacy and opposing broad sanctions that only hurt the Iranian people, while, at the same time, rebuking Tehran’s horrible human rights record.

At the end of this five-year process, no evidence was found to substantiate the accusation that NIAC was lobbying for the Iranian regime.

 

With its access to the White House, State Department and media, NIAC has increasingly troubled the war crowd, so much so that it has become one of their favorite targets.

Its leading attack dog, Seyyed Hassan Daioleslam put it like this in an internal email: “destroying” NIAC and its President Trita Parsi “is an integral part of any attack on [former Secretary of State Hillary] Clinton and President Obama.” In other words, destroying NIAC would also destroy the administration’s policy of avoiding war with Iran.

Daioleslam has engaged in a massive defamation campaign accusing NIAC of being the lobby of the Islamic Republic of Iran — a ludicrous accusation considering NIAC’s unambiguous support for the Iranian pro-democracy movement but one that would rightly destroy the organization if proven true.

NIAC responded, as it had to, by taking Daioleslam to court for defamation.

No doubt, NIAC knew that in suing Dai it was fighting a David vs. Goliath battle, since the laws are stacked against anyone suing for defamation in the U.S.

But it was worse than that. Not only were the laws stacked against it, NIAC was also significantly outspent because the neoconservatives decided to go all out to deal a death blow to the anti-war forces. In fact, the well-financed anti-Muslim, pro-war and anti-Obama activist Daniel Pipes stepped in to support Daioleslam through the legal arm of his organization, the Middle East Forum. Pipes got Daioleslam a top-notch legal team headed by George Bush’s former White House lawyer Bradford Berenson of Sidley Austin, the sixth largest law firm in the world.

At first, Daioleslam’s court room argument was that his statements were accurate and that NIAC should be compelled to open its books so that the veracity of his claim of NIAC’s control by Tehran could be assessed. NIAC complied and Daioleslam’s high-powered legal team went through thousands of emails, documents and calendar entries.

However, to their great frustration, they couldn’t find a shred of evidence supporting Daioleslam’s claims. Instead, the documents revealed a very simple truth: NIAC is an independent grassroots organization supported by the Iranian American community, and which, engages with all parties to the conflict including the U.S., Iranian and Israeli governments.

Failing to prove his main contention, Daioleslam retreated from the assertion that NIAC was the Islamic Republic’s lobby. This was a huge victory for NIAC and, if the lawsuit had been filed in any other country, the conclusion would have been: Daioleslam lost, NIAC won.

Not a good day for the pro-war lobby, but a very good one for Americans who abhor the idea of being embroiled in a third Middle East war.

 

But in the U.S., the plaintiffs (in this case, NIAC) have to go one step beyond proving that they were defamed. Plaintiffs also have to prove that the other side had acted with malice. So NIAC had to prove that Daioleslam knew that he was lying — a tall order under all circumstances. And convincing the very conservative, Bush appointed Judge John Bates – the same judge that got Dick Cheney off the hook in the Valerie Plame case — that Daioleslam acted with malice was probably impossible.

NIAC could not pull that off and the judge responded by shifting some of the legal “discovery” costs ($184,000) from Daioleslam to NIAC. But that was Daioleslam’s only victory.

Not only was the claim that NIAC is a foreign lobby shattered but Daniel Pipes and other neoconservatives had spent considerably more than $184,000 on their efforts to destroy NIAC. They had hoped to shift a much larger chunk of those costs to NIAC to cripple it by emptying its coffers.

But NIAC succeeded in striking out the largest item on Daioleslam’s menu of requests, leaving NIAC with an $184,000 bill, an amount it is appealing. In short, Dailoeslam’s attack backfired, apparently leaving him (or Pipes) heavily in the hole. In fact, during a press call last week, Dailoeslam actually called on reporters to donate and help defray its costs!

So at the end of this five-year process, no evidence was found to substantiate the accusation that NIAC was lobbying for the Iranian regime; the objective of “destroying NIAC” has completely failed as the organization continues to be one of the most prominent voices on Iran policy in Washington; and the vast majority of the cost of the discovery process remains with the defendant and his neo-conservative backers.

Not a good day for the pro-war lobby, but a very good one for Americans who find the idea of being embroiled in a third Middle East war – so soon after Iraq and with our troops still in Afghanistan – utterly appalling.

M.J. Rosenberg is a Special Correspondent for The Washington Spectator. He was most recently a Foreign Policy fellow at Media Matters For America. Previously, he spent 15 years as a Senate and House aide. Early in his career he was editor of AIPAC’s newsletter Near East Report. From 1998-2009, he was director of policy at Israel Policy Forum. Follow him @MJayRosenberg and @WashSpec.

Posted in Iran, US-Iran Relations | 1 Comment

Stephen Hawking joins academic boycott of Israel

Posted on May 8, 2013 by iPouya

The Guardian: Professor Stephen Hawking is backing the academic boycott of Israel by pulling out of a conference hosted by Israeli president Shimon Peres in Jerusalem as a protest at Israel’s treatment of Palestinians.

Hawking, 71, the world-renowned theoretical physicist and Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge, had accepted an invitation to headline the fifth annual president’s conference, Facing Tomorrow, in June, which features major international personalities, attracts thousands of participants and this year will celebrate Peres’s 90th birthday.

Hawking is in very poor health, but last week he wrote a brief letter to the Israeli president to say he had changed his mind. He has not announced his decision publicly, but a statement published by the British Committee for the Universities of Palestine with Hawking’s approval described it as “his independent decision to respect the boycott, based upon his knowledge of Palestine, and on the unanimous advice of his own academic contacts there”.

Hawking’s decision marks another victory in the campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions targeting Israeli academic institutions.

In April the Teachers’ Union of Ireland became the first lecturers’ association in Europe to call for an academic boycott of Israel, and in the United States members of the Association for Asian American Studies voted to support a boycott, the first national academic group to do so.

In the four weeks since Hawking’s participation in the Jerusalem event was announced, he has been bombarded with messages from Britain and abroad as part of an intense campaign by boycott supporters trying to persuade him to change his mind. In the end, Hawking told friends, he decided to follow the advice of Palestinian colleagues who unanimously agreed that he should not attend.

By participating in the boycott, Hawking joins a small but growing list of British personalities who have turned down invitations to visit Israel, including Elvis Costello, Roger Waters, Brian Eno, Annie Lennox and Mike Leigh.

However, many artists, writers and academics have defied and even denounced the boycott, calling it ineffective and selective. Ian McEwan, who was awarded the Jerusalem Prize in 2011, responded to critics by saying: “If I only went to countries that I approve of, I probably would never get out of bed … It’s not great if everyone stops talking.”

Hawking has visited Israel four times in the past. Most recently, in 2006, he delivered public lectures at Israeli and Palestinian universities as the guest of the British embassy in Tel Aviv. At the time, he said he was “looking forward to coming out to Israel and the Palestinian territories and excited about meeting both Israeli and Palestinian scientists”.

Since then, his attitude to Israel appears to have hardened. In 2009, Hawking denounced Israel’s three-week attack on Gaza, telling Riz Khan on Al-Jazeera that Israel’s response to rocket fire from Gaza was “plain out of proportion … The situation is like that of South Africa before 1990 and cannot continue.”

The office of President Peres, which has not yet announced Hawking’s withdrawal, did not respond to requests for comment. Hawking’s name has been removed from the speakers listed on the official website.

Posted in Palestine | Comments Off on Stephen Hawking joins academic boycott of Israel

Jewish settlers are terrorising Palestinians, says Israeli general

Posted on May 2, 2013 by iPouya

The Independent: A senior Israeli army commander has warned that unchecked “Jewish terror” against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank threatens to plunge the territory into another conflict.

In unusually outspoken comments, Major General Avi Mizrahi took aim at extremist Israeli settlers, and said the yeshiva, or religious seminary, in Yitzhar, one of the most radical Jewish strongholds in the West Bank, should be closed, calling it a source of terror against Palestinians.

The general’s comments are likely to put him at odds with Israel’s pro-settler government, which has resisted US-led efforts to curb settlement expansion in a bid to revive stalled peace talks. The foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, himself lives in a West Bank settlement. All settlements are regarded as illegal under international law.

The army has anxiously watched an upsurge in violence by hardline settlers, who in recent months have set fire to a West Bank mosque, burned Palestinian olive groves, and vandalised Palestinian property. Settlers have killed three Palestinians this year.

“What’s happening in the field is terrorism,” General Mizrahi told Channel 2’s Meet the Press, and it “needs to be dealt with.” The Israel Defence Forces (IDF), he said, fears “terrorism against Palestinians is likely to ignite the territories.”

The general’s criticism points to frustration within the army’s high command at their ability to check violent settlers.

Palestinians and Israeli NGOs frequently accuse the army of siding with settlers in conflagrations with Palestinians, prompting the army to respond that it is obliged to protect its citizens and does not set policy.

The number of violent incidents has spiked in recent months, partly because of the murder earlier this year of five members, including three children, from one Jewish family in Itamar, a settlement near Nablus. Two Palestinians were charged with the crime.

Human rights groups suggest that the more radical settlers, many of whom oppose a two-state solution on the premise that the whole of Israel is bequeathed to them by God, are agitating against Palestinian moves to seek statehood recognition at the United Nations in September.

Some fear that the surge in violent attacks against Palestinians could compound rising frustrations with the stalled peace process and trigger more violent riots.

“The army is very afraid that [action by settlers] at a critical moment could set off a Third Intifada,” said Adam Keller, spokesman for Israeli human rights body Gush Shalom, referring to a mass Palestinian uprising.

“The fact that the army is nervous is making the settlers more aggressive,” he said

The Israeli commander General Mizrahi blamed the courts for failing to rein in the most radical of the settlers – a small proportion of the roughly 500,000 Israeli settlers who are living beyond the Green Line in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.

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UC Berkeley: ASUC Senate passes divestment bill SB 160 11-9

Posted on April 18, 2013 by iPouya

Today, I’m especially proud to be a Cal alum: – The Daily Cal: In a dramatic vote that was emotional for all sides, the ASUC Senate voted 11-9 to divest from companies affiliated with Israel’s military early Thursday morning.

The heated debate began Wednesday evening and carried on for 10 hours, continuing into Thursday. Anna Head Alumnae Hall overflowed with hundreds of UC Berkeley students, faculty and community members engaging in a contentious debate regarding the bill, SB 160.

SB 160, authored by Student Action Senator George Kadifa, calls the UC system a “complicit third party” in Israel’s “illegal occupation and ensuing human rights abuses” and seeks the divestment of more than $14 million in ASUC and UC assets from Caterpillar, Hewlett-Packard and Cement Roadstone Holdings. According to the bill, these companies provide equipment, materials and technology to the Israeli military, including bulldozers and biometric identification systems.

The final vote, which occurred just before 5:30 a.m., was met with cheering, stomping and cries of joy by supporters of the bill.

Independent Senator and bill co-sponsor Sadia Saifuddin said she saw the vote as the culmination of years of struggle.

“Tonight is not about corporations,” she said. “It’s about asking ourselves before we go to sleep whether our money is going toward the destruction of homes, toward the erection of a wall. I am a working student. And I don’t want one cent of my money to go toward fueling the occupation of my brothers and sisters.”

But across the aisle, opponents of divestment were silent, absorbing the defeat with dismay.

SQUELCH! Senator Jason Bellet decried the bill for ignoring an important side in the issue.

“If we walk away with anything tonight, it’s that this conflict is nuanced,” he said. “But divestment and the language set forth in SB 160 frames Israel as the sole aggressor. This is more than just divesting from three companies. Divestment is undoubtedly taking a side in the conflict.”

The vote was emotional for senators as well as spectators. At least three senators broke down in tears as they gave their final comments following the vote.

Dozens of community members spoke at the beginning of the meeting, pleading their cases to the senate late into the night.

Supporters of the divestment bill — which included Muslim and Jewish students alike as well as members of other campus communities — said they opposed the ASUC and university’s financial involvement with companies that benefit from alleged human rights violations perpetrated by the Israeli government.

“There are few experiences more traumatic than losing your home or being forced out of the place you call home,” said UC Berkeley junior Kamyar Jarahzadeh. “This university’s money — our money — is complicit in the deprivation of human rights.”

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Alice Walker, who said she had visited the Gaza Strip, was present at the meeting and publicly voiced her support for SB 160.

The senate was also set to vote on an opposing bill, SB 158, but the bill was tabled following the long discussion of SB 160. SB 158 “seek(s) investment opportunities that strengthen Israeli-Palestinian cooperation in pursuit of a two state resolution to the conflict” rather than divestment.

Many members of the Jewish community decried SB 160’s targeted divestment from Israel as choosing one side of the conflict at the expense of the other when suffering has occurred on both.

“Divestment does nothing to better the lives of Palestinians,” said political science professor Ron Hassner. “It seeks to undermine, harm and destroy and offers no vision of an Israeli-Palestinian future.”

Opponents of divestment also reminded the senate of the hostile campus climate Jewish students faced after the 2010 divestment attempt. Many said they felt alienated and unwelcome and warned that the passage of SB 160 could affect Jewish students’ decision to come to UC Berkeley.

“We will take home that an amendment asking for a two-state solution was failed,” said SQUELCH! party chair and former Daily Cal columnist Noah Ickowitz. “We will take home that an amendment asking for recognition of Israel as a Jewish state was failed. We will take home that this body takes divestment as a weapon of choice when that is not the only weapon in our arsenal.”

The senate passed a similar divestment bill in 2010, but it was later vetoed by then-president Will Smelko.

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