Mark Karlin writes: On March 29, 2012, William R. Brownfield, US assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (in other words, Hillary Clinton’s point person on drug issues), testified before the House Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs. His subject was the war on drugs in the Western Hemisphere outside of the United States and Canada. Few, if any, reporters from the US press attended.
Approximately 50,000 or more Mexicans have been killed since Mexican President Felipe Calderon launched a so-called war on drug cartels. (In a recent appearance in Toronto, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta claimed 150,000 people have died in the drug war in Mexico, but the timeline Panetta was referring to was unclear, as was the origin of the figure he cited.) Given that five Juarez police officers were gunned down at a party the night before Brownfield’s testimony, the Spanish-language press, unlike the American media, took an interest in his remarks.
You see, Juarez is kind of a sore spot for Mexicans. In 2010, more than 3,000 homicides took place in the city where killings are committed with general impunity, making it the murder capital of the world that year. Although Juarez’s murder rate has now lowered slightly, the city’s mayor – who lives across the Rio Grande in El Paso, Texas – indignantly denies that Juarez is the deadliest city on earth, even though it almost certainly remains close to being just that. Borderland writer Charles Bowden writes in “Murder City: Ciudad Juarez and the Global Economy’s New Killing Fields“: “The violence is everywhere. It is like the dust in the air, part of life itself.” [Continue reading…]
The New York Times reports: Mazen, a carpenter who organizes protests against President Bashar al-Assad in a suburb of Damascus, Syria, has torn down the posters of Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, that once decorated his car and shop.
Like many Syrians, Mazen, 35, revered Mr. Nasrallah for his confrontational stance with Israel. He considered Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group and political party, as an Arab champion of the dispossessed, not just for its Shiite Muslim base but for Sunnis like himself. But now that Hezbollah has stood by Mr. Assad during his deadly yearlong crackdown on the uprising against his rule, Mazen sees Hezbollah as a sectarian party that supports Mr. Assad because his opponents are mainly Sunnis.
“Now, I hate Hezbollah,” he said. “Nasrallah should stand with the people’s revolution if he believes in God.”
Mr. Nasrallah’s decision to maintain his critical alliance with Syria has risked Hezbollah’s standing and its attempts to build pan-Islamic ties in Lebanon and the wider Arab world.
Though Hezbollah’s base in Lebanon remains strong, it runs an increasing risk of finding itself isolated, possibly caught up in a sectarian war between its patron, Iran, the region’s Shiite power, and Saudi Arabia, a protector of Sunni interests in the Middle East. Its longtime ally, Hamas, the Palestinian militant group, has distanced itself from the Assad government, moving its headquarters out of Damascus, and Sunni revolutionaries in Syria have explicitly denounced Hezbollah as an enemy. At home, its Lebanese rivals sense a rare opportunity to erode its power.
In a delicate adjustment in the face of these new realities — and the resilience of the uprising — Hezbollah has shifted its tone. In carefully calibrated speeches last month, Mr. Nasrallah gently but firmly signaled that Mr. Assad could not crush the uprising by force and must lay down arms and seek a political settlement. He implicitly acknowledged the growing moral outrage in the wider Muslim world at the mounting death toll, obliquely noted that the Syrian government was accused of “targeting civilians” and urged Mr. Assad to “present the facts to the people.”
Behind the scenes, Mr. Nasrallah personally tried to start a reconciliation process in Syria early in the uprising and is now renewing those efforts, said Ali Barakeh, a Hamas official involved in the talks.
“He refuses the killing for both sides,” said Mr. Barakeh, the Beirut representative for Hamas.
Mr. Barakeh said that Mr. Nasrallah visited Damascus in April of last year and briefly persuaded Mr. Assad to try to reach a political solution, with Hezbollah and Hamas acting as mediators. But as Hamas began reaching out to fellow Sunni Muslims in the opposition, the plan was scuttled by the Syrian government.
Last year, as the government of Bahrain violently suppressed an Arab Spring protest movement, an unlikely champion of the small Gulf nation emerged on Capitol Hill in Washington: Democratic Rep. Eni Faleomavaega, the delegate from American Samoa.
Faleomavaega, who has been a non-voting delegate in Congress since 1989 and is now the third-ranking Democrat on the Foreign Affairs Committee, typically focuses on more local matters: the tuna industry, Pacific Islands affairs and securing federal funding for American Samoa.
But this week he is taking a trip to Bahrain, his second in the past year, both paid by the Bahraini government. It’s part of a year-long friendship the congressman has developed with the Gulf nation.
In March 2011, just weeks into the crisis, Faleomavaega emerged seemingly out of nowhere 2014 he has no history of commenting on Middle East affairs 2014 to enter a 2,500-word statement into the Congressional Record that closely echoed the Bahraini government’s spin. “Bahrain is under attack,” he said, painting protesters as violent, Iran-backed vandals representing “the worst kind of seditious infiltration from a foreign enemy.” He praised the Crown Prince for supposedly meeting protesters’ demands for democratic reforms.
“Mr. Speaker,” Faleomavaega said. “I have to ask why the demonstrators returned to protesting again, even after all their demands were agreed to.”
Just days before, the government had torn down the iconic Pearl Monument at the center of the protests, and Saudi Arabian tanks had rolled into Bahrain to back the government crackdown.
So, why is the delegate from American Samoa so interested in supporting Bahrain? Faleomavaega told ProPublica it’s because “Bahrain has been a key ally and supporter of U.S. security interests in this region of the world.” But there’s another connection: A lobbying firm run by a longtime friend and campaign contributor to Faleomavaega is working for the regime’s allies.
The lobbying firm, D.C.-based Policy Impact Communications, is headed by William Nixon, a former Reagan speechwriter and Hill staffer who describes himself as a close personal friend of Faleomavaega. In 2010, Nixon and his wife gave Faleomavaega $4,800, making Policy Impact the congressman’s second-largest organizational donor that cycle. (The largest donor was StarKist.) Faleomavaega raises less than most members of Congress, having taken in just $65,500 that election and just $15,800 in the current cycle. Nixon is also president of the Mormon church’s northern Virginia Mount Vernon Stake, of which Faleomavaega is a member. (American Samoa has one of the highest percentages of Mormons in the world, with more than 25 percent of residents belonging to the church, according to Latter-day Saints figures.)
In March 2011, a month into the Bahrain crisis and about two weeks before Faleomavaega entered that first statement into the Congressional Record, Policy Impact created the Bahrain American Council. The group is operated out of Policy Impact’s K Street offices. And its board is vice-chaired by a Policy Impact executive. The group says it focuses on promoting U.S.-Bahrain trade and “educating the public about the strategic importance of Bahrain.”
The council also has close ties to Bahrain’s government: It previously listed a top Bahraini official as a member of its advisory board. The council was set up by a group of Bahraini-American businessmen, according to Policy Impact, but details of who is funding the group are not public. Policy Impact’s Nixon said the firm has not registered with the Justice Department as an agent of Bahrain, which is required when a firm is lobbying for a foreign entity, because the Bahrain American Council is run by Americans.
The group’s creation coincided with Bahrain’s hiring of several lobbying and public-relations firms to shore up its image in Washington and preserve its key alliance with the U.S. during the crackdown on protests.
Policy Impact’s Nixon told ProPublica that he and Faleomavaega have been “close personal friends [going] back almost before he was elected to Congress” in 1988, but that “there’s never been a quid pro quo on anything I’ve done professionally” with the congressman.
“When you give money to a congressman 2014 which I do; I’ve been in Washington since 1983 2014 there’s never an expectation of something for that money,” Nixon said. “Most often that money gets in the way of their ability to really assist you because it looks like something nefarious is under way.”
The Bahrain American Council appears to have worked closely with Faleomavaega from early on. It has featured his statements on Bahrain on its website, including Faleomavaega’s defense of Bahrain during a congressional human rights hearing in May. In Bahrain, both state-run and pro-government media have touted Faleomavaega’s various statements on the crisis (sample headline: “‘Democracy can’t be achieved through violence and blocking roads’, US Congress members said”). Last September, the Bahrain American Council’s president and an adviser to the king of Bahrain, Muhammad Abdul Ghaffar, met with Faleomavaega in his Capitol Hill office.
In October, Faleomavaega along with Reps. Donald Payne, D-N.J., and Lynne Woolsey, D-Calif., traveled to Bahrain on his first trip paid by Bahrain’s government. On the first night of the trip, the Bahrain American Council hosted a dinner honoring the members of Congress at the five-star Gulf Hotel in the capital, Manama. The Bahrain American Council’s president, Al Khalafalla, also accompanied the delegation in a meeting with the king. And the Bahrain American Council co-sponsored a speech by Faleomavaega in Manama in which he again criticized protesters and blamed Iran for stirring up unrest.
The congressional delegation also met with members of opposition party, Wefaq, but a party official later expressed disappointment with the meeting, writing that “the response of the delegation did not meet our expectation as it did not show enough understanding for the legitimate demands for reform.”
Faleomavaega, for his part, said in an email that he was introduced to the Bahrain American Council by Bart Marcois, a political operative who was, for a six-month period beginning last year, a vice president at Policy Impact.
Marcois is a former foreign service officer for the State Department and also former public affairs adviser to the government of Kuwait in Washington. He has also been active in Mormon outreach in the GOP, founding the Republican National Committee’s Advisory Council on LDS Outreach and running Eagle PAC, which was created in 2007 “to solicit money from Mormons for distribution to Republican congressional candidates,” according to Politico.
Marcois said he is a longtime friend of both Faleomavaega and Khalafalla, the head of the Bahrain American Council, and he introduced them early last year after the council was created but before he had joined Policy Impact.
“I’ve known [Faleomavaega] for a long time, and you can never predict what he’s going to get involved in,” Marcois said. “He doesn’t get involved in anything for somebody’s interests.”
Faleomavaega said he became interested in Bahrain because he is a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and because the situation involves the alleged influence of Iran, which he believes is also extending to the Pacific Islands region.
“Due to the February 14, 2011 uprisings in Bahrain, which have yet to be resolved, I have a keen interest in our strategic and national security interests in this region,” Faleomavaega said in an email to ProPublica, “especially in view of Iran’s influence in the Middle East and in the Persian Gulf region 2014 and whether it is subtle or overt, I am also concern[ed] that Iranian influence is now seemingly visible in South America and in the Pacific Islands.” As evidence, he pointed to Iran’s diplomatic relations with the Solomon Islands.
Faleomavaega’s foray into the Bahrain issue isn’t the first time he has advocated for a faraway foreign country with a connection to Policy Impact.
In April 2009, the government of Kazakhstan, criticized by human-rights groups for its record under longtime dictator Nursultan Nazarbayev, hired Policy Impact on a $1.5 million contract to “illustrate Kazakhstan’s progress on human rights” and to establish a Central Asia caucus in Congress.
Over the next few months, Policy Impact officials had four in-person meetings and one phone call with Faleomavaega, who was then chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific, lobbying records show. In November 2009, Faleomavaega and Rep. Buck McKeon, R-Calif., founded the Congressional Caucus on Central Asia.
Faleomavaega also praised Kazakhstan in a conversation with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and robustly defended the country before a U.S. government commission that had been critical of Nazarbayev’s human-rights record. Faleomavaega pointed to Kazakhstan’s decision to give up its nuclear stockpile after the breakup of the Soviet Union.
“While human-rights groups continue to point fingers at Kazakhstan, I submit that only Kazakhstan had the moral courage to renounce nuclear weapons altogether for the sake of all mankind,” Faleomavaega said, also praising “President Nazarbayev’s leadership and commitment in the service of his people.”
In July 2009, Faleomavaega also traveled to Kazakhstan, telling a government official there, “I continue to argue with my colleagues about human rights in Kazakhstan,” according to a diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks. “I tell them you are only 18 years old. It took the United States 150 years to grant voting rights to African-Americans!”
Faleomavaega has denied that Policy Impact’s contract with Kazakhstan has anything to do with his involvement in the country, saying that he feels a special connection to the country because, like some islands in the Pacific region, it was the site of nuclear-weapons testing during the Cold War.
Nixon, the Policy Impact chairman, said that, as in the Bahrain case, “there was never ever a corollary between my relationship to the congressman and our representing Kazakhstan and the congressman’s interest in Kazakhstan.”
Faleomavaega is the second delegate to represent the unincorporated territory of American Samoa (population: 68,000) in the House since the position was created in 1978. Like the other four non-voting delegates in the House 2014 from the District of Columbia and three other island areas 2014 Faleomavaega hires staff with taxpayer money (more than $1 million per year), can introduce legislation and, in committee, possesses the same powers and privileges as full members of Congress. But he cannot vote on matters before the full House.
Faleomavaega is set to move just one spot away from the top Democratic position on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. While he is the third-ranking Democrat, he will move to the No. 2 slot next year with the retirement of Rep. Gary Ackerman, D-N.Y. Nothing in the House rules would bar him from chairing the committee someday, though he would have to be nominated by the Democratic caucus.
Yousef Munayyer writes: Last week, the Israeli central bureau of statistics reported future trends which indicate the proportion of Palestinian Arabs in Israel will increase significantly by 2059.
Well, I have news for those arguing for a two-state solution will rescue a “Jewish and Democratic State.” Not only does the occupation make a liberal Zionist state impossible through the fundamental contradiction between a Jewish state and a democratic one, but to hope for a “democratic” Israel is foolish.
Think about what “democratic” Israel would be like. In order to insure a Jewish majority, the state will have to continue to not only discriminate against the Palestinian citizens in Israel but also continue to treat them as a “demographic threat.”
Numerous Israeli laws discriminate against Palestinian citizens of Israel. Because of a 2003 law, Palestinians like me can’t reside in Israel with their Palestinian spouse from outside of “Israel proper.” This means that if I want to live in Israel, my wife from the West Bank cannot live with me. Yet Jews are exempt from this hardship. These laws exist to prevent what Netanyahu refers to as a “demographic spillover”; the movement of Palestinians into Israel, which would threaten the state’s desired Jewish majority.
In fact, since the establishment of the state, its laws have marginalized the Palestinian minority. From the 1950 Absentee Property Law, which was used to expropriate hundreds of thousands of dunams of Palestinian land and is still being used today, to a series of other legalistic measures, the Israeli state effectively and significantly targeted the Palestinian minority.
Today, there are roughly 1.6 million Palestinian citizens of Israel, just over 20 percent of the population. This proportion would be even higher, perhaps 25 perecent, if not for the extraordinary influx of over one million immigrants to Israel from the former Soviet Union and Ethiopia in the past 20 years—a demographic feat unlikely to be repeated.
In 2003, Benjamin Netanyahu, then Israeli Finance Minister, argued that the “demographic threat” was not from the West Bank and Gaza, but rather from Palestinian citizens of Israel. He stated that 20 percent would be problematic and would have to be managed, but 35 to 40 percent would mean the end of the “Jewish State.” The state perceives that Palestinian wombs threaten its very nature.
Haaretz reports: Interior Minister Eli Yishai declared Sunday that German Nobel laureate Gunter Grass is a persona non grata in Israel, after Grass published a poem last week which was highly critical of Israel and its policies.
Yishai harshly condemned Grass’ poem, and said that he is declared a persona non grata in Israel for wearing SS uniform in the past.
“Grass’ poems are an attempt to guide the fire of hate toward the State of Israel and the Israeli people, and to advance the ideas of which he was a public partner in the past, when he wore the uniform of the SS,” Yishai said. “If Gunter wants to continue publicizing his distorted and false works, I suggest he do it in Iran, where he will find a supportive audience.”
Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman also issued a harsh condemnation of Grass’ poem on Sunday, during a meeting with Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti.
Lieberman said that Grass’ poem is the expression of “egoism of so-called Western intellectuals, who are willing to sacrifice the Jewish people on the altar of crazy anti-Semites for a second time, just to sell a few more books or gain recognition.”
Lieberman called on European leaders to condemn statements that could possibly influence public opinion toward anti-Semitism. “We have witnessed in the past how small seeds of anti-Semitic hate can turn into a large fire that harms all of humanity,” said Lieberman.
In his poem, which was published in several European newspapers last week, the 85-year-old author claims that Israel’s nuclear reactor – and not Iran’s – presents a threat to world peace. Grass’ poem calls for Germany to cease supplying Israel with submarines, and warns against an Israeli strike on Iran.
Grass’ poem entitled “What must be said” drew strong criticism from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as well. “His declarations are ignorant and shameful and every honest person in this world must condemn them,” Netanyahu said.
In an interview published in Germany on Saturday, Grass claimed that his poem was meant to target the current Israeli government, not the country as a whole. “It’s that which I criticize, a policy that keeps building settlements despite a UN resolution,” said Grass.
The Guardian reports: Britain is exporting surveillance technology to countries run by repressive regimes, sparking fears it is being used to track political dissidents and activists.
The UK’s enthusiastic role in the burgeoning but unregulated surveillance market is becoming an urgent concern for human rights groups, who want the government to ensure that exports are regulated in a similar way to arms.
Much of the technology, which allows regimes to monitor internet traffic, mobile phone calls and text messages, is similar to that which the government has controversially signalled it wants to use in the UK.
The campaign group, Privacy International, which monitors the use of surveillance technology, claims equipment being exported includes devices known as “IMSI catchers” that masquerade as normal mobile phone masts and identify phone users and malware – software that can allow its operator to control a target’s computer, while allowing the interception to remain undetected.
Trojan horse software that allows hackers to remotely activate the microphone and camera on another person’s phone, and “optical cyber solutions” that can tap submarine cable landing stations, allowing for the mass surveillance of entire populations, are also being exported, according to the group.
I’ve long been struck by the obvious parallels between America and Israel, both of which built their foundations on ethnic cleansing. Cliff Brown explores this theme in the following video: “Two tragedies: American and Israeli injustice”
What changed my views on Israel? I lost my ignorance of both history and current events in the Middle East.
I decided to educate myself instead of forming my views from received wisdom. Though I knew (and know) many Jews, I did not know one Palestinian. I made it my business to discover the truth of the Palestinian situation for myself as can anyone who has access to the Internet.
Roy Eidelson writes: Shortly after learning about the American Psychological Association’s (APA) late February announcement of its new Member-Initiated Task Force to Reconcile Policies Related to Psychologists’ Involvement in National Security Settings, I found my thoughts turning to the School of the Americas, Blackwater and perhaps even more surprisingly, the Patagonian toothfish. Those may seem like a strange threesome, but they share one important thing in common. All have undergone a thorough repackaging and renaming in a marketing effort aimed at obscuring – but not altering – some ugly truth.
The School of the Americas in Fort Benning, Georgia, became infamous for training Latin American soldiers who returned home and engaged in repressive campaigns involving rape, torture and murder of political dissidents. To combat its negative image, the school was renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, but the nature of its activities remain largely unchanged. During the Iraq War, Blackwater, a private military company supported by hundreds of millions of dollars in US government contracts, gained international notoriety on many counts, including its use of excessive and often deadly force against Iraqi civilians. The company therefore renamed itself – twice – first as Xe Services and then again as Academi, with essentially the same core businesses. As for the Patagonian toothfish, it’s wrong to blame the fish itself. But in an effort to spur sales, merchants renamed it Chilean sea bass (for similar reasons, the slimehead fish is now known as orange roughy instead).
Sadly, the same repackaging and renaming strategy of illusion and deception characterizes the APA’s latest gambit to both protect and disguise the role of psychologists as purveyors of harm. But to fully understand this new ploy – a so-called “task force” to produce a comprehensive document of all APA ethics policies relevant to psychologists in national security settings – it’s helpful to first review some disturbing history.
There is incontrovertible evidence that in the years following the 9/11 attacks, psychologists served as planners, consultants, researchers and overseers to the abusive and torturous interrogations of prisoners in the US “global war on terror.” Multiple reports of wrongdoing emerged, such as one from the International Committee of the Red Cross describing psychological coercion techniques at Guantanamo Bay as “tantamount to torture.” APA members and others responded with outrage and clamor. It was immediately clear that the world’s largest psychological association needed to engage in a careful and transparent examination of whether professional ethics allow psychologists to serve in aggressive operational roles, such as detention and interrogation activities involving national security detainees. Tragically, however, APA’s leadership decided to take a very different path. They chose to rubberstamp the status quo without any meaningful deliberation whatsoever. [Continue reading…]
Christian Science Monitor reports: Twenty-five cents a gallon – that’s about how much some international energy experts say the tough US sanctions on Iran’s oil industry are costing Americans at the pump.
As US consumers cope with gas prices that are approaching an average of $4 a gallon, some international trade experts say the cost of the sanctions the US imposes – as in the case of the Iran measures – is something political leaders should discuss more openly. Instead, they say, most politicians act as if sanctions affect only the country targeted – something these experts say isn’t true.
“The approach is always that the costs are for them and the benefits are for us,” says Bill Reinsch, president of the National Foreign Trade Council (NFTC), a Washington lobbying organization that generally opposes economic sanctions. “The Iran case is interesting,” he adds, “because of the impact of sanctions on our energy sector.”
What sanctions? Top five countries buying oil from Iran.
Energy experts say it’s difficult to pinpoint precisely how much sanctions on Iran are costing consumers as they filter down to the gas pump. But Lucian Pugliaresi, president of the Energy Policy Research Foundation, a Washington nonprofit organization that studies energy economics, says it’s possible to make an estimate.
The sanctions the US and other countries have slapped on Iran’s energy sector and on its central bank (aimed at curtailing its oil exports) are costing Iran about 300,000 barrels a day in exports, Mr. Pugliaresi estimates. When added to other factors affecting the international oil market, that decrease in exports may have added about $10 to the current price of a barrel for crude, he says.
And that $10 increase translates roughly to about a 25-cent increase in the cost of a gallon of gas in the US, Pugliaresi says.
THE GLORY: One can read the Exodus story as a shining example of all that is good and inspiring in the annals of humanity.
Here is the story of a small and powerless people that rises up against a brutal tyranny, throws off its chains and gains a new homeland, creating a revolutionary new moral code on the way.
Seen in this way, the Exodus is a victory of the human spirit, an inspiration for all downtrodden peoples. And indeed, it has served this purpose many times in the past. The Pilgrim Fathers, the founders of the American nation, were inspired by it, and so were many rebels throughout history.
THE OTHER SIDE: When one reads the Biblical text attentively , without religious blinkers, some aspects gives us food for other thoughts.
Let’s take the Ten Plagues. Why were the entire Egyptian people punished for the misdeeds of one tyrant, Pharaoh? Why did God, like a divine Security Council, levy on them cruel sanctions, polluting their water with blood, destroying their livelihood with hail and locusts? And, even more gruesome, how could a merciful God send his angels to murder every single Egyptian firstborn child?
On leaving Egypt, the Israelites were encouraged to steal their neighbors’ property. It is rather curious that the Biblical story-teller, who was certainly deeply religious, did not omit this detail. And this just a few weeks before the Ten Commandments were handed down to the Israelites by God personally, including “Thou Shalt Not Steal”.
No one seems ever to have given much thought to the ethical side of the conquest of Canaan. God promised the Children of Israel a land which was the home of other peoples. He told them to kill these peoples, expressly commanding them to commit genocide. For some reason, He singled out the people of Amalek, ordering the Israelites to eradicate them altogether. Later, the glorious King Saul was dethroned by His prophet because he showed mercy and did not murder his Amalekite prisoners-of-war, men, women and children.
Of course, these texts were written by people living in times long past, when the ethics of individuals and nations were different, as were the rules of war. But the Haggadah is recited – today as before – uncritically, without any reflection on these horrible aspects. Especially in religious schools in Israel today , the commandment to commit genocide against the non-Jewish population of Palestine is taken by many teachers and pupils quite literally.
INDOCTRINATION: This is the real point of these reflections.
There are two sentences in the Haggadah that always had – and still have – a profound impact on the present.
One is the central idea on which almost all Jews base their historical outlook: “In every generation they rise against us to destroy us”.
This does not apply to a specific time or to a specific place. It is regarded as an eternal truth that applies to all places, all times. “They” is the entire outside world, all non-Jews everywhere. Children hear this on Seder evening on their father’s knee, long before they are able to read and write, and from then on they hear or recite it every year for decades. It expresses the total conscious or unconscious conviction of almost all Jews, whether in Los Angeles, California, or in Lod, Israel. It certainly directs the policy of the State of Israel.
The second sentence, which complements the first, is a cry to God: “Pour out your wrath upon the nations that do not know you…for they have devoured Jacob and desolated his home…Pour out your wrath on them! May your blazing anger overtake them! Pursue them from under the heavens of the Lord!…”
The word “nations” in this text has a double meaning. The Hebrew word is “goyim”, an ancient Hebrew term for “peoples”. Even the ancient Children of Israel were called a “Holy Goy”. But over the centuries, the word has taken on another meaning, and is understood to refer to all non-Jews, in a very derogatory way. (As in the Yiddish song “Oy, Oy, Oy, / Drunk is the Goy.”)
To understand this text properly, one has to remember that it was written as a cry from the heart of a defenseless, persecuted people who had no means to take revenge on their torturers. To raise their spirits on the joyful Seder evening, they had to put their trust in God, crying out to Him that he should take revenge in their stead.
(During the Seder ritual, the door is always left open. Officially, that is to allow the Prophet Elias to enter, if he should miraculously rise from the dead. In reality it was to allow the Goyim to look in, so as to disprove the anti-Semitic libel that Jews baked their unleavened Pesach bread with the blood of kidnapped Christian children.)
THE LESSON: In the Diaspora, this craving for revenge was both understandable and ineffective. But the founding of the State of Israel has changed the situation completely. In Israel, Jews are far from being defenseless. We don’t have to rely on God to take revenge for the evils done unto us, past or present, real or imagined. We can pour out our wrath ourselves, on our neighbors, the Palestinians and other Arabs, on our minorities, on our victims.
That is the real danger of the Haggadah, as I see it. It was written by and for helpless Jews living in perpetual danger. It raised their spirits once a year, when they felt safe for a moment, protected by their God, surrounded by their families.
Taken out of this context and applied to a new, completely different situation, it can set us on an evil course. Telling ourselves that everybody is out to destroy us, yesterday and most certainly tomorrow, we consider the grandiloquent bombast of an Iranian bigmouth as a living proof of the validity of the old maxim. They are out to kill us, so we must – according to another ancient Jewish injunction – kill them first.
So, on this Seder evening, let our feelings be guided by the noble, inspiring part of the Haggadah , the part about the slaves who rose up against tyranny and took their fate in their own hands – and not the part about pouring out our wrath.
Meanwhile, Christians around the world are focusing their attention on the central bloody image of their faith: a man nailed to a cross.
Whatever might be said of the virtues of the monotheistic faiths, their roles in the promotion of warfare and the glorification of violence, seem inescapable. No wonder Christianity, Judaism, and Islam have made such a volatile mix.
David Ignatius writes: President Obama has signaled Iran that the United States would accept an Iranian civilian nuclear program if Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei can back up his recent public claim that his nation “will never pursue nuclear weapons.”
This verbal message was sent through Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who visited Khamenei last week. A few days before traveling to Iran, Erdogan had held a two-hour meeting with Obama in Seoul, in which they discussed what Erdogan would tell the ayatollah about the nuclear issue and Syria.
Obama advised Erdogan that the Iranians should realize that time is running out for a peaceful settlement and that Tehran should take advantage of the current window for negotiations. Obama didn’t specify whether Iran would be allowed to enrich uranium domestically as part of the civilian program the United States would endorse. That delicate issue evidently would be left for the negotiations that are supposed to start April 13, at a venue yet to be decided.
Erdogan is said to have replied that he would convey Obama’s views to Khamenei, and it’s believed he did so when he met the Iranian leader on Thursday. Erdogan also met President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and other senior Iranian officials during his visit.
The statement highlighted by Obama as a potential starting point was made on state television in February. Khamenei said: “The Iranian nation has never pursued and will never pursue nuclear weapons. . . . Iran is not after nuclear weapons because the Islamic Republic, logically, religiously and theoretically, considers the possession of nuclear weapons a grave sin and believes the proliferation of such weapons is senseless, destructive and dangerous.”
The challenge for negotiators is whether it’s possible to turn Khamenei’s public rhetoric into a serious and verifiable commitment not to build a bomb. When Obama cited this statement to Erdogan as something to build on, the Turkish leader is said to have nodded in agreement.
But the diplomatic path still seems blocked, judging by recent haggling over the meeting place for negotiations. Istanbul was expected to be the venue, but the Iranians last weekend balked and suggested instead that negotiators meet in Iraq or China. U.S. officials see this foot-dragging as a sign that the Iranian leadership is still struggling to frame its negotiating position.
The Erdogan back channel to Iran is the most dramatic evidence yet of the close relationship Obama has forged with the Turkish leader. Erdogan, who heads an Islamist party that is often cited as a model by Muslim democrats, has been a key U.S. partner in handling Syria and other crises flowing from the Arab Spring uprisings.
Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Times reports: A war of words between Turkish and Iranian leaders intensified Thursday, threatening to delay or even scuttle a new round of talks between Iran and world powers, and raising fresh doubt about whether Tehran will bargain over its disputed nuclear program.
One day after Iranian leaders ruled out talks in Istanbul next week because of Turkey’s position on the Syrian uprising, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused Iran of dishonesty.
“It is necessary to act honestly,” Erdogan said at a news conference in Ankara, Turkey, according to Reuters. The Iranians “continue to lose prestige in the world because of a lack of honesty.”
The broadside marked a remarkable turnabout for Erdogan, who has worked hard for years to cultivate ties with Tehran. He has repeatedly taken Iran’s side in its dispute with the West over its nuclear development efforts.
The Guardian reports: Egypt’s presidential race was thrown into further turmoil when a former ally of Hosni Mubarak announced that he had decided to run, and supporters of another candidate flooded Tahrir Square protesting that he was being pushed out by allegations his mother was a US citizen. Omar Suleiman, who was the ex-president’s intelligence chief, has inside influence that will make him a likely frontrunner in the elections, to be held on 23 and 24 May. His main opponent is likely to be Khairat el-Shater, candidate of the powerful Muslim Brotherhood.
Suleiman, a former general who appeared on television in February 2011 to announce that Mubarak would step down, said earlier this week that he had decided not to run. But he issued the statement on Friday on the state-run Mena news agency saying he had changed his mind after hundreds of supporters held a rally urging his candidacy.
“I can only meet the call and run in the presidential race,” he said. He had previously blamed organisational and financial constraints for not standing.
Suleiman must get 30,000 supporters to sign a petition before he can officially submit his application to stand in order to meet the official filing deadline on Sunday. Meanwhile thousands of supporters of another candidate, Hazem Abu Ismail, took over Tahrir Square on Friday to protest against what they said was a conspiracy brewing against their presidential candidate, regarding the supposed US citizenship of his late mother.
The Los Angeles Times reports: He doesn’t have a cellphone and doesn’t use regular phones. He avoids his home and mostly ventures out under cover of night, a cap pulled low on his head to conceal his identity.
“For 11 months, I have not been in a public place, not in a restaurant or a cafe,” Yassin Haj Saleh, a former political prisoner, said as he arrived at a previously agreed-upon rendezvous spot as darkness fell.
Despite his clandestine existence, Saleh is a prominent Syrian dissident, a prolific writer and columnist with a wide following both in print and on the Internet. One young opposition activist calls him the “sheik” of Syria’s yearlong rebellion.
Unlike some high-profile Syrian dissident exiles featured in opposition conferences abroad, Saleh spent 16 years imprisoned for his views and has remained in Damascus, the capital, daily risking arrest.
“He’s got total credibility: He was in prison and is part of that crowd still inside Syria, not living outside the country for 30 years,” said Joshua Landis, who directs the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma and writes an influential blog on Syria.
Syria’s opposition includes many disparate currents, among them secular liberals such as Saleh, Islamists, Kurdish nationalists, Web-savvy youths and urban and rural guerrillas. While at odds on many issues, they generally are united on one objective: the need to oust the government of President Bashar Assad.
“The worst possibility for our country is that the regime stays in power,” Saleh, 51, said in an interview at a safe house here. “Anything else is less bad.”
Still, the opposition is a fractious network riven by internal disputes. Last month, several prominent dissidents split from the best-known umbrella group, the Syrian National Council, complaining that it was a front for the exiled Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist movement viewed warily by many secular Arabs.
Saleh, who describes the Syrian National Council’s overall performance as “depressing,” has reluctantly come to accept the rebellion’s increasing militarization. But he bemoans the lack of a centralized command structure and discipline among the proliferating insurgent bands.
“None of us asked for it,” Saleh said of the Free Syrian Army and other factions that have taken up arms. “The problem is how to organize these groups.”
He believes the lack of unity and organization among armed factions and political groups are obstacles to the revolt progressing faster, as is a lack of “new” thinking.
What is most needed, he says, is fresh thinking about a dynamic, grass-roots upheaval that emerged with a vitality that shocked him and other longtime dissidents, both in Syria and outside. Too many Syrian intellectuals, he said, are still shackled to Arab nationalism and other Cold War-era ideas and political ideologies.
