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Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, April 2005, pages 62-63 Human Rights State Department Confronted on Israeli Mistreatment of U.S. Citizens
A DELEGATION of concerned citizen groups met with State Department officials on Feb. 17 to request an explanation of the U.S. government’s official silence over the mistreatment of Americans in Israel. The delegation included the Council for the National Interest, Partners for Peace, the Arab American Republican Club of Orange County, the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), KinderUSA, the Muslim Women’s League, the Muslim Public Affairs Committee, and American Muslims for Jerusalem. During the meeting, the Department of State was asked to negotiate the release of American prisoners at the same time as Palestinians were being released by the Sharon government, as a significant gesture by Israel of its friendship with the American people. Nazir Hussain, president of the Arab American Republican Club of Orange County, and Norman Tanber, an executive on its board, called in a statement presented at the meeting for more effective protection of American prisoners in Israel as a way of “recapturing the moral high ground.” Nicholas Dibs, another member of the Arab American Republican Club, spearheaded the effort to meet with top State Department officials. Calling the discussion “a meeting for those who can’t speak for themselves,” he spoke at length on the need for greater transparency on the question of Palestinian Americans caught up in the Israeli justice system. He urged the State Department to go public with the issue, perhaps without naming names so as to be in accord with provisions of the Privacy Act. This is U.S. practice in other countries, Dibs pointed out, but not in Israel. Meeting with the group were Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs Catherine Barry, and David J. Green, representing Deputy Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs Elizabeth Dibble. The meeting had taken almost a year to arrange. Jerri Bird, president of Partners for Peace, succeeded in getting an initial meeting with the Department of State on this issue four years ago. She reviewed what had happened in the intervening time, including Israel’s continual harassment of American citizens and use of torture techniques on some of them. Accompanying the delegation was Ambassador Edward Peck, former chief of mission to Baghdad, who spoke of “the intolerable, indefensible silence of the American government over the imprisonment of U.S. citizens,” and Dr. Riad Abdelkarim who, as head of an International Medical Corps fact-finding mission to the West Bank in 2002, explained how he was jailed for 15 days, without any charges or explanation given for his detention. Moreover, he was subjected to court hearings held in Hebrew without the assistance of a translator, and barred from ever returning to the West Bank. Not only was he not given any effective assistance by the American Embassy consular staff in Jerusalem, but no demands were made for his release. Dr. Abdelkarim noted that for three years he had been trying to get a meeting of this kind with the Department of State, without success. The delegation requested the following actions at the meeting:
ISM co-founder Huwaida Arraf and Michael Brown, executive director of Partners for Peace, drew attention to the government’s failure to publicly criticize Israel over its recent detention of U.S. citizen Pat O’Connor, an ISM volunteer working in the West Bank. Two years ago, another ISM volunteer, Rachel Corrie, was crushed to death by an American-made Caterpillar bulldozer driven by an Israeli solider, and the U.S. has never demanded an independent investigation into the incident. The State Department officials apologized to Dr. Abdelkarim for his treatment, and promised to look into the reasons why American citizens Dr. Laila al-Marayati of the Muslim Women’s League and chairwoman of KinderUSA, and Ms. Dalell Mohmed of KinderUSA were banned from returning to the West Bank, and see if they could learn the reason behind the Israeli denial. They told the delegation members that there were few options available to consular members when security officials in a foreign country detained a U.S. citizen. They agreed to another meeting with the delegation in three months to continue the dialogue. The State Department was presented with a statement of concern over the mistreatment of U.S. citizens. Organizations that signed, in addition to those mentioned above, included the Boston Coalition for Palestinian Rights, Jewish Women for Justice in Israel/Palestine, Jews Against the Occupation (New York City), the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, and Visions of Peace with Justice in Israel/Palestine. —Terry Walz Poetry from the Peninsula
At the Barnes and Noble bookstore in downtown Washington, DC on Feb. 17, Saudi Arabian poet Nimah Ismail Nawwab read from and discussed her recent book, The Unfurling, before a receptive audience. Having been the first author (in January) ever to participate in a public reading and book signing in Saudi Arabia, the author has taken her message on the road. Descending from a long line of Saudi scholars, Nawwab was already a well-known author of cultural essays on topics ranging from calligraphy to cooking to social commentary. In introducing her work, Nawwab said she would like to contribute to the dialogue between cultures. Having grown up in a multi-cultural milieu—both overseas and in her home town of Mecca, where Muslims from the world over congregate—Nawwab stressed the importance of finding similarities rather than differences. In that respect, she said, she hoped to speak for her generation and answer questions not yet asked. In reading from The Unfurling, Nawwab chose to start with a poem called “The Longing,” in which she expresses the longing for the freedom to be “a voice among the voiceless,” rather than living in a world of “Thou Shalt Nots.” Other poems she read dealt with terrorism, veiling, and change in the Arab world. Two lyrical poems on the marketplace of her mother’s time and the marketplace of her own, evoked the sounds and smells and sights of a region which, although it retains much of its culture, does not fit the orientalist stereotype of the unchanging East. Although Nawwab predicted Saudi youth would have a much harder life than their parents, her strong, fresh voice conveyed a sense of hope. —Sara Powell Denis Halliday Calls for U.N. Reforms
Speaking at the Palestine Center in Washington, DC on Feb. 18, former U.N. Assistant Secretary-General Denis Halliday faulted the U.N. for not acting according to its principles. Having resigned from his position in 1998 to speak out against the crippling sanctions imposed on Iraq, Halliday focused his talk on the U.N.’s failures with regard to that country. According to Halliday, the U.N. failed the Iraqi people for the last 15 years, and continues to do so today. Halliday read from Articles 22 and 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which address rights, social protection, and human dignity, to specify what rules the U.N. and the U.S., in particular, had broken. Referring to the recent scandals in the U.N. regarding the defunct Oil for Food program implemented during the years of sanctions on Iraq, Halliday argued that the real scandal was that member states do not respect international law. He went on to accuse the Security Council of being both entirely responsible for Iraq, and manipulated and abused by the five permanent members. The invasion and occupation of Iraq were led by the U.S. and the UK, Halliday stated, and the Council failed to stop it. The invasion’s “shock and awe” tactics, he pointed out, constituted state terror. Noting that French resistance fighters of World War II were hailed as heroes, Halliday questioned the labeling of Iraqi resistance fighers as terrorists. Iraq was a founding member of the U.N., he reminded the audience, and for Iraq to be invaded by the U.S. was a massive breach of sovereignty. If the U.N. were to remain in existence at all, he maintained, it must recognize that at a crucial point individual or group resistance is legal. Continuing his blistering condemnation, Halliday stated that the 1991 Gulf Warconsisted of “a whole range of war crimes under the aegis of the U.N.,” that well over 1,000,000 were killed under sanctions, that Annan made no serious attempt to stop U.S. President George Bush in 2003, and that the U.N. remained present in Iraq after the invasion and “collaborated with the U.S. occupation.” Halliday said he believed it was former President Clinton who called the U.N. a tool to implement U.S. policy. He dismissed the alleged individual kickbacks in the Oil for Food program as minor (see Ian Williams’ report on p. 28of this issue), compared to the $64 billion—30 percent of the gross intake—that went into U.S. accounts. Given such a history, Halliday concluded it would be difficult for the U.N. to gain enough trust to assist Iraq. He expressed the hope that the U.N. could reform itself, add new members to the Security Council, and return to its original vision of a body of united nations responding to crisis with meaningful, legal, and considered international consensus. —Sara Powell |
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