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Wanted to point you in the direction of a most awesome startup non-profit, LendforPeace.org. The organization, endorsed by the Clinton Global Initiative and coordinating with USAID, the UN, and the World Bank, offers microfinance loans to Palestinian entrepreneurs and small business people inhibited by the lack of access to capital and credit, markets which are virtually non-existent under the Israeli occupation. With a nod to the Road Map's "Land for Peace" formula, Lend for Peace's mission statement: While there are many contentious issues in this region of the world, we can all agree that there is no winner in poverty. By encouraging economic opportunity and hope through microfinance, LendforPeace.org seeks to foster stability and peace in the Middle East.
Best of all, anyone can lend; contributions, which start at $25, are donated to a specific Palestinian venture by way of short-term loans distributed by local partner organizations. And as a micro-loan operation, financiers are eventually repaid, usually in eighteen months or so. Craig Nemark (the craigslist Craig) recently hopped on board, and even Fox Business featured LFP in an April segment:
No matter what your politics or religious tendencies tell you about Palestinians or the Arab-Israeli conflict, this is a transparent and practical way to do something more than just offer sympathies to another oppressed people or only feel passionate about those living in poverty. As the esteemed Jimmy Doyle recently said, too often our awareness of global causes turns into another form of self-indulgent consumerism. I have talked to Palestinians who very much want average Americans to know their stories, to realize the daily hardships and humiliations of living under the heel of occupation. But staying informed hardly benefits the Palestinians, or anyone for that matter, in any real way.
While economic development is not the end-all be-all of the conflict, nor will it by itself alleviate Palestinian suffering, the fact of the matter is that Palestinians in the territories face intolerable and morally unacceptale living conditions due in part to the lack of economic oppurtunity under the occupation. I try not to get preachy, but if you care about the well being of those living in poverty or find the Palestinian plight particularly appalling, I strongly urge you to look into LendforPeace.org.
PS. Follow the FLP blog.
An Al Jazeera reporter's summary of today's press conference with Clinton and Israeli Foreign Minister Lieberman:He said, 'fuck off,' and she said, 'you're a liar.'
Several folks around these parts are coming to think that America's stance with respect to the Arab-Israeli conflict might actually start to change under Obama.
A collection of quotes from a Palestinian A/V tech from Bethlehem working at the Al Jazeera office:
Read more...My view of the whole conflict: just shut up and live. Palestinians and Israelis, we’ve been fighting for fifty years. And for what, for shit.
Yeah, I would support two states. There are a lot of people that would disagree with me, you know, they say we’ve got to take back our land from the river (Jordan) to the sea (Mediterranean). I would be willing to live with Israelis, no problem. I mean, our cultures are so similar. Israelis, they cuss in Arabic, they eat our food – hummus, falafel, whatever – it’s all the same thing.
The conflict just makes the region so weak. I mean, if we could just live together, have two states, the region would be so strong. Like, tourism, if you wanted Arabic culture you could go to the West Bank, go to Bethlehem, if you wanted Western culture you could go to Israel. And then trade, all of it would make the region so strong.
These people, you know, they get like four or five M16s, say they’re a political radical, who are we supposed to listen two? I say just give each leader a sword, let them fight it out over there and then come back and tell us the result. They fight now, but are they thinking about the future? We just want to live normal lives. I come over here, and it’s like a melting pot man, all kinds of different people living together and they’re not fighting. It’s really a great system, a great political system, and people get along. I can send back money to help out whenever some shit happens.
I'll tell you man, being a Palestinian is really hard. Sharon, our like biggest enemy of all people, said himself that being a Palestinian is hard.
A recap of today's episode of من واشنطن ("From Washington"), as told by an in-studio intern:
Today's edition featured guests from the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee's annual convention, including the aforementioned Mearsheimer and Ibrahim (whose appearances at the ADC are profiled over at Kabobfest here and here, respectively).
Quote of the day from the newsroom, in response to George Mitchell describing a Palestinian state neighboring Israel, the "Jewish state":
If Israel is defined as a Jewish state, what about those [Palestinians] inside Israel? They’re either Muslims or Christians, in some cases Druze. They’re not Jewish. It means they’ll have to get the fuck out.Read more...
Arab commentators respond to Obama's Cairo speech on PBS' "Newshour." Two of my favorites contribute: the Angry Arab and my boss, Abderrahim Foukara, from Al Jazeera Washington.
Read more...The District of Columbia sends its warmest regards. I'm currently blogging from the eighth floor of Mitchell Hall at the George Washington University, a scant three blocks from the White House in the heart of Foggy Bottom and my home for the next couple of months.
The NCUSAR program is well underway. The National Council's director, Dr. John Duke Anthony, really broke the human mold. An Arabist in the purest (and most dignified) sense of the term, he's done it all, seen it all, and probably met them all too ("So I said to this room of generals, the junior of which had recently attained the rank of three-star..."). Not to mention he's got a Virginian accent to rival Robert E. Lee, a brow that preaches fire and brimstone, and the quirkiest, most eloquent, most old man bag-o-phrases and rhetorical constructions the likes of William F. Buckley five times over. Dr. Anthony will either present seminars himself or host guest speakers (as well as be an all-around badass) for the NCUSAR interns two nights a week. In addition, we'll have some kind of field trip every Wednesday afternoon. Next week is lunch at the Saudi Royal Embassy. Eat my shorts, captain.
I'm thrilled to report that the office work portion of my internship for the summer will be at the Washington bureau of Al Jazeera -- Arabic, not English (note the link).*
Al Jazeera, in many Americans' minds, is synonymous with terrorist propaganda and anti-Americanism in the Arab world. Though the station was praised in the US after its 1996 founding for giving voice to a whole host of opinions and challenging the lack of regional democracy, that attitude shifted post-9/11 when politicians and commentators focused on Al Jazeera's broadcasting Osama bin Laden's tapes (a new one was released just a few hours ago) and graphic footage from Iraq, Palestine, etc.
This is obviously a gross misunderstanding/over-simplification of the station -- obviously, or I wouldn't be working there -- that prides itself on the slogan "the opinion, and the other opinion." If you're interested more about Al Jazeera's role as really the first independent, pan-Arab news channel, and about its complex relationship to the United States (particularly during the invasion of Iraq), check the following.
The documentary Control Room comes as recommendation number one. The film follows several personalities at the station's Doha headquarters and their interactions with U.S. military liaisons, touching on issues of media bias, Arab public opinion, and the sanitation of televised war (as Al Jazeera English programmer Riz Khan described, "other channels show the missiles being fired; we show them landing"). You can watch it online in its entirety.
Next, listen to "The al-Jazeera Effect" on Open Source with Christopher Lydon. The program poses a great question: "if al-Jazeera is a good measure of how the Arab world talks to itself — about itself and about us — shouldn’t we be listening? Very carefully?" This episode features a few names you might recognize from this blog, including Marc Lynch (Abu Aardvark), As'ad AbuKhalil (the Angry Arab), and Abderrahim Foukara, who happens to be my main contact as Washington bureau chief at the station.
And speaking of Marc, read Voices of the New Arab Public: Iraq, al-Jazeera, and Middle East Politics Today [and for those strapped for time, this interview with Mother Jones]. His blog (linked above) also closely follows trends in the Arab press.
* I should note that Al Jazeera was not my original placement. NCUSAR first had me working at the PLO (yes, Palestinian Liberation Organization) Mission in Washington. However, a new ambassador is arriving this summer with his own staff of Fatah lackeys elbowing me out of a desk. While it would have been revolutionarily cool, Al Jazeera is equally exciting.
The summer plans are in: I'll be a fellow with the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations Summer Internship Program in Washington DC. I'm looking to ship out the last week of May and return in early August. In addition to working at a foreign policy shop or some sort of MidEast-related organization (though I don't know where yet), NCUSAR arranges lectures, meet-and-greets, embassy visits, etc., with some serious movers and shakers in the academic and political spheres. What went down last summer? We're talkin' Colin Powell, Homeland Security subcommittee meetings on the Hill, Richard Clarke (counterterrorism czar under Clinton and Bush 2), the State Department, Daniel Levy, ARAMCO and ConocoPhillips execs, yada yada yada. So, what does this mean for the Greenhorn? A perfectly good excuse to stock up on new suits, that's what. Oh, and maybe some networking for kicks.
Read more...NPR photo-documentary, Israel's Barrier. An excerpt:
Most every Palestinian in the West Bank says the biggest obstacles to a better economic life are the hundreds of military roadblocks and barriers that separate the West Bank from Israel. Israel's wall and fence project has dramatically reduced suicide bombings and other attacks inside the country. But the barrier, which will stretch some 450 miles when completed, also has had a severely negative effect on the lives of ordinary Palestinians.Read more...
From the gold mine: a letter distributed August 25, 2006 by the patriarchs and heads of local churches in the Levant responding to Christian Zionism.
"THE JERUSALEM DECLARATION ON CHRISTIAN ZIONISM"
- Statement by the Patriarch and Local Heads of Churches In Jerusalem
"Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God." (Matthew 5:9)
Christian Zionism is a modern theological and political movement that embraces the most extreme ideological positions of Zionism, thereby becoming detrimental to a just peace within Palestine and Israel. The Christian Zionist programme provides a worldview where the Gospel is identified with the ideology of empire, colonialism and militarism. In its extreme form, it laces an emphasis on apocalyptic events leading to the end of history rather than living Christ's love and justice today.
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We categorically reject Christian Zionist doctrines as false teaching that corrupts the biblical message of love, justice and reconciliation.
We further reject the contemporary alliance of Christian Zionist leaders and organizations with elements in the governments of Israel and the United States that are presently imposing their unilateral pre-emptive borders and domination over Palestine. This inevitably leads to unending cycles of violence that undermine the security of all peoples of the Middle East and the rest of the world.
We reject the teachings of Christian Zionism that facilitate and support these policies as they advance racial exclusivity and perpetual war rather than the gospel of universal love, redemption and reconciliation taught by Jesus Christ. Rather than condemn the world to the doom of Armageddon we call upon everyone to liberate themselves from the ideologies of militarism and occupation. Instead, let them pursue the healing of the nations!
We call upon Christians in Churches on every continent to pray for the Palestinian and Israeli people, both of whom are suffering as victims of occupation and militarism. These discriminative actions are turning Palestine into impoverished ghettos surrounded by exclusive Israeli settlements. The establishment of the illegal settlements and the construction of the Separation Wall on confiscated Palestinian land undermines the viability of a Palestinian state as well as peace and security in the entire region.
We call upon all Churches that remain silent, to break their silence and speak for reconciliation with justice in the Holy Land.
Therefore, we commit ourselves to the following principles as an alternative way:
We affirm that all people are created in the image of God. In turn they are called to honor the dignity of every human being and to respect their inalienable rights.
We affirm that Israelis and Palestinians are capable of living together within peace, justice and security.
We affirm that Palestinians are one people, both Muslim and Christian. We reject all attempts to subvert and fragment their unity.
We call upon all people to reject the narrow world view of Christian Zionism and other ideologies that privilege one people at the expense of others.
We are committed to non-violent resistance as the most effective means to end the illegal occupation in order to attain a just and lasting peace.
With urgency we warn that Christian Zionism and its alliances are justifying colonization, apartheid and empire-building.
God demands that justice be done. No enduring peace, security or reconciliation is possible without the foundation of justice. The demands of justice will not disappear. The struggle for justice must be pursued diligently and persistently but non-violently.
"What does the Lord require of you, to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God." (Micah 6:8)
This is where we take our stand. We stand for justice. We can do no other. Justice alone guarantees a peace that will lead to reconciliation with a life of security and prosperity for all the peoples of our Land. By standing on the side of justice, we open ourselves to the work of peace - and working for peace makes us children of God.
"God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation." (2 Cor 5:19)
His Beattitude Patriarch Michel Sabbah
Latin Patriarchate, Jerusalem
Archbishop Swerios Malki Mourad,
Syrian Orthodox Patriarchate, Jerusalem
Bishop Riah Abu El-Assal,
Episcopal Church of Jerusalem and the Middle East
Bishop Munib Younan,
Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land
The above map shows the practical outcome of the Interim Agreement, essentially the transfer of power from the Israeli Civil Authority governing the occupied territories to the Palestinian Authority in September 1995. Cities in black denote areas of PA control over municipal affairs and internal security, constituting a non-contiguous 3 percent of the total surface area of the West Bank. The PA was granted municipal authority in some 400-odd towns and villages, denoted by the dashed-line covered areas of around 27 percent of the total surface area, while Israeli forces maintained responsibility for overall security. The shaded grey areas, 70 percent of the total surface area, remained under direct Israeli control and included settlements and their accompanying infrastructure (bypass roads, etc.), military outposts, and "closed zones," particularly along the fertile Jordan Valley, where Palestinians were prohibited from entering.
Now, pretend that the "autonomous" and semi-autonomous Palestinian areas constitute actual land, while the remaining territory is suddenly flooded, creating a Palestinian archipelago. And you get this:
Now pretend you're a garage owner in Hebron who needs to order a part. The cheapest distributor on the archipelago, way up in Jenin, will cut you a deal at 25 shekels (NIS). The cheapest supplier in Hebron offers the part for 50 NIS, meaning a 25 NIS cut from your profits after the job is complete. So naturally, you buy from the Jenin man and hire out a boat driver to fetch it for you. Time is money, so the boat driver wants to be paid hourly wages at 3 NIS/hr. plus transportation costs, a flat 6 NIS. But wait: the routes to and fro are not controlled by Palestinians; rather Israeli gunboats patrol the waters, and thus the shipping lanes. The boat will have to dock no less than seven times before it picks up the order and another seven times on the way back. Today's trip comes out to three hours each way for the boat driver, a day's take of 24 NIS. Not bad, you saved a buck and helped a brotha with a boat out. Way to support your local economy.
Two weeks later, you get the same job at the garage, meaning you need to hire out the boatdriver to make his way to Jenin and grab the part. Only this time, the Israeli gunboats hold him up between docks on the way back, stretching his trip home out to four hours. Upon returning to Hebron, the driver asks for 27 NIS. With the cost of buying the part in Jenin, the total cost amounts to 52 NIS, 2 NIS more than you could have paid had you just walked down the street. After another two weeks, same job, same part, only this time you ask yourself, 'is it worth risking the trip if I might lose even more shekels?' So you decide to buy the part in Hebron, denying the boat driver and the parts supplier in Jenin a day's income.
And that is the fatal flaw of the Oslo process: inter-Palestinian isolation. "Bantus," to borrow from the South African apartheid literature, with no territorial continuity that revert to economic independence rather than inter-dependence for survival. Try building a viable state out of that.
OK, I'll admit it. To some, the conflict in Palestine is a religious one. There, I've admitted it.
Read more...Cash it. Just found this article about Jordan's Badia region. The author pals around with the same folks from the Badia Research and Development Center that I did last summer, including our SIT Academic Director Ra'ed al-Tabini, who was working for the BRDC at the time of the article's printing. OK, so it's not a hard-hitting, crticial piece, but I enjoyed reading it. Here are a few interesting selections (pictures are mine): "Realistically, from a hard economic point of view," he added, "it is not very sustainable out here, like it or not." ...
Small villages slid past us: simple, square concrete houses; outside them were tents, and flocks of sheep and goats. Most of the inhabitants were settled Bedouins, said al-Rawajfeh, but many of them prefer to sleep in the tents and use the houses—dry, secure and rodent-proof—for storage. They earn their livings farming and keeping livestock or working for the government or the military, and they send their children to village schools. They buy wheat and barley for their flocks, but many of them return to the desert each spring to let their animals forage. The manner of this return often involves phone calls to friends around the country to find out where the rains have been good, then loading the flocks into trucks and setting off, accompanied by a tank truck of water, for the newly greened areas.
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Every aspect of livestock breeding is under study by the Badia Program. Roger Oakley is here as an economist. "Things are sort of stacked against the Badia people," he said. "You cannot produce sheep as cheaply here as in Australia. Even in Syria and Iraq the grazing is better. So far, the Australians have produced and exported merino sheep, which have a different flavor and therefore didn't threaten the market for sheep from the Badia. Now they're starting to raise the awassi breed, the same as here. Once the Aussies start large-scale production, the Jordanian producers are going to have bigger problems.
The little lake at Burqu' is a an example. It contains up to a million cubic meters of water (more than 800 acre-feet) in a region where annual evaporation exceeds three meters, and there is water here even in the driest years. The Nabataeans built the waterworks, the Romans built a fort, and the place was used in Byzantine and early Islamic times. The remains of what is said to be an Umayyad hunting lodge stand at the water's edge—and so do Bedouins' tank trucks, sucking up water for sheep and goats. The only other visitors are migrating birds by the thousands, in their season.
Here's a selection from the second chapter of my thesis, "The Oslo Process and the Economics of Peace." Chapter 1 provides a brief economic history of the West Bank and Gaza Strip (WBGS) under Israeli occupation from 1967-1993. The following two sections from Chapter 2 build upon an understanding of historic Israeli policies with respect to Palestinian economic development, but I think the argument, which is on the political nature of the policies rather than on their purely economic aspects, should be pretty clear without having read the preceding chapter. I did not include here the political background to the Oslo Accords or a discussion of the Paris Protocol, the arrangement between Israel and the Palestinians on all things economic. For that, I'd recommend the relevant chapter in the MERIP primer on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
One more thing: my sources didn't transfer over as footnotes, and I don't particularly feel like doing in-texts right now, but suffice it to say I rely here cheifly on Sara Roy's The Gaza Strip: The Political Economy of De-Development, Leila Farsakh's Palestinian Labour Migration to Israel: Labour, Land, and Occupation, Avram Bornstein's Crossing the Green Line Between the West Bank and Israel, Arie Arnon, et. al., The Palestinian Economy: Between Imposed Integration and Voluntary Separation, and articles by Nu'man Kanafani, Sheila Ryan, and Sharif El-Mousa and Mahmoud El-Jaafari, for those familiar with the literature.
Please, your honest critiques on all matters, including historical accuracy, argumentation, and spelling/grammar are more than welcome.
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The Question of (Economic) Sovereignty
In negotiating an economic regime to accompany the changing political relations between Israel and the PLO, two diverging opinions arose within the Palestinian delegation on the matter of trade relations with Israel. One camp stressed the economic gains of continued integration with the Israeli economy and favored an arrangement that would support unhindered trade and labor mobility between the WBGS and Israel. Palestinian integrationists noted that the entangled trade, utility, and transportation networks between Israel and the territories were an unchangeable fact, established by the Israeli occupation for exclusively Israeli benefit. Adnan Samara, Deputy Minister for Economy, Trade and Industry for the Palestinian Authority, recalls of the negotiations in Paris that “the difficulty of separating the economies was agreed upon, [and] the [Paris Protocol] was based on the fact that we are one economy. If this means anything, it means free movement of goods and people.” Rather than attempt an abrupt divorce, the integrationists preferred to work within the existing regime to make economic exchanges between Israelis and Palestinians fairer and more favorable to Palestinian considerations.
The opposing view held that the disparity in size and strength between the Israeli and Palestinian economies precluded mutually beneficial policies that treated Israel and the WBGS as a singular economic entity. While integration under occupation had brought about unprecedented national income levels, that economic growth was distorted as an external phenomenon, one that did not originate from domestic Palestinian economic strengths per se but from the flows of labor and goods directed by the more developed Israeli economy and manipulated by occupational policies. According to this analysis, integration essentially denied the Palestinians any real sense of economic sovereignty, thereby undermining political disengagement and the viability of a future independent Palestinian state, or at least limited self-rule in the short run.
Arie Arnon, a prominent Israeli economist and critic of the economic framework laid out in the Oslo process, says of the Paris Protocol,
[some] Palestinians preferred a free trade agreement (FTA), which would have necessitated delineating borders between their economy and Israel. The Israelis, on the other hand, had firm instructions from Prime Minister Rabin…to reject the notion of any borders being drawn between the two economies. The reasons for these different positions were both political and economic: the Palestinians sought to acquire as many attributes of sovereignty as possible, whereas the Israelis wanted to defer as many decisions as possible to the negotiations over the Palestinian territories’ final status. The Palestinians aspired to set their own priorities, without Israeli interference, including the formulation of a new Palestinian trade policy, which would reflect their own best interests; the Israelis tried to convince the Palestinians that a more protectionist policy would reduce the Palestinians’ chances of building a prosperous economy, and proposed to continue the existing de facto customs union, which, of course, did not require the creation of trade borders between the two economies.
Preventing the emergence of a severing Palestine alongside the state of Israel has been a critical focal point of official policy and one reason for Israel’s obsession with maintaining control of the occupied territories…For Israel, it also required the dismantling of those indigenous forces and the relations between them whose growth and development could comprise and infrastructural base…Economic policy in the occupied territories became a critical component of this policy.
Did I ever write about Uri Gordon? (looks like I did, here) As an Israeli anarchist/peace activist, he has this (among other things, I'm sure) to say about the Gaza bombings:
Read more...As Qassam attacks by Hamas or some other Gazan militia inevitably continue throughout the aerial bombardment, the army moves to Stage Two. A column cuts through the middle of the Gaza Strip. Advance positions are taken. Yet the opponent fails to come out fighting. And so the living city is rent asunder, in a war-game with no strategic objective, only to spend ammunition looking for the enemy with zero casualties. As they tunnel their way through living-room walls into Gaza City, Israeli conscripts throw explosives ahead to protect themselves from possible ambushes and mines. Hamas store weapons in mosques and apartment buildings and carry out dozens of punishment beatings on alleged collaborators. Most of the dead are civilians, maybe a third are children. Thousands of homes are destroyed. Ambulances and hospitals are fired upon.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the 10 metre-high walls that surround Gaza, Israeli war-resisters meet a brick wall everywhere they turn. Jewish Israelis have a knee-jerk nationalist loyalty when they perceive Israel is being attacked.
The response is essentially: What do these bleeding-heart peaceniks expect us to do when we are attacked? They didn’t protest Hamas’s rockets which have been pounding Israel for the past 8 years whilst the children in Sderot wet their beds in fear (Sderot is the Israeli town next to Gaza which has suffered most from Hamas rocket attacks). What do these Europeans know? They just hate Israel and Israelis and don’t think our lives are worth anything. All the hatred in demonstrations against Israel across Europe, with calls to kill the Jews, just shows me that, if we don’t protect ourselves no one else will come to Israel’s defense.
The fears of annihilation, fed by well-fanned collective trauma, are close to the surface and easily manipulated by politicians and pundits. Dehumanization of the enemy helps explains the simple indifference to the shameless attacks on Palestinians in Gaza by all three major candidates currently competing in coming elections.
In the name of the Jews, the Israeli state drives Palestinians from their lands, imprisons them and punishes them with blundering brutality. The Revisionist policy dreamed up by early fascist Zionists of “Facts on the Ground” is a total success – Israel’s perceived choice today is between Apartheid and ethnic cleansing. The Israeli elections are seeing the meteoric rise of Avigdor Leiberman whose party, Israel Beitenu, promises to strip Palestinian citizens of Israel and Leftists of their citizenship if they fail tests of loyalty to the state. This isn’t swear-word fascism – this is the real thing. Still on the table is Kadima’s “realignment” plan to withdraw Israeli settlers from the “Palestinian” side of the segregation barrier. This is a de-facto annexation of 6 per-cent of West Bank territory which, crucially, would leave the in two landlocked islands, an internal enemy non-state which can now be disciplined on the same terms as Gaza.
The last six decades have seen the (at least) fifth ethnic cleansing event to take place on this soil. But so far it has been ethnic cleansing with somewhere to run. In Gaza it was verging on something different. The Gaza war was an intentional threat to commit ethnic cleansing with nowhere to run. The Israeli state was threatening to commit genocide and everybody knew it.
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