Too often I have heard Arabs and Muslims blaming their problems on 'the Jews'. I think that these prejudices about Jews stem largely from the way Palestinians have been treated by Israel since 1947 (I will write about this subject in more detail in another post), and I still believe that Arab nationalism only became popular because of the Palestinian Diaspora, but so many Arabs talk about Jews as if all Jews are evil, and in some countries like Saudia Arabia, the demonization of Jews is bizarre. Even in Iraq, where Jews, Christians, and Muslims lived together in peace for thousands of years, to call an Iraqi a Jew is insulting, as in 'le tseer Yahoodi!' (don't be a Jew). But it's not just Arabs who do this. Americans also have stereotypes about Jews, as in 'I got Jewed' – meaning 'I got ripped off'. I cringe when I hear an Arab say that this war benefits 'the Jews', but it doesn't help when Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert says that the Iraq war was good for Israel. Many Arabs are unable to differentiate between Jews and Israelis, or between Israelis who fight for Palestinian rights and Israeli settlers who attack olive-harvesting Palestinian farmers or human rights workers who help Palestinians.
Not all Jews think or act alike, just as not all Arabs think or act alike. I am impressed with the Arab governments that have protected their Jewish citizens. Tunisia has gone to great lengths to ensure that their Jews are safe, and if Synagogues in Tunis are damaged, the Tunisian government repairs the Synagogue. During the holocaust when the King of Morocco was asked to supply a list of Jews in his country, his response was: 'We have no Jews in Morocco, only Moroccan citizens.'
Someone recently told me about a a mosque that sheltered Jews during the holocaust.
In an account written by Annette Herskovits (today she is a champion for Palestinian human rights) she says that Algerian Muslims hid many Jewish children in their mosques. One sad message that those Muslims distrubuted amongst themselves after the Nazis arrested many Jews went as follows:
"Yesterday at dawn, the Jews of Paris were arrested. The old, the women, and the children. In exile like ourselves, workers like ourselves. They are our brothers. Their children are like our own children. The one who encounters one of his children must give that child shelter and protection for as long as misfortune - or sorrow - lasts. Oh, man of my country, your heart is generous."
Making fun of simple minded people who have prejudged all Jews can be a dangerous thing to do, and maybe only a Jew can get away with it. Two years ago I saw this skit by Sacha Boren Cohen on the Ali G Show, and I think it's his funniest. He does a good job of making fun of people who have silly preconceived notions that all Jews are bad people. Every Arab should watch it. Notice that the audience in the video is American - the skit was filmed in Tuscon, Arizona. I don't think that everybody in that crowd really believe in 'throwing the Jew down the well'. I like to believe that most people in the audience, like most people who have seen this skit, were laughing at the satire itself, and don't actually agree with what Borat was singing. I guess this is the important question: who laughs at this skit because of the satire and who laughs or ponders it without laughing because they believe it has any truth to it?
Throw the Jew down the well...
Saturday, December 02, 2006
Alaa's Third Law
"Alaa’s Third Law: The United States of America has become the Sole Super Power in the world of today; and has been cast into this role almost despite itself; its success has been so unbelievably complete, especially after the dramatic collapse of the Soviet block, that it finds itself charged with such global responsibility that is almost unbearable and for which it may not be entirely prepared. Just look around you: which other nation has such armies and fleets and economic involvement spreading over the entire globe? Consequently America has become the obsession of friend and foe alike, world wide. Just listen to any standard discourse of our Arab commentators, for instance. You will hear the word America or something to do with America, in every other sentence; if not in each one. America is deified, demonized, believed to be the source of everything that is happening. My son once told me that one of his teachers (of wahabi sympathies) emphatically told his pupils in class, that it was America that caused the Tsunami that struck the shores of Asia. Ordinary American folk may not quite realize or understand this; it is rather like some of these fairy tales when some quite ordinary person finds himself crowned as King or something of the sort."
Thursday, November 30, 2006
The Ghosts of 1991
In 1991, after the US and its allies bombed Iraq for 41 days and nights with a total of 88,000 tons of bombs, equivalent to seven Hiroshima-size atomic bombs, after the Iraqi Republican Guard was defeated and expelled from Kuwait*, Bush urged Iraqis to rise up and overthrow Saddam's regime. The Shia of Iraq responded with an intifadha, and within days Saddam's regime lost control of the Shia areas of Iraq. Until the Shia uprising, Saddam's helicopters were easily shot down by allied forces, if Iraqi pilots dared fly them at all, but for some reason during the Shia uprising, General Norman Schwarzkopf allowed Saddam's generals to fly their helicopters, which they used to strafe Shia rebels on the ground and crush the uprising. Bush Senior ordered US troops not to intervene. Had US troops intervened, had Schwarzkopf not allowed Saddam's generals to fly their helicopters, Saddam's regime would have been overthrown in 1991, and sanctions would have ended immediately, and Usama bin Laden would have one less reason to hate the US. More importantly, Iraq would have been free. Al Qaeda and fedayeen Saddam did not exist in 1991. Saddam's regime was already in a weak position during the uprising. Democracy in Iraq would have taken shape with much less mayhem than we've seen in the last three years. This war would have been totally unnecessary.
Below is an article written by Peter Galbraith, published in the Washington Post in April, 2003. Galbraith was in rebel-held Iraq during the 1991 uprising, and in this article he explains much better than I can how the US betrayed the Iraqi Shia in 1991.
*Updated 12/29/09: Turns out Saddam kept most of his Republican Guards out of Kuwait.
The Ghosts of 1991
By Peter W. Galbraith
Saturday, April 12, 2003; Page A19
'Can it be that the events of 2003 in Iraq have finally dispelled the ghosts of 1991? The answer may not be quite as obvious as the welcoming throngs make it seem.
Just 12 years ago, the Shiite Muslims who constitute a majority in Iraq and in the city of Baghdad were betrayed by the United States -- an act that may have cost them as many as 100,000 lives [and many thousands more in following years]. That recent history -- of which the Shiites are understandably a good deal less forgetful than we -- explains why the Shiites in the south initially greeted invading American and British forces with a good deal more reserve than expected. And as the continuing turmoil in southern towns and cities makes clear, building a democratic state in Iraq over the long term will depend to a large degree on how strong and lasting a trust we can build among these people.
The spontaneous Shiite uprising of 1991 consumed the southern part of Iraq right up to the approaches to Baghdad. Rebels came to U.S. troops, who were then deployed in the Euphrates Valley, begging for U.S. intervention. The Shiite political parties sent emissaries to the few Americans who would see them. To this day, I am haunted by the desperation in the appeals made to me by one group, as they realized time was running out for their countrymen.
Many of the problems we face now and in the future with Shiites likely have to do with the way the first Bush administration responded to those appeals. On Feb. 15, 1991, President George H.W. Bush called on the Iraqi military and people to overthrow Saddam Hussein. On March 3, an Iraqi tank commander returning from Kuwait fired a shell through one of the portraits of Hussein in Basra's main square, igniting the southern uprising. A week later, Kurdish rebels ended Hussein's control over much of the north.
But although Bush had called for the rebellion, his administration was caught unprepared when it happened. The administration knew little about those in the Iraqi opposition because, as a matter of policy, it refused to talk to them. Policymakers tended to see Iraq's main ethnic groups in caricature: The Shiites were feared as pro-Iranian and the Kurds as anti-Turkish. Indeed, the U.S. administration seemed to prefer the continuation of the Baath regime (albeit without Hussein) to the success of the rebellion. As one National Security Council official told me at the time: "Our policy is to get rid of Saddam, not his regime."
The practical expression of this policy came in the decisions made by the military on the ground. U.S. commanders spurned the rebels' plea for help. The United States allowed Iraq to send Republican Guard units into southern cities and to fly helicopter gunships. (This in spite of a ban on flights, articulated by Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf with considerable swagger: "You fly, you die.") The consequences were devastating. Hussein's forces leveled the historical centers of the Shiite towns, bombarded sacred Shiite shrines and executed thousands on the spot. By some estimates, 100,000 people died in reprisal killings between March and September. Many of these atrocities were committed in proximity to American troops, who were under orders not to intervene.
In recent years Baghdad has shortchanged the south in the distribution of food and medicine, contributing to severe malnutrition among vulnerable populations. Some 100 Shiite clerics have been murdered, including four senior ayatollahs. Draining the marshes displaced 400,000 Marsh Arabs, destroying a culture that is one of the world's oldest, as well as causing immeasurable ecological damage.
The first Bush administration's decision to abandon the March uprising was a mistake of historic proportions. With U.S. help, or even neutrality, the March uprising could have succeeded, thus avoiding the need for a second costly war. (Bush's defenders insist the United States had no mandate to carry the war to Baghdad, but this is beside the point. The uprising started after the Gulf War ended, and the United States was positioned to easily down Iraqi helicopters and halt Iraqi tanks.)
The current President Bush cannot escape these ghosts. An American may understand what happened in 1991 as carelessness -- inexcusable but not malicious. An Iraqi Shiite saw a superpower that called for a rebellion and then ensured its failure. Naturally, he assumed this was intentional. In the months and years to come, many Shiites may take a lot of convincing about U.S. motives and reliability.
President George W. Bush has done much right that his father did wrong. His administration has been in constant contact with the Iraqi opposition. Humanitarian supplies are being rushed to southern Iraq, and clear warnings were issued against those who might have committed atrocities in the first days of the invasion. Unfortunately, the president carries a national and family legacy that many Iraqis associate with deadly betrayal. Overcoming that legacy has only begun. It is one of the critical challenges that lie ahead.'
Marsh Arabs
Below is an article written by Peter Galbraith, published in the Washington Post in April, 2003. Galbraith was in rebel-held Iraq during the 1991 uprising, and in this article he explains much better than I can how the US betrayed the Iraqi Shia in 1991.
*Updated 12/29/09: Turns out Saddam kept most of his Republican Guards out of Kuwait.
The Ghosts of 1991
By Peter W. Galbraith
Saturday, April 12, 2003; Page A19
'Can it be that the events of 2003 in Iraq have finally dispelled the ghosts of 1991? The answer may not be quite as obvious as the welcoming throngs make it seem.
Just 12 years ago, the Shiite Muslims who constitute a majority in Iraq and in the city of Baghdad were betrayed by the United States -- an act that may have cost them as many as 100,000 lives [and many thousands more in following years]. That recent history -- of which the Shiites are understandably a good deal less forgetful than we -- explains why the Shiites in the south initially greeted invading American and British forces with a good deal more reserve than expected. And as the continuing turmoil in southern towns and cities makes clear, building a democratic state in Iraq over the long term will depend to a large degree on how strong and lasting a trust we can build among these people.
The spontaneous Shiite uprising of 1991 consumed the southern part of Iraq right up to the approaches to Baghdad. Rebels came to U.S. troops, who were then deployed in the Euphrates Valley, begging for U.S. intervention. The Shiite political parties sent emissaries to the few Americans who would see them. To this day, I am haunted by the desperation in the appeals made to me by one group, as they realized time was running out for their countrymen.
Many of the problems we face now and in the future with Shiites likely have to do with the way the first Bush administration responded to those appeals. On Feb. 15, 1991, President George H.W. Bush called on the Iraqi military and people to overthrow Saddam Hussein. On March 3, an Iraqi tank commander returning from Kuwait fired a shell through one of the portraits of Hussein in Basra's main square, igniting the southern uprising. A week later, Kurdish rebels ended Hussein's control over much of the north.
But although Bush had called for the rebellion, his administration was caught unprepared when it happened. The administration knew little about those in the Iraqi opposition because, as a matter of policy, it refused to talk to them. Policymakers tended to see Iraq's main ethnic groups in caricature: The Shiites were feared as pro-Iranian and the Kurds as anti-Turkish. Indeed, the U.S. administration seemed to prefer the continuation of the Baath regime (albeit without Hussein) to the success of the rebellion. As one National Security Council official told me at the time: "Our policy is to get rid of Saddam, not his regime."
The practical expression of this policy came in the decisions made by the military on the ground. U.S. commanders spurned the rebels' plea for help. The United States allowed Iraq to send Republican Guard units into southern cities and to fly helicopter gunships. (This in spite of a ban on flights, articulated by Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf with considerable swagger: "You fly, you die.") The consequences were devastating. Hussein's forces leveled the historical centers of the Shiite towns, bombarded sacred Shiite shrines and executed thousands on the spot. By some estimates, 100,000 people died in reprisal killings between March and September. Many of these atrocities were committed in proximity to American troops, who were under orders not to intervene.
In recent years Baghdad has shortchanged the south in the distribution of food and medicine, contributing to severe malnutrition among vulnerable populations. Some 100 Shiite clerics have been murdered, including four senior ayatollahs. Draining the marshes displaced 400,000 Marsh Arabs, destroying a culture that is one of the world's oldest, as well as causing immeasurable ecological damage.
The first Bush administration's decision to abandon the March uprising was a mistake of historic proportions. With U.S. help, or even neutrality, the March uprising could have succeeded, thus avoiding the need for a second costly war. (Bush's defenders insist the United States had no mandate to carry the war to Baghdad, but this is beside the point. The uprising started after the Gulf War ended, and the United States was positioned to easily down Iraqi helicopters and halt Iraqi tanks.)
The current President Bush cannot escape these ghosts. An American may understand what happened in 1991 as carelessness -- inexcusable but not malicious. An Iraqi Shiite saw a superpower that called for a rebellion and then ensured its failure. Naturally, he assumed this was intentional. In the months and years to come, many Shiites may take a lot of convincing about U.S. motives and reliability.
President George W. Bush has done much right that his father did wrong. His administration has been in constant contact with the Iraqi opposition. Humanitarian supplies are being rushed to southern Iraq, and clear warnings were issued against those who might have committed atrocities in the first days of the invasion. Unfortunately, the president carries a national and family legacy that many Iraqis associate with deadly betrayal. Overcoming that legacy has only begun. It is one of the critical challenges that lie ahead.'
Marsh Arabs
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Torture, Rape, and Murder By Saddam's Henchmen
I linked to this Amnesty International report in my first post. It's a reminder that not all torture carried out by Arab regimes can be blamed on the US.
'Women too have been tortured, ill-treated and in some cases extrajudicially executed in Iraq. Su'ad Jihad Shams al-Din, a 61-year-old medical doctor, was arrested at her clinic in Baghdad on 29 June 1999 on suspicion that she had contacts with Shi'a Islamist groups. She was detained without charge or trial and was released on 25 July 1999. She was initially held in Baghdad Security Directorate and then was transferred to al-Ambar Security Directorate (also in Baghdad) on 5 July. Su'ad Jihad Shams al-Din was tortured frequently during interrogation by security men. Methods of torture included mostly beatings on the sole (falaqa) with a cable.
Some women have been raped in custody. They were detained and tortured because they were relatives of well known Iraqi opposition activists living abroad. The security authorities use this method to put pressure on Iraqi nationals abroad to cease their activities. For example, on 7 June 2000 Najib al-Salihi, a former army general who fled Iraq in 1995 and joined the Iraqi opposition, was sent a videotape showing the rape of a female relative. Shortly afterwards he reportedly received a telephone call from the Iraqi intelligence service, asking him whether he had received the "gift" and informing him that his relative was in their custody.
In October 2000 dozens of women suspected of prostitution were beheaded without any judicial process in Baghdad and other cities after they had been arrested and ill-treated. Men suspected of procurement were also beheaded. The killings were reportedly carried out in the presence of representatives of the Ba'ath Party and the Iraqi Women's General Union. Members of Feda'iyye Saddam, a militia created in 1994 by 'Uday Saddam Hussain, used swords to execute the victims in front of their homes. Some victims were reportedly killed in this manner for political reasons.
Najat Mohammad Haydar, an obstetrician in Baghdad, was beheaded in October 2000 apparently on suspicion of prostitution. However, she was reportedly arrested before the introduction of the policy to behead prostitutes and was said to have been critical of corruption within the health services.
A woman known as "Um Haydar" was beheaded reportedly without charge or trial at the end of December 2000. She was 25 years' old and married with three children. Her husband was sought by the security authorities reportedly because of his involvement in Islamist armed activities against the state. He managed to flee the country. Men belonging to Feda'iyye Saddam came to the house in al-Karrada district and found his wife, children and his mother. Um Haydar was taken to the street and two men held her by the arms and a third pulled her head from behind and beheaded her in front of the residents. The beheading was also witnessed by members of the Ba'ath Party in the area. The security men took the body and the head in a plastic bag, and took away the children and the mother-in-law. The body of Um Haydar was later buried in al-Najaf. The fate of the children and the mother-in-law remains unknown.'
'Women too have been tortured, ill-treated and in some cases extrajudicially executed in Iraq. Su'ad Jihad Shams al-Din, a 61-year-old medical doctor, was arrested at her clinic in Baghdad on 29 June 1999 on suspicion that she had contacts with Shi'a Islamist groups. She was detained without charge or trial and was released on 25 July 1999. She was initially held in Baghdad Security Directorate and then was transferred to al-Ambar Security Directorate (also in Baghdad) on 5 July. Su'ad Jihad Shams al-Din was tortured frequently during interrogation by security men. Methods of torture included mostly beatings on the sole (falaqa) with a cable.
Some women have been raped in custody. They were detained and tortured because they were relatives of well known Iraqi opposition activists living abroad. The security authorities use this method to put pressure on Iraqi nationals abroad to cease their activities. For example, on 7 June 2000 Najib al-Salihi, a former army general who fled Iraq in 1995 and joined the Iraqi opposition, was sent a videotape showing the rape of a female relative. Shortly afterwards he reportedly received a telephone call from the Iraqi intelligence service, asking him whether he had received the "gift" and informing him that his relative was in their custody.
In October 2000 dozens of women suspected of prostitution were beheaded without any judicial process in Baghdad and other cities after they had been arrested and ill-treated. Men suspected of procurement were also beheaded. The killings were reportedly carried out in the presence of representatives of the Ba'ath Party and the Iraqi Women's General Union. Members of Feda'iyye Saddam, a militia created in 1994 by 'Uday Saddam Hussain, used swords to execute the victims in front of their homes. Some victims were reportedly killed in this manner for political reasons.
Najat Mohammad Haydar, an obstetrician in Baghdad, was beheaded in October 2000 apparently on suspicion of prostitution. However, she was reportedly arrested before the introduction of the policy to behead prostitutes and was said to have been critical of corruption within the health services.
A woman known as "Um Haydar" was beheaded reportedly without charge or trial at the end of December 2000. She was 25 years' old and married with three children. Her husband was sought by the security authorities reportedly because of his involvement in Islamist armed activities against the state. He managed to flee the country. Men belonging to Feda'iyye Saddam came to the house in al-Karrada district and found his wife, children and his mother. Um Haydar was taken to the street and two men held her by the arms and a third pulled her head from behind and beheaded her in front of the residents. The beheading was also witnessed by members of the Ba'ath Party in the area. The security men took the body and the head in a plastic bag, and took away the children and the mother-in-law. The body of Um Haydar was later buried in al-Najaf. The fate of the children and the mother-in-law remains unknown.'
Extraordinary Rendition
'The U.S. Government has engaged in "Extraordinary Rendition", an unlawful practice in which numerous persons have been illegally detained and secretly flown to third countries, where they have suffered additional human rights abuses including torture and enforced disappearance.'
This is the kind of torture inflicted on Iraqis by Saddam Hussein's regime. I'm surprised that the USA, being the morally superior country that we are, is participating in it.
This is the kind of torture inflicted on Iraqis by Saddam Hussein's regime. I'm surprised that the USA, being the morally superior country that we are, is participating in it.
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Iraq Burns While Americans Shop
'There is something terribly wrong with this juxtaposition of gleeful Americans with fistfuls of dollars storming the department store barricades and the slaughter by the thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians, including old people, children and babies. The war was started by the United States, but most Americans feel absolutely no sense of personal responsibility for it.'
I know many Americans who 'feel sorry' for the Iraqi people, and I know that many American bloggers write and read about Iraq, but it seems that most Americans simply do not care.
I know many Americans who 'feel sorry' for the Iraqi people, and I know that many American bloggers write and read about Iraq, but it seems that most Americans simply do not care.
Monday, November 27, 2006
Ignoring Truth vs. Telling Lies
There are articles like Al Jazeera’s that do not report where Walid Hassan’s body was found, and there is an article on Electronic Iraq that states ‘his body was found with three gunshot wounds to the head in the east Baghdad neighbourhood of Yarmouk.'*
Yarmouk is in west Baghdad, not east Baghdad. Electronic Iraq’s source was ‘Reporters Without Borders’. Reporting that Hassan’s body was found in east Baghdad implies that he was murdered by Shia. In my opinion, it is better to ignore the truth than to tell a lie, even if it is an ‘innocent’ mistake.
*After five days, Electronic Iraq has corrected their mistake.
Yarmouk is in west Baghdad, not east Baghdad. Electronic Iraq’s source was ‘Reporters Without Borders’. Reporting that Hassan’s body was found in east Baghdad implies that he was murdered by Shia. In my opinion, it is better to ignore the truth than to tell a lie, even if it is an ‘innocent’ mistake.
*After five days, Electronic Iraq has corrected their mistake.
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