An Alternate Witness

There's good reason that this documentary has won so many awards. I wish I'd had this film to show to my students at nerd camp. I showed them "Iron Wall" and it was good, but this has a much larger scope, historically and geographically, and it's a powerful reminder of why we as Americans, perhaps more than anyone, can't ignore this issue:

At Least As Far As We Can Tell

I want to dispel a rumor circulating on the Web about Jordan and its Palestinians. Actually, I'm surprised that Nas at the Black Iris hasn't already commented on it.

Word on the Web is that Jordan has begun revoking the Jordanian passports of its Palestinian citizens. According to rumor, the Jordanian government is uneasy in the wake of President Obama's speech in Cairo about where the Middle East Peace Process will go next. There is concern that Jordan will be asked to take all the Palestinians, which Jordan and Palestinians have always made clear is not a viable option, and the rumor goes that Jordan is revoking the passports of Palestinians to pre-empt any talk of Jordan as the new Palestinian homeland.

Several of my friends in the States have heard the rumor and asked me about it, so I've been asking around. First of all, there is this article in the Jordan Times. As I understand it, Palestinians in Jordan hold one of three kinds of ID: green cards, yellow cards or UN IDs. From this article, it is my understanding that Palestinians can, under certain circumstances, exchange one kind of ID for another, and that a small number of Palestinians do this every year. I understand from the article that this number has not changed significantly from recent years.

I've also asked a number of friends who have their fingers on the pulse of Jordanian politics, whether by professional or personal interest, or through family connections. What I have learned boils down to this: no one knows anyone, or has heard of anyone, whose Jordanian passport was revoked. In fact, the Interior Minister was recently on Amin FM, a local radio station, inviting anyone whose passport had been unjustly revoked to call in to the program, and no one did. I know, in Jordan one must take this with a grain of salt, and suspect that anyone who did call in wouldn't be allowed on air anyway, but it shows that the government is aware of the rumor, and trying to dispel it.

This is what I think happened: In the wake of the Gaza War, the Obama speech, and other recent developments in the Israeli/Palestinian issue, reporters have gone into overtime to find information about Palestinian issues. One of them found some data about the yearly turnover of green and yellow cards, and misconstrued it, or sensationalized it, and then it "went viral" as the term now goes.

This is what I tried to teach my students in my Islam course at nerd camp. When you read something in the newspaper, see it on TV, or especially when you find it on the Internet, think carefully about who wrote it, where they got their information, and what their personal biases are. A reporter might, as happened in one of the articles my students read, come to Algiers, interview half a dozen people there, and write an article about the evils of Islam, a religion that encourages so-called "honor killings." Now, my students had studied Islam for almost three weeks of 7-hour days by this time, so they knew right away that she had her facts wrong: honor killings are a cultural phenomenon in many predominantly Muslim countries that directly contradict the edicts of the Qur'aan. But even if you didn't know anything about Islam, would you say that half a dozen interviews with Algerians makes the reporter any sort of authority on Islamic practices?

My sources may be suspect for any number of reasons, but I feel fairly confident in saying that there's sufficient evidence readily available that casts at least a shadow of a doubt on this latest rumor about the revocation of Palestinians' passports.

I was clued into this YouTube video on this article on NPR. As someone said at our house the other night, the women of the Arab world are so eloquent, and don't get nearly enough air time!

I want to applaud National Public Radio (www.npr.org) for airing a series this week called Israel's Barrier. It reassures me once again that this is a news outlet truly interested in balanced coverage of both sides of the stories they cover. I remember a commentary in the Jordan Times back in 2006 criticizing NPR's coverage of the 2006 Israel-Lebanon war as being biased in favor of Israelis. This was when I realized that most of NPR's anchors are Jews, proud to say so on air, but it's also when I recognized that many of their leading producers have Muslim names. About the same time, I also heard that NPR was the only American news agency not cutting their reporting staff in Iraq. I have since listened to NPR with a very critical ear, but I have to say, I think they come down pretty hard on Israel, while being quite critical of Hamas and the PLO as well. All in all, for Arab issues as well as other topics, I think NPR is doing a pretty good job of bringing balanced coverage of the Middle East to American listeners (tho, admittedly, to the kind of listeners who are already less likely to be afraid of "them A-raaabs!").

For those who would say that Islam is restrictive to women, and especially those who say that Shi'ism is the worst of these, I recommend this interview from my friend Chris's blog.

...since Election Day, I have been part of more and more conversations with Muslims in which it was either offhandedly agreed that Obama is Muslim or enthusiastically blurted out. In commenting on our new president, "I have to support my fellow Muslim brother," would slip out of my mouth before I had a chance to think twice.

"Well, I know he's not really Muslim," I would quickly add. But if the person I was talking to was Muslim, they would say, "yes he is." They would cite his open nature and habit of reaching out to critics, reminiscent of the Prophet Muhammad's own approach....

Asma Gull Hasan's article in Forbes Magazine, My Muslim President Obama, reflects many of the reasons I've also heard here in Jordan about why people here are so excited to see Pres. Barack Obama in the White House.

...Most of the Muslims I know (me included) can't seem to accept that Obama is not Muslim.

Of the few Muslims I polled who said that Obama is not Muslim, even they conceded that he had ties to Islam. These realists said that, although not an avowed and practicing Muslim, Obama's exposure to Islam at a young age (both through his father and his stint in Indonesia) has given him a Muslim sensibility. In my book, that makes you a Muslim--maybe not a card-carrying one, but part of the flock for sure. One realist Muslim ventured that Obama worships at a Unitarian Church because it represents the middle ground between Christianity and Islam, incorporating the religious beliefs of the two faiths Obama feels connected to. Unitarianism could be Obama's way of still being a Muslim.

I've heard this from many imams and sheikhs in the United States, when I say that I am Unitarian Universalist. "Oh, Unitarian? Well, that's practically Muslim!" Initially, it always strikes me that this is merely because the translation of Unitarian into Arabic, tawHeed, means "unity of God" (as opposed to trinitarianism: Father, Son and Holy Ghost), which is a central tenet of all Islam, or "oneness with God" which is the ultimate goal of Sufi Islam. But on further reflection, it becomes apparent that Unitarians and Muslims have a very simliar agenda of social justice, too, and see the world in a very similar way. There is an aya (verse) in the Qur'aan that says, "I have made you into tribes and peoples so that you might know each other better," and this is very much like the Unitarian view of the world: that all the varied cultures and religions of the world help us to understand ourselves, our communities, and our common humanity better.

The rationalistic, Western side of me knows that Obama has denied being Muslim, that his father was non-practicing, that he doesn't attend a mosque. Many Muslims simply say back, "my father's not a strict Muslim either, and I haven't been to a mosque in years."

This reminded me of all the times in the village that my students' mothers would say, "Do you see how Maryah dresses? Are you paying attention to how Maryah treats others? Have you noticed that she put her sweater back on because she thought your father was coming through the door? She's a much better Muslim than you are! Why can't you be as good a Muslim as Maryah?" They all knew I wasn't Muslim. One mother even suspected that I wasn't a believer of any sort, but it didn't stop her from telling her daughters that I understood Islam and lived the tenets of Islam better than they did!

Sometimes even the girls would say it to each other. Some of the neighborhood girls liked to come and cook lunch at my house once or twice a week. (It was a great deal for me, because they cooked, washed up, and scrubbed my floors to thank me for having them!) One day we had a particularly large group of the cousins over, and they kept saying they wanted to make more food, and I kept saying, "It'll be enough, it'll be enough!" And when we had all eaten our fill, there was no food left on the mat on the floor. The oldest of the cousins said, "Maryah, you cook by the sunna!" Sunna are the traditions of the Prophet Mohammad and his Companions. "Why is that?" I asked. Safa' replied, "The Prophet Mohammad said that one should never make more food than one can consume in one sitting." Of course, this made perfect sense in the Eighth Century Arabian Peninsula, without refrigerators to keep the food from spoiling. "You, Maryah, never make more food than you can eat in one sitting. We never do that. Our mothers always make enough for several meals."

Asma Gull Hasan's article, however, gets right to the heart of one of the things I love most about Islam. The most important thing in Islam is intention, and when it comes to Judgement Day, one's actions and one's intentions count equally towards one's eternal reward or punishment. Even if one was not a practicing Muslim, but had all the right attitudes towards his brothers and God, one can still achieve Paradise. I think this is what Ms. Hasan means when she says Pres. Barack Obama is a Muslim. He is a generous, well-intentioned man who tries to help others and create a more just local and global community as much as he is able, and this is the very heart of Islam.

It started with Taylor Mali. I wanted to go back and hear "Like Lilly Like Wilson Like," to relive that moment where he says,

And the eighth-grade mind is a beautiful thing;
Like a new-born baby's face, you can often see it
change before your very eyes.

I can't believe I'm saying this, Mr. Mali,
but I think I'd like to switch sides.

And I want to tell her to do more than just believe it,
but to enjoy it!
That changing your mind is one of the best ways
of finding out whether or not you still have one.
Or even that minds are like parachutes,
that it doesn't matter what you pack
them with so long as they open
at the right time.
O God, Lilly, I want to say
you make me feel like a teacher,
and who could ask to feel more than that?

Before I knew it, I was on YouTube, watching Taylor Mali pontificate on "Miracle Workers":



YouTube is addicting, it's no secret, and I got sucked in, watching Taylor Mali work his magic on the first episode of Def Poetry Jam with one of my favorite spoken word pieces, "What Teachers Make":



What can I say? I'm a teacher at heart! But once I was listening to Def Poetry, I was reminded of some of the more weighty poets that I love who have appeared on Def Poetry. I actually saw Amir Sulaiman for the first time at Indiana University - Bloomington at an event hosted as part of Muslim History Month by the Muslim Students Association, where he put 9/11 in perspective with "Danger":



But when it comes to putting 9/11 in perspective, no one has more lyrically expressed a perspective quite like hers better than Suheir Hammad in "First Writing Since":



Please, lose yourself in Def Poetry and other such spoken word on the Internet. I can spend hours listening to this kind of thing!

There's such a Catch-22 in all this conversation here in the Middle East about President Obama's character, intentions and potential actions. People are asking each other if President Obama really wants change in the Middle East, whether he really is the idealistic humanist democrat that his words portray him as, and how much the people who voted for him really care about his Middle East policy. I am also hearing and reading a lot of debate as to whether President Obama will rise above domestic concerns (read: the economy) and American self-interest (read: AIPAC) to engage his administration in the politics of the Middle East, if so, will the Congress support or impede him in such an endeavor, and can the United States even accomplish the peace, freedoms and prosperity that Arabs hope Obama will bring to their region. Many people here are optimistic, like the newest Jordanian blogger I'm following, The Arab Observer. Others are less trusting of rhetoric, including my friend Kinzi and many who responded to the Observer's opinion.

There's certainly plenty of debate as to how much power the American government has over the issue of Israel/Palestine, or of democratic and human rights reform anywhere in the region. Certainly the United States pumps plenty of money into controversial regimes in the region, starting with Israel, Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, but definitely not ending there! If America cut off the tap, would that weaken oppressive regimes enough to be overthrown by the will of the people? If so, would the United States extend the same humanitarian aid to a regime that had overthrown America's former allies?

There's no doubt that foreign aid is needed in Jordan, Palestine, Lebanon, Egypt and other parts of the Middle East. If the US Agency for International Development (USAID) were to suddenly stop all its programs in part or all of the region, humanitarian crisis would surely follow. Saudi Arabia and Iran may have the oil resources to provide some sort of substitute for USAID, but would they extend that aid? If so, what strings would be attached, and how would people in the Middle East or beyond react? Judging by the reaction to Iran's support of Hamas and Hezbollah, which do provide extensive and vital social services in the Palestinian Territories and Lebanon, I think the reaction of the Western powers would be far from desirable.

On the American side, there are plenty who question why we should help people in the Middle East who don't seem to want to help themselves. Of course, Black Iris made an eloquent argument in the post "Somewhere Near the Israeli Embassy In Amman...." for why it is so difficult for people in this region to press for change and reform from within. On the other hand, change and reform will never be successful if they are imposed entirely from without.

The whole debate reminds me of an amazing experience I had as an undergraduate at tiny Goucher College in Baltimore. Professor Emeritus Froehlicher, who had a dramatic life that included working for the resistance to the Nazis, and then coordinating the translators and interpreters at the Nuremberg Trials, convened a group of professors, most from the Modern Languages Dept, and me and my former roommmate. We each read the opinion pages of newspapers in different languages, and convened to share what we had found. One French professor invited the Johns Hopkins University professor who was teaching her Arabic to bring us the Arab perspective, and he showed us magazine after magazine calling for America to bring an end to Egypt's and the region's woes. America, he said, was the only country with the political, economic, military and cultural power to effect real change in the Middle East, and if Americans really believed in their founding principles, how could they not save the Middle East? He had to leave early, but it's the rest of the conversation that has really stuck with me.

Prof. Froehlicher had grown up under the Nazis. Most of the other teachers in the room had grown up behind the Iron Curtain in East Germany, Poland, Hungary and Russia. They started describing how they had felt the same way about America. If America really wanted to cover the world in democracy and freedom, why weren't they doing anything? Why wasn't the United States using its superpowers to tear down that wall, to fix their problems in the Soviet states and satellites?

But what really brought down the Berlin Wall, and ultimately the Iron Curtain? It wasn't American democracy and power. It wasn't American President John F Kennedy saying, "Ich bin ein Berliner," or Pres. Ronald Reagan saying, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" Perhaps America and its presidents served as an inspiration, or as that vital ray of hope, but in the end, it was the people behind the Wall, behind the Curtain who brought it down. It was the grassroots resistance movements of the Polish Spring, the Velvet Revolution, and the Catholic Church. It was the ordinary East German citizens who chose to believe a bureaucratic error and converged peacefully on the wall. It was the lowly East German borderguards who made the humanitarian choice to disobey their standing orders to shoot anyone trying to cross that border. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, America may well have facilitated the collapse of the Soviet Union, but nothing America did directly caused it.

I hope that people in the Middle East take inspiration from Barack Obama, as Americans are doing, and do find the audacity to hope. But it is incumbent upon us all to remember that hope alone will never be enough. It is our responsibility, as Mahatma Ghandi said, to be the change we want to see in the world. It's not enough to believe in change; you have to work for it.

It's only amusing because it's true....

[translated from original Spanish source] - via fpp.co.uk January 11, 2008

NOTE the twelve golden and infallible truths that the media are obligated to adopt:

1. In the Middle East, the Arabs always attack first and Israel always defends itself. This defense is called 'retaliation'.

2. Neither Arabs, Palestinians nor Lebanese have the right to kill civilians. This is 'terrorism'.

3. Israel has the right to kill civilians. This is called 'legitimate defense'.

4. When Israel massively kills civilians, the Western Powers ask to her do it with courtesy or politeness. This is called 'reaction of the international community'.

5. Neither Palestinians nor Lebanese have the right to capture Israeli soldiers inside military installations with sentry and combat positions. This has to be called 'kidnapping of defenceless civilians'.

6. Israel has the right to kidnap as many Palestinians or Lebanese as they wish and at any time or place. Their present figures are about 10,000 imprisoned, 300 of whom are children and one thousand women. They do not need any evidence about their culpability. Israel has the right to detain such kidnapped prisoners indefinitely, even if they are people democratically elected by Palestinians. This is called 'imprisonment of terrorists'.

7. Whenever the word 'Hizbollah' is mentioned, it is compulsory to add in the same phrase 'supported and financed by Syria and Iran'.

8. When 'Israel' is mentioned it is absolutely forbidden to add 'supported and financed by the United States'. This could give the impression that the conflict is uneven and that Israel's existence of is not after all at risk.

9. In any statement about Israel, any mention of the following phrases is to be avoided: 'occupied territories', 'UN resolutions', 'Human Rights violations' or 'Geneva Convention'.

10. Palestinians, as well as Lebanese, always are 'cowards' hiding behind a civil population that dislike them. If they sleep in military accommodation with their families, this has a name: 'cowardice'. Israel is entitled to annihilate with bombs and missiles such barracks where they sleep. This is to be called a 'surgical, high-precision action'.

11. Israelis speak English, French, Spanish or Portuguese better than the Arabs. That is why they deserve to be interviewed more frequently and have better opportunities to explain to the audience at large the above rules, from 1 to 10. This is called 'media neutrality'.

12. Any person in disagreement with the above rules is to be branded a 'highly dangerous anti-Semitic terrorist'.

Last Thursday, The Economist offered a historical analysis of the current conflict in Gaza that strikes me as not only cool and collected, but also as relatively even-handed. "The Hundred Years' War in Palestine" criticizes the common complaint by Israelis that Palestinians are unwilling to compromise:

The fact that the Arabs rejected the UN’s partition plan of 60 years ago has long given ideological comfort to Israel and its supporters. Abba Eban, an Israeli foreign minister, quipped that the Palestinians “never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity”. Israel’s story is that the Arabs have muffed at least four chances to have a Palestinian state. They could have said yes to partition in 1947. They could have made peace after the war of 1947-48. They had another chance after Israel routed its neighbours in 1967 (“We are just waiting for a telephone call,” said Moshe Dayan, Israel’s hero of that war). They had yet another in 2000 when Ehud Barak, now Israel’s defence minister and then its prime minister, offered the Palestinians a state at Bill Clinton’s fateful summit at Camp David.

This story of Israeli acceptance and Arab rejection is not just a yarn convenient to Israel’s supporters. It is worth remembering that it was not until 1988, a full 40 years after Israel’s birth, that Yasser Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) renounced its goal of liberating the whole of Palestine from the river to the sea. All the same, the truth is much more shaded than the Israeli account allows. There have been missed opportunities, and long periods of rejection, on Israel’s part, too.

Instead, The Economist argues that both sides have missed opportunities, and gives fair descriptions why these were well-considered and supportable positions on both sides in their historical contexts.

The Economist then goes on to explain how things have changed in recent years.

One far-seeing Zionist, Vladimir Jabotinsky, predicted in the 1930s not only that the Arabs would oppose the swamping of Palestine with Jewish immigrants but also that “if we were Arabs, we would not accept it either”. In order to survive, the Jews would have to build an “iron wall” of military power until the Arabs accepted their state’s permanence. And this came to pass. Only after several costly wars did Egypt and later the PLO conclude that, since Israel could not be vanquished, they had better cut a deal. In Beirut in 2002 all the Arab states followed suit, offering Israel normal relations in return for its withdrawal from all the occupied territories, an opening which Israel was foolish to neglect.

The depressing thing about the rise of Hamas and the decline of the Fatah wing of the PLO is that it reverses this decades-long trend. Hamas’s victory in the Palestinian elections of 2006 had many causes, including a reputation for honesty. Its victory did not prove that Palestinians had been bewitched by Islamist militancy or come to believe again in liberating all of Palestine by force. But if you take seriously what Hamas says in its charter, Hamas itself does believe this. So does Hizbullah, Lebanon’s “Party of God”; and so does a rising and soon perhaps nuclear-armed Iran. Some analysts take heart from Hamas’s offer of a 30-year truce if Israel returns to its 1967 borders. But it has never offered permanent recognition.

The article also sets the Israeli-Palestinian conflict into its global context, noting that they two sides are not acting independently, and never have been:

For too long the conflict in Palestine was a hostage to the cold war. America was once neutral: it was Eisenhower who forced Israel out of Gaza (and Britain out of Egypt) after Suez. But America later recruited Israel as an ally, and this suited the Israelis just fine. It gave them the support of a superpower whilst relieving them of a duty to resolve the quarrel with the Palestinians, even though their own long-term well-being must surely depend on solving that conflict.

It may be no coincidence that some of the most promising peacemaking between Israel and the Palestinians took place soon after the cold war ended. But now a new sort of geopolitical confrontation stalks the region, one that sets America against Iran, and the Islamist movements Iran supports against the Arab regimes in America’s camp. With Hamas inside Iran’s tent and Fatah in America’s, the Palestinians are now facing a paralysing schism.

This is the conclusion of the writers at The Economist, and I find it a very compelling one:

Taking Hamas down a peg is one thing. But even in the event of Israel “winning” in Gaza, a hundred years of war suggest that the Palestinians cannot be silenced by brute force. Hamas will survive, and with it that strain in Arab thinking which says that a Jewish state does not belong in the Middle East. To counter that view, Israel must show not only that it is too strong to be swept away but also that it is willing to give up the land—the West Bank, not just Gaza—where the promised Palestinian state must stand. Unless it starts doing that convincingly, at a minimum by freezing new settlement, it is Palestine’s zealots who will flourish and its peacemakers who will fall back into silence. All of Israel’s friends, including Barack Obama, should be telling it this.

From the Facebook Group One Million Strong Calling Obama To Support an Immediate Ceasefire In Gaza:

“I’m asking you to believe. Not just in my ability to bring about real change in Washington…I’m asking you to believe in yours.”
- Barack Obama (www.barackobama.com)

This is a broad-based, diverse group composed of individuals of different races, creeds, religions, sexual orientations, and walks of life. We have come together to affirm our commitment to fundamental human rights and we call on President-Elect Barack Obama to make good on his campaign promise of ushering in an era of “change we can believe in.”

President-Elect Obama inspired America by reminding us that the ideals of life, liberty, equality and the pursuit of happiness can only be realized by one if enjoyed by all – not just in the United States, but across the world. The Gaza Strip is facing a humanitarian crisis of epic proportions which has been clearly documented by reputed international observers such as the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Save the Children, Oxfam, and Amnesty International. Therefore, it is incumbent upon us to call on President-Elect Obama to lend his inspiring support to worldwide calls for an immediate ceasefire, and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip. In doing so, President-Elect Obama will stand alongside human rights advocates and organizations the world over, including leading Israeli human rights organizations, B’Tselem and Jewish Voices for Peace.

There can be no clearer way for President-Elect Obama to demonstrate his commitment to making real his promise of a new and better era for the world. And there can be no better way for us to make true the promise of democracy than to join together and press President-Elect Obama to act on his beliefs.

Please note: This group is devoted solely to ending the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Therefore, moderators reserve the right to remove any posts that detract from the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and/or are discriminatory or abusive.
Also, in an effort to maintain the security of the group, we will under no circumstances be adding any additional administrators.

The success of this group hinges on you and your efforts. So, please forward widely, invite others to join, and encourage them to do the same!

Voice your opinion, and press President-Elect Obama to take action:
http://change.gov/page/s/yourvision

For background and further information:
1.
International Committee of the Red Cross Press Release
“Gaza: plight of civilians traumatic in 'full-blown humanitarian crisis'”

2.
CNN news report
“Patients lying everywhere”

3.
Amnesty International USA statement on the crisis

4.
Amnesty International Urges U.N. Security Council Not to Fail Civilians Caught in Gaza

5.
BBC reporting from a hospital in Gaza. Interview with European doctor at hospital.

6.
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Report on Gaza

7.
Save the Children Launches Major Appeal to Assist Children in Gaza

8.
B'Tselem, an Israeli human rights organization, acts primarily to change Israeli policy in the Occupied Territories and ensure that its government, which rules the Occupied Territories, protects the human rights of residents there and complies with its obligations under international law.

9.
“Jewish Voice for Peace joins millions around the world, including the 1,000 Israelis who protested in the streets of Tel Aviv this weekend, in condemning ongoing Israeli attacks on Gaza. We call for an immediate end to attacks on all civilians, whether Palestinian or Israeli.”

10.
Israeli offensive puts families’ and aid workers’ lives at risk, Oxfam warns.

Yesterday I tried to wax eloquent on what I believe Americans know, don't know and want to know about the Arab world. Today, let me show you this book review of What the Arabs Think of America by long-time Middle East correspondent Andrew Hammond. I'm not impressed with the quality of the reviewer's writing, but I think Hammond's book must be an interesting read, and one that supports my own observations that, whatever Arabs may think of American policy, they do like Americans.

A year after the publication of the entertaining and well researched “Popular Culture in the Arab World,” Andrew Hammond has come up with another engaging title: “What the Arabs Think of America”. The author strongly dispels the notion that after Sept. 11 the Arab world — and especially Muslims — hates America. This book tries to show there is hardly any connection between the way Arabs feel toward American policies and American culture.

Anyone traveling through the Middle East is bound to notice signs of American consumerism, a lifestyle embraced by a large majority of Arab youth. According to the UN Arab Human Development Reports, about 38% of the population of Arab League member states are minors. Nowhere is this more visible than on Arab TV screens where western entertainment appeals to youth. Free-to-air satellite channels offer around the clock US sitcoms, reality TV, chat shows and movies.

Other reviewers have been more eloquent in their description and review of the book.

Review

“This is a well-documented and timely volume since there are currently few other works dealing with the same subject. The book is based on the author's....thorough knowledge of Middle Eastern countries, their history, and politics before and after 9/11/2001; interviews with Arabs of various political persuasions and social strata; his own witnessing of events; and writings of political analysts and novelists.”–MultiCultural Review

“[a] timely and informative study.”–Arab News

Product Description

For hundreds of years, pilgrims to Mecca have paused in the narrow mountain pass known as Mina to cast stones at the three pillars of the Jamaraat in a symbolic casting out of the Devil. Recently, someone added graffiti to the central pillar, four Latin letters of the English script - Bush. These days, Americans and America provoke strong opinions from Arabs of all sorts, from politicians and journalists to the ordinary men and women of 'Arab Street'. Their voices aren't always heard in the West, but for over a decade British journalist Andrew Hammond, based in the Middle East, has been listening to what they have to say, and in this book they are heard loud and clear. Many of the issues are political. What do the Arabs think of American support for Israel or its close relationship with Saudi Arabia? How have they reacted to the American occupation of Iraq? But American influence in the Arab world isn't limited to politics. What is the Arab view of American film, television or the latest hip-hop or rap music? And what, for that matter, do Arabs think of Americans themselves, their life-style, attitudes and character? Incorporating interviews with individuals of all sorts from all over the Arab world, What the Arabs Think of America gives voice to the unheard partner in a relationship in crisis. After an introductory chapter describing the historical background, six chapters are devoted to issues of crucial importance to Arabs: 1) 'Domestic America' (exploring Arab enthusiasm for American pop culture, admiration for the US as a land of freedom, and ambivalence about religion in America); 2) 'The Palestinians' (showing how US policy towards Israel and Palestine has come to dominate Arab views of the US in recent years); 3) 'The Iraq Project' (articulating Arab theories about American motives for the invasion and reactions to the occupation, including the Abu Ghraib scandal); 4) 'Peace with Egypt' (highlighting the general Arab view that America's brokerage of the 1979 Camp David agreement deliberately split the Arab world in its opposition to Israel); 5) 'The House of Saud' (reviewing Arab distrust of the close relationship between the ruling Saudi royal family and the US since the monarchy allowed US companies to drill for oil in the 1930s); and 6) 'The Sudanese Card' (exploring Arab dismay at American support of south Sudanese Christian separatists at war with the Islamic north). A short chapter speculating on likely future developments in the Arab-America relationship concludes the book. A Chronology, Glossary (of Arab institutions, political parties, historical events, etc.), Biographies (of key Arab figures) and Bibliography help orientate the reader.

So for those of my friends in America who are interested in learning more about what the Arabs think of us, and for those of you who are worried about my safety in this time of protests, I think this book would both be accurate and reassure you.

The Israelis aren't letting foreign journalists into the Gaza Strip to cover the incursion, despite widespread agreement that having journalists on the ground in times of war is good for international opinion and justice:

"The barring of outside news organizations from Gaza hampers the flow of unbiased information of vital interest to the entire world. Authorities on all sides should work to allow access by journalists in keeping with the aims of press freedom," said John Daniszewski, the AP's managing editor for international news.

The Israeli government has long banned Israeli journalists from entering Gaza because of fears for their safety, but foreign reporters previously were permitted in, even during times of heavy fighting.

Human Rights Watch urged Israel to open Gaza to journalists and human rights monitors to report on the actions of both sides. "Their presence can discourage abuse by warring parties and help save lives," the New York-based organization said.

There are plenty of theories floating about the blogosphere about why: They don't want the rest of the world to observe their war crimes. They don't want anyone to know that they're mostly guessing at where the militants might be. They're worried about the effects of collateral damage on Israel's image and security. They can't guarantee the safety of the press. They don't believe that foreign media reports objectively on Israel.

It doesn't matter, though. Word still leaks out. The networks are interviewing doctors in Gaza's hospital by phone, or monitoring statistics from the UN. Bloggers around the world are posting images of bloody children. Last night, right here in Jebal Amman's al-Balad Theater, the names of the victims were read by a chorus of actors, in solidarity with the families they've left behind. And, of course, Gaza has its own native journalistic forces, who are getting out pieces like this beautiful elegy of a city by Ibrahim Barzak of the Associated Press.

There are other pictures that haunt me. The Israeli army issued a video of the bombing of the Hamas-run government compound, which it posted on YouTube. In it, I also can see my home being destroyed, and I watch it obsessively.

Even when Israel tries to use the digital age to it advantage, it still works against them.

The Hadi grocery where we once shopped is closed. Food is scarce all over town.

....

Samir, who is 9, told me his family has no water at home and he wanted to bring enough for a bath because he and his brother smell.

That's a problem for most people in Gaza right now.

In my father-in-law's building, residents throw out bags of spoiled food. With no power, refrigerators don't run and fresh food quickly rots.

And if you think that's bad, things are going to get worse, according to the UN.

But then, of course, it's never that easy, as Marty Kaplan so eloquently points out. He highlights exactly my dilemma in this whole issue. Both sides have legitimate arguments, and how can you come down entirely on one side?

What does it say when Bashar al-Assad, President of Syria, which is sometimes included in the Axis of Evil, is calling for compromise on American Network TV?

"They are ready [to make a deal]," Al-Assad told CNN's Cal Perry in an exclusive interview. "They were ready, they are ready. Today, the factors have changed so the requirement will change at the same time.

"We cannot talk about the same condition, like what happened a few years ago. Otherwise, we'll keep moving from a cease-fire to another conflict to another breaking of this cease-fire and so on. The more blood you have, the more difficult to talk about peace will be."

Al-Assad met with Sarkozy earlier Tuesday. Sarkozy appealed to Al-Assad for help in bringing about a halt to the conflict in the Middle East -- an Israeli incursion into Gaza after eight days of Israeli airstrikes.

--CNN

Bashar isn't as violent and partisan as his father, Hafiz al-Assad, but he's hardly a pacifist in favor of compromise with Israel. Consider the Golan.

Here's a highly educated, well-travelled Middle Eastern blogger, Cent Uygur, who frequently lambasts both sides. Most recently, he had this to say:

The government of Israel keeps saying their actions in Gaza are justifiable because they are doing it in retaliation for what Hamas has done. Hamas says the same exact thing -- that they are firing the rockets in retaliation for what Israel did in imposing a blockade and bombing their tunnels and leaders. I find both points completely unpersuasive -- yes, including Israel's.

Every day now, I hear someone saying, "What was Israel supposed to do? Hamas keeps firing rockets into their country."

And then Mr. Uygur proceeds to answer that very question with the following well-justified points:

1. Not break the cease-fire in the first place.
2. You are stronger. Don't strike back.
3. Make a peace deal already.

He ends with this:

Finally, let me ask you this personal question to give you a sense of what people mean when they say Israel is acting disproportionately. Let's say you're walking down the street in your local town and you hear gun fire. You have a vague suspicion that someone is firing at you from a nearby school, would you firebomb the school just in case?

You know what the answer to that question is, if you're a decent human being. No way. You might be scared out of your mind. You might be afraid for your life. But you are not going to throw a bomb into a school full of children just in case (especially when you're not even sure that's where the shots are coming from). You would be called a psychopath if you did. But today, we hear excuses like, "Hey, that's what happens in wars." Maybe, that's why it is incumbent upon us to try a little harder to avoid them. So that we don't all act like psychopaths when they start.

It's not just Arabs and Turks who are speaking out about Israel's actions in Gaza. The statements of Israeli academic Avi Shlaim have been classified thusly by The Guardian:

How Israel brought Gaza to the brink of humanitarian catastrophe
Oxford professor of international relations Avi Shlaim served in the Israeli army and has never questioned the state's legitimacy. But its merciless assault on Gaza has led him to devastating conclusions

In his own words, he said:

On 2 June 1948, Sir John Troutbeck wrote to the foreign secretary, Ernest Bevin, that the Americans were responsible for the creation of a gangster state headed by "an utterly unscrupulous set of leaders". I used to think that this judgment was too harsh but Israel's vicious assault on the people of Gaza, and the Bush administration's complicity in this assault, have reopened the question.

I write as someone who served loyally in the Israeli army in the mid-1960s and who has never questioned the legitimacy of the state of Israel within its pre-1967 borders. What I utterly reject is the Zionist colonial project beyond the Green Line. The Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in the aftermath of the June 1967 war had very little to do with security and everything to do with territorial expansionism. The aim was to establish Greater Israel through permanent political, economic and military control over the Palestinian territories. And the result has been one of the most prolonged and brutal military occupations of modern times.

Four decades of Israeli control did incalculable damage to the economy of the Gaza Strip. With a large population of 1948 refugees crammed into a tiny strip of land, with no infrastructure or natural resources, Gaza's prospects were never bright. Gaza, however, is not simply a case of economic under-development but a uniquely cruel case of deliberate de-development. To use the Biblical phrase, Israel turned the people of Gaza into the hewers of wood and the drawers of water, into a source of cheap labour and a captive market for Israeli goods. The development of local industry was actively impeded so as to make it impossible for the Palestinians to end their subordination to Israel and to establish the economic underpinnings essential for real political independence.

Gaza is a classic case of colonial exploitation in the post-colonial era. Jewish settlements in occupied territories are immoral, illegal and an insurmountable obstacle to peace. They are at once the instrument of exploitation and the symbol of the hated occupation. In Gaza, the Jewish settlers numbered only 8,000 in 2005 compared with 1.4 million local residents. Yet the settlers controlled 25% of the territory, 40% of the arable land and the lion's share of the scarce water resources. Cheek by jowl with these foreign intruders, the majority of the local population lived in abject poverty and unimaginable misery. Eighty per cent of them still subsist on less than $2 a day. The living conditions in the strip remain an affront to civilised values, a powerful precipitant to resistance and a fertile breeding ground for political extremism.

That's from a self-identified Israeli loyalist. It only illustrates what I have heard from Jordanians and expats alike at least half a dozen times a day: "What does Israel think they're accomplishing? This isn't just bad for Gaza and the Palestinians. This is bad for Israel!"

I put all these out there because these men say precisely what I want to say, but with far more clarity. Many thanks to the friends who pointed these articles out to me by posting them to Facebook.

And I leave you with this level-headed, eloquent interview with my hero, Queen Noor:

Stupidity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

--Albert Einstein

We are witnessing right now what BBC World is calling the worst attack on Gaza in the history of the conflict in terms of casualties, not even a week after the end of a 6 month truce.

UN Special Rapporteur Richard Falk has this to say:

Against this background, it is especially painful for me, as an American Jew, to feel compelled to portray the ongoing and intensifying abuse of the Palestinian people by Israel through a reliance on such an inflammatory metaphor as 'holocaust'...

...and has even gone so far as to use the word "genocide."
In fact, I can't begin to put this in words as well as he, Sabbahblog and others are doing, but I do want to contribute my two gersh/cents.

I don't dispute Israel's right to defend its citizens. This was part of my dilemma over the 2006 Lebanon War, because there was an immediate threat to innocent Israeli lives, and it was legitimately hard to distinguish purely military targets. The population density in the Gaza Strip makes it even harder to distinguish military targets, which is precisely why, after the publicity beating Israel got after the 2006 Lebanon War, I should think they would want to be more careful about civilian casualties. One Israeli was killed, so the only appropriate response was to kill 350 Gazans and injure over 1000 more? Come on, Ms. Livni!

If "the people of Gaza do not deserve to suffer" for what Hamas does, as PM Olmert said in today's press conference, where is the proof of that? It's not suffering to be under a strangling blockade of even basic food and medical supplies since June 2007? It's not suffering to never know when Israeli planes, tanks or troops will attack?

Ehud Barak said the IDF only "... attacked only targets that are part of the Hamas organizations [and will] make an effort in order to avoid any unnecessary inconveniences to the people of Gaza." Is that why they bombed a university? It's not an "unnecessary inconvenience" to allow no food, water or electricity over the border for weeks at a time?

And what, exactly, is all of this supposed to accomplish? Does Israel really think that cutting off aid and basic necessities and raining down bombs on the Gaza Strip will make Palestinians more sympathetic to Israel? Do they really think that by killing hundreds of Gazans, this will make them stop retaliating on Israeli citizens? This is the very epitomy of what Albert Einstein was talking about when he defined stupidity!

Though I have to give Israel kudos for their timing. What with the Christmas season, the global economic woes, and the US administration in transition, hardly anyone is paying serious attention to what's going on over here. This much, at least, shows definite cunning!

I try, in this blog, to be eloquent, to say things that are well considered and meaningful, but I just feel so frustrated and impotent today. I did take some food donations to Books@Cafe today to be sent to Gaza. Apparently, only Jordanians are being allowed into the Gaza Strip to deliver aid. I guess Israel is worried about what the UN and Red Crescent might have to say about the conditions of people there. Certainly Israel displayed their unhappiness with the comments of Richard Falk which I mentioned above when they denied him entry to the Gaza Strip.

There was some talk on BBC today about the lessons UIsrael has learned from the 2006 Lebanon War, and I can think of a couple they failed to mention. Apparently Israel learned that there's nothing the international community is ready or able to do to actually stop Israel's actions. I feel, too, like they've taken a page from George W. Bush, who legitimized the Pre-Emptive Strike Doctrine that, for lack of a better word, completely fucked up Iraq, and now seems to be allowing Israel to do the same to the Gaza Strip.

I'm no Juan Cole or Richard Falk; I know that the words I put here won't reach many people or make much difference, especially as disjointed and incoherent as this rant is, but I feel compelled to publish something, anything to express my outrage and frustration.

THE LIGHTS are out in Gaza again and few are paying attention. The 1.5 million Palestinians living in the densely populated strip are being collectively punished once more, while Israel attempts to strangle the Hamas government. The UN agency that feeds hundreds of thousands of people is unable to get supplies in because the border is closed, and a plea from UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon has been ignored.

Ignoring the Plight in Gaza
by Yousef Munayyer in the Boston Globe

This article was posted to Facebook by my friend Jennifer, whom I met when she was teaching me Arabic in the Peace Corps, whose wedding to a fellow Peace Corps Volunteer I attended in Amman, in his village of Rajaf near Petra, and in Kansas City, Missouri (the only one other than his family to attend all three). She worked on the Obama campaign (though she was instructed to tell voters she was Spanish or Italian, not Arab), changed her Facebook name to Jennifer "Hussein" Walsh in protest of the anti-Muslim slurs hurled at Obama, and said of this article, "Somebody is writing about this." Too often, for those of us who are concerned about the situation in Gaza, it seems that no one does write about this.

Like Mr. Munayyer, I wonder why Israel believes that continuing the blockade of Gaza will change anything within Gaza or any of the Palestinian Territories.

After Hamas was democratically elected, sanctions followed and the grip began to tighten on the Gaza Strip. Fuel supplies ran short, malnutrition rose, and Gaza's only power plant could not be relied on to provide electricity. Store shelves were often empty of food, and many who were already impoverished were now struggling even more.

And what, if anything, has been gained by all this? If the objective was to diminish public support for the Hamas government, it is hardly working.

Some public-opinion polling of Palestinians has consistently showed that Hamas remains as popular today as it was before it was elected. Some polls also indicate that Hamas garners its highest approval ratings when the collective measures against the Gaza Strip have been most punitive.

But aside from the fact that the Israeli policy of collective punishment, and world complacency to it, is counterproductive, there is a greater problem with this policy: It is morally reprehensible.

In 1949, when Soviets had surrounded Berlin and were ready to choke a war-torn population into submission, the Western world refused to stand silent. In the boldest move in the history of the Cold War, the United States spearheaded an airlift of food and supplies to Berlin, flying in the face of Soviet oppression, confident the Soviets would not fire upon humanitarian aid.

Where, one has to wonder, is that moral courage now?

I am not asking President Bush or President-elect Obama to declare "Ana Ghazawi," the Palestinian equivalent of "Ich bin ein Berliner." Rather, the United States should strongly state to Israel that this failed policy is only hurting innocent civilians and is making Israel and the United States look terrible in the process. While Hamas must moderate its positions if it is to be considered a legitimate political player, this policy has failed to change Hamas.

The collective punishment in Gaza has left a deep and troubling scar on America's image in the world and has hindered our ability to maneuver politically in the region. If we are truly living in a new era, and change has come, let us hope it will come for the innocent civilians in Gaza too.

Yousef Munayyer is a policy analyst for the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.

Reading this article reminded me of the truly terrible situation I saw on the BBC and meant to write about during the week of Eid. The second week in December was the most important holiday on the Islamic calendar, the Feast of the Sacrifice (Eid al-Adha), commemorating Ibrahim's (Abraham's) willingness to submit to the will of God and sacrifice his first-born son Ishmael (Isaac in Judeo-Christian tradition). It is traditionally a time for family, feasting and sacrificing one's own sheep to God, in imitation of the ram which the angel told Ibrahim at the last minute would be an acceptable substitute for Ishmael.

Merely finding the food to feed one's family in Gaza has been a challenge for many years, as the border is frequently closed, and so deliveries are sporadic and uncertain. From time to time, the UN, Red Cross and other international bodies step in to demand that Israel allow food and basic necessities into Gaza, but it is not consistent. There are also, reportedly, networks of tunnels allowing the smuggling of food and necessities into Gaza. In the days leading up to Eid al-Adha, in fact, live sheep were being smuggled through those tunnels for the holiday festivities.

However, this year there was a new challenge for Gazans. Israel blocked banks from transporting bills and coins into the Gaza Strip in the days leading up to Eid. On the last Thursday before Eid, banks and ATMs were forced to close, because they didn't have the bills to pay the paychecks that were to be issued that day. Banks were then closed for the whole next week for the holiday. This meant that people not only didn't have the money to buy sheep for sacrifice, but that they didn't even have the means to purchase even basic food items for 10 days.

The Gaza Strip is in serious danger of a complete economic collapse into a barter economy, but one in which there isn't even anything to barter for!

Yes, Hamas has supported and probably still supports so-called terrorist ideology and actions, but why is that? When a people under military blockade have no vote, no voice, no hope, no food, no money, and not even anything to barter with, what other choice do they have?

Maybe President-elect Obama will never say it, but I will: "Ana Ghazawiya!"

Emily put me on to the fabulous commentary excerpted here, by Najlaa A. Al-Nashi, with Noah Baker Merrill, of Direct Aid Iraq:

You may have heard the news that an Iraqi journalist threw his shoes at the American president, but as an Iraqi I’d like to share with you a few details about the journalist, and why he did that.

Muntather’s actions have, for these days, united Sunnis, Shiites, and Christians. It united Iraqis as Iraqis. And it only took a few seconds. Sunni and Shiite tribal leaders have publicly asked that Muntather not be referred to using his tribal affiliation (Muntather al-Zaidi), because they believe his tribal affiliation now encompasses all the tribes of Iraq: They’ve asked for him to be referred to as “Muntather Al-Iraqi” (Muntather the Iraqi). At the same time, the tribal leaders have said that they hope it is now clear that they have only one enemy — the occupation of Iraq.

The Iraqi response shows clearly that Muntather’s actions have triggered a deep release in Iraqi society. It gives an indication to the outside world how much so many Iraqis oppose the occupation and the ongoing presence of foreign troops in their country, but have been without a voice that cut through the walls of silence and the filtered mainstream media.

It is important to be clear that this action by a single man does not arise from his role as a journalist, or from some specific incident or time in his life. It comes from an Iraqi man who, like all of his people, has suffered greatly from occupation, from the actions of mercenaries like those employed by Blackwater Worldwide, from the torture of Iraqis by American soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison and elsewhere, and from the sectarian violence that the occupation has cultivated, fueled, and allowed to thrive. Muntather himself was kidnapped a few months ago, though thankfully he was released alive.

Unfortunately, Direct Aid Iraq is reporting that he was tortured in the care of Iraqi police, a practice common under the Saddam Regime, and unfortunately not much discouraged by the Americans, Jordanians, Saudis and others who trained those police. It reminds me of what my roommate said when he heard about the incident: "I wonder if they'll kill his whole family for this." I'm happy to see that the shoe-throwing has not fueled the sectarian violence, and that the Americans didn't cart poor Muntather off to Guantanamo for the insult. Nonetheless, it is a vivid example of how ludicrous it is to think that the United States would be able to bring democracy and freedom of speech and expression to Iraq by the means which the Bush Administration has chosen.

Here are a couple interesting blog entries by friends about blogging in the Arab world: from kinziblogs with some interesting comments by the very Jordanians effected, and about a Saudi blogger whose neighbors can't see what he writes.

I feel somewhat protected by being an American in Jordan, which depends heavily on American funds to run its government and its economy, and is therefore loathe to offend the American public. However, rest assured, it has crossed my mind more than once that blogging in this part of the world is not without risk.

I filter my writing carefully anyway. I know that friends, family and potential employers all have access to my blogs, as well as the friends, family and current or potential employers of those whom I mention in my blog. I definitely don't want to offend those people, who are important to me, nor jeapordize their personal or business relationships. I also have a definite agenda to help Westerners see this region in a more sympathetic, positive light.

All of this, however, is about my own personal concerns. As a US American, as a humanist, and as a writer, I find government control of information appalling.

First, let me say that my faith in American democracy has been restored. Regardless of who won this election, I was hoping that we wouldn't have the same quagmire we had in the last two elections, with no one quite sure who really deserved to win, even four and eight years later. I'm glad that McCain and the xenophobic, bellicose GOP right and especially Sarah Palin didn't win, but I'm mostly glad that the election was an unambiguous one.

Those Jordanians who had a preference in the recent election are also mostly pleased by the result. I can't tell you how many people, upon seeing me for the first time after the election, have said "Mabrouk! [Congratulations!]" So tonight in my adult English class at AMIDEAST, I decided to ask my students for their thoughts on the election. Most Jordanians I've spoken to tend to agree that as far as the Middle East is concerned, the two candidates are basically the same. On Palestine, the same. On Afghanistan, the same. On Iran, Obama is calling for more dialogue, but is not significantly less belligerent.

Wait a minute, I said. All of that I can agree with. But what about Iraq? Don't you see a difference there?

No, said Ghassan. Whether it's a few hundred troops, or thousands, both candidates want to leave a troop presence in Iraq. They came for the oil, he said, and that hasn't changed.

However, everyone here seems to recognize that, while there isn't a difference where Arabs are concerned, for Americans there is a huge difference between McCain and Obama on domestic issues. All the Jordanians I've spoken to here know that Obama is calling for national health care, and they will all tell you that he has the better plan to help ordinary Americans in their current financial crisis. On domestic issues, all the Jordanians I've met would say that Obama is clearly the best choice.

And, of course, all the Muslims I know here are delighted that America has elected the son of a Muslim. I haven't actually asked anyone why yet. I can think of two likely reasons, though. First, under Islamic law and tradition, any son or daughter of a Muslim is and always will be a Muslim, so although he's been a practicing Christian for years, many Muslims may be telling themselves that America has a Muslim president. The other, probably more likely reason that comes to mind is that, whether Obama is Muslim or Christian, Muslims in America have come under an awful lot of not-so-flattering scrutiny in America in the last seven years, and at the very least, Obama knows something about Muslims. I think that Muslims may well be hoping, as I am hoping, that an Obama administration will be sympathetic to the troubles of both Muslims and Muslim Americans, or at the very least, will be more rational.

There are those really amazing days in teaching when you can see a student finally get it, make that breakthrough that just makes your day....
And then there are days like this....

Bulqiis was one of my brightest first graders. She had learned every word in her vocabulary, she had learned at home to identify all the words and letters in the English alphabet, and she never gave me any trouble in a class that was often quite unruly. Like the Queen of Sheba whose name she shared, Bulqiis was already well on her way to being a very capable, admirable woman.

One day, as I was starting class, Bulqiis raised her hand. "Miss Maryah," she asked, "do you speak Arabic?"

"Of course. We're speaking Arabic right now. You hear me use it a lot in class." Too much, perhaps, though I needed the least amount of Arabic to get the lessons across to my first graders, who had not yet formed the habit of learning English through Arabic. But maybe, I was thinking, I didn't use as much Arabic as I thought, if Bulqiis wasn't sure I spoke the language at all.

Then she asked the question that burst my bubble. "Then why do you always speak to us in English?"