World denounces Israel for brutality in Gaza Strip The United Nations General Assembly spoke out powerfully against Israeli atrocities including the intentional killing and maiming of civilian protestors who are outside of Israel’s borders. Vicious Nikki Haley gets slapped down by members of the United Nations criticizing her hypocrisy to denounce violence against civilians around the...
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Trump slammed for policies on immigrant children, and UN President Trump came under fire this week for a series of policy slips ranging from the mishandling of immigrant children to his administration’s rejection of the fundamental principles of human rights. Ironically, the mishandling and abuse of immigrant children at the border is in fact a...
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Accurate look at UN Human Rights, devoid of Nikki Haley’s racism Despite the lies and propaganda of racist, bigoted American UN Ambassador Nikki Haley that the UN Human Rights Council only focuses on Israel, the outgoing UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein offers insight into the Council’s positions on a wide range...
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70 years of Arab World failure needs new strategy Palestinians should reject rejectionism and get out of the way of the Trump train wreck that promises to achieve little except open the door to more dramatic and widespread changes. The Arab World’s and Palestinian strategies of rejectionism has led us to this place of failure....
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Palestinians should use US Civil Rights movement as template for freedom One of the biggest problems facing the Palestinians are the activists who bully and block any effort to achieve peace. They urge violence using euphemisms like “popular mobilization,” a term encouraging violent activism, rather than non-violent peaceful protest. The extremists have always believed that...
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Israel’s nuclear whistle blower Mordechai Vanunu used social media to report Israel renewed the draconian restrictions against him for another year despite his being released from jail in 2004, and Norway’s granting Vanunu asylum so that he can join his wife of three years in Oslo. By Eileen Fleming Because corporate media ignores Mordechai Vanunu’s...
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Reclaiming Jesus is a manifesto and movement led by a diverse group of Christian clergy including Rev. Jim Wallis, President and Founder of Sojourners who articulates the biblical call to social justice as the way to transform individuals, communities, the church, and the world. A lone voice in the wilderness is an English idiom for someone who expresses...
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Diary of the Tel Arad (Khan al-Ahmar) Palestinians Anne Frank and her family hid from the Nazi soldiers until they were discovered towards the end of the war. But Anne Frank’s diary speaks only of the fear, frustrations, and tension of life before they were taken to the concentration camps. That experience of fear is...
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Unholy Land: An Unconventional Guide to Israel Cosmopolitan writing on travel, food, culture, sex, and politics, from some of Israel’s greatest young writers Part hipster travelogue, part from-the-ground-up look at Israeli politics, Unholy Land offers a kaleidoscope through which the reader will view the country and the region in new light and color. Actor Rana...
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In June The New Yorker reported on a 13 February 2017, White House meeting regarding a ‘secret’ letter concerning Israel’s nuclear arsenal under the title: How Trump and Three Other U.S. Presidents Protected Israel’s Worst-Kept Secret: Its Nuclear Arsenal By Eileen Fleming Staff writer for The New Yorker Adam Entous described a tense scene in...
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Israel adopts Apartheid Law to discriminate against non-Jews Israeli parliament votes to approve Nation-State Law that enshrines Jewish supremacy over Palestinian citizens. New Basic Law approved by a Knesset vote of 62-55 has distinct apartheid characteristics and requires racist acts as a constitutional value. Statement from Adalah: The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel: The...
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Congresswoman McCollum stands out as principled voice on human rights Congresswoman Betty McCollum (DFL-Minn.) delivered the following remarks on the House Floor in regards to her bill, the Promoting Human Rights by Ending Israeli Detention of Palestinian Children Act, H.R. 4391. Video of Congresswoman McCollum’s remarks can be seen here. Congresswoman McCollum’s full remarks are below: Mr. Speaker,...
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United by strategy Palestinians could assume leadership of peace making By Ghassan Michel Rubeiz Injustice towards Palestinians evolves over time. In 1948 Palestinians lost claim to full ownership of British Mandate Palestine; they then lost control of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem in 1967; and in 2018 they saw end of US policy...
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USS Liberty Veterans Associations current three-term president Ernest Gallo is famous for saying: “We must never forget the holocaust, however, in concert, it is equally important for the future of the United States to never forget the USS Liberty.” The grassroots movement ‘We American and the USS Liberty’ exists to help end the cover-up that...
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Nearly two years into President Donald Trump’s term in office, it should be clear to everyone that he is there to stay. And given the disarray in the leadership of his Democratic critics, he might even get a second term in 2020.
Trump’s critics have gone over the deep in their hostility, anger and even hatred. First they said he could never get elected as President. He embarrassed them and proved them wrong. Then they said he would be impeached and thrown out of office before he could finish his first year. It’s now been 19 months.
But, is it clear to Palestinians yet? It should be because they have a lot at stake and listening to the foreboding predictions of the Trump haters as basis for their reticence against Trump won’t hurt the president as much as it could hurt Palestinian interests.
No one knows what Trump’s real deal is, although it certainly must include some aspect of Palestinian independence.
Although Trump has given Israel much since his election, including moving the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s official capital, his extreme support of Israel might just be his way of preparing to deliver a painful blow to Israel’s politics.
We’re not dealing with an experienced diplomat here, but a man who all his life “went with his gut”, took extreme risks and did things that surprised many, all the while building a very lucrative and successful high profile American life.
You can’t write Trump off, just because he is one of the most brutal and sometimes vicious public wars with both America’s Democratic political establishment and America’s biased, pro-Israel mainstream news media.
The war with Trump is only two years old. The war for Palestinian independence is more than 100 years old. So maybe Palestinian leaders should stop following the lead of the leftist extremists in American politics and stop believing the anti-Trump propaganda. They need to start developing a strategy of their own.
Maybe it’s not obvious to Palestinians that the world around them has seen cracks building in support for their cause. Those cracks are not just visible in the Western World but in the Arab World, too, where Israel continues to exploit the long-standing and unresolved battle between Arab moderates and extremists. The sad truth for Palestinians is that Israel not only has the military advantage over our resistance, but it has played world politics far better including with the one country in the world that has the most decisive influence over Palestine’s future, America.
Led by outspoken activists who have more weight and voice than Palestine’s feeble government, the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), Palestinian activists have undermined peace reinforcing a non-productive rejectionist strategy by demanding a One-State Solution and rejecting compromise based on the Two-State Solution. The One-State Solution plays to the more energetic emotions of the Palestinian diaspora while the Two-State Solution requires confidence in one’s abilities to achieve ones’ goals in negotiations.
Extremist activists have managed to hold Palestine hostage to their unattainable demands, which would essentially return the clock to 1947 before Israel was established by the United Nations with the overbearing influence of the United States.
Wouldn’t it make more sense to change how Palestinians have dealt with setback after setback over the years, and instead evolve into a new strategy that sees past the anti-Palestinian nature of America’s political influence to learn to approach it better?
It is true Trump has tapped several pro-Israel fanatics to represent his “Deal of the Century” overtures. They include his son-in-law Jared Kushner, his bankruptcy lawyer and fanatic settler advocate David Friedman, and political extremist Jason Greenblatt. All, like Trump, have limited diplomatic experience.
But in truth, are they really worse than any of their predecessors who not only have allowed Israel to expand its settlements more so during the peace process under the administrations of President Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama? Trump’s predecessors have reigned over a steady undermining of Palestinian rights, re-enforcing Israel’s standing in the Middle East using its financial leverage to weaken the Arab World’s confrontation of Israel’s repeated violations of international law, UN resolutions approved by its near powerless General Assembly, and violent aggression against defenseless civilians.
The only challenge Palestinians have that they must overcome is the inherent tendency for the majority to allow the smaller but more vocal extremists to bully them into inaction. Hamas and its activists have been fighting against the peace process since it was first initiated by the late President Yasser Arafat.
The extremists have done everything to reject any form of compromise from Madrid, to Oslo, to Camp David to Wye and Taba, and even today they close their eyes to the murderous extremism of Hamas. These rejectionists constantly attack the secular leadership first by Arafat and now by his successor Mahmoud Abbas. Hamas can do no wrong in their eyes, but every effort by Abbas to coordinate security with Israel is attacked as a betrayal of Palestinian rights.
Violence is a threat not just to Israelis but to the Palestinians, too, and it must be stopped.
Abbas isn’t the strongest and most inspiring leader the Palestinians have ever had, but he would be more effective if Palestinians would silence the extremists and come together with a strategy to survive, rather than pursuing a “rejectionist” game plan for their destruction.
It’s time to ignore the “spin,” and the propaganda, and take President Trump more seriously, recognizing that when it came to serving Israel, what Trump is doing is no different than what his predecessors did.
Trump, however, might be the only person to force Israel to recognize Palestinian rights as a part of a final peace accord that ends the conflict, the violence, and the hate.
Ray Hanania is an award-winning Palestinian American columnist and the author of several books including “Yalla! Fight Back.” His personal website is www.Hanania.com. Twitter: @RayHanania
Israel launched a terrorist attack Sunday that targeted the popular civilian entertainment center, the Said al-Mishal (Meshal) Theater in the Gaza Strip. The terrorist attack by Israel was denounced widely by Palestinian cultural leaders while voices in the Arab World were silent.
The racist mainstream American news media has given extensive coverage to retaliatory missile strikes against Israel, condemning them wrongly as terrorist attacks, but has ignored Israel’s violence against Palestinians in Gaza and in the West Bank.
The Israeli military and government-controlled news media has been silent on the terrorism by the government of extremist Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. But theater groups in occupied Palestinian released statements condemning Israel’s human rights violations and war crimes.
Explosion at the Said Al-Mishael (Meshal) theater in Gaza. In a terrorist attack targeting civilians, Israel’s military attacked and destroyed Gaza’s al-Mishal (Meshal) Performing Arts Center. The violence is a part of Israel’s on-going campaign to kill Christians and Muslims in the Holy Land
Theater officials with the Ashtar Theater in Ramallah released the following statement in the wake of Israel’s terrorist attack aimed at Gaza’s cultural heart condemning the terrorism:
“With great rage and deep pain, ASHTAR Theatre condemns the brutal attack of the Israeli occupation on Al Mishal Theatre in Gaza which flattened the 6 floors building to the ground. Al Mishal was the base of ASHTAR youth group in Gaza since 2008. It had been the stage to various productions of ASHTAR Theatre; The Gaza Monologues, Romeo and Juliet in Gaza, Hanin, The Flowers Garden, Hercules Children, and many more. The atrocities of the occupation had been escalating and it seems there is no bottom for their deterioration.”
The Palestinian Performing Arts Network issued the following statement on the destruction of the Said al-Mishal Cultural Center in Gaza:
“We in the Palestinian Performing Arts Network are outraged and fully condemn the deliberate destruction of the Said al-Mishal Cultural Centre in Gaza City. Being one of the very few cultural spaces left for Palestinians in Gaza, this destruction is devastating. The five-floor building held a theatre, a library, offices for cultural associations, was the headquarters of the al-Anqaa’ (the Phoenix) dance troupe, and provided open spaces for performances and trainings for cultural organizations in the Gaza Strip. Various members of the network, including, the Popular Art Centre and Ashtar Theatre are partners with al-Mishal Centre and use its art space to conduct trainings and implement performances and festivals with their partners in Gaza. Al-Mishal Center and its venues represented an important symbol of Palestinian cultural identity and freedom of expression in the Gaza Strip. The Center was a symbol of Palestinian cultural heritage and was purposefully targeted by the Israeli occupation because art and culture reinforce and strengthen Palestinian national and cultural identity.
“This decision to destroy Palestinian cultural sites in Gaza only has one meaning; it is a psychological warfare on Palestinian social, national and cultural connection to the land. The attempt to silence the voices for freedom and right to self-determination is not a new phenomenon by the Israeli occupation. On July 14, 2018, less than a month ago, the Village of Arts and Crafts, west of Gaza City, was destroyed by Israeli occupation bombing. The village, which contains many paintings and handicrafts that reflect the authenticity of the Palestinian people and their heritage, has been destroyed.
In a terrorist attack targeting civilians, Israel’s military attacked and destroyed Gaza’s al-Mishal (Meshal) Performing Arts Center. The violence is a part of Israel’s on-going campaign to kill Christians and Muslims in the Holy Land
“We in the Palestinian Performing Arts Network consider the destruction of Palestinian tangible and intangible cultural heritage by the Israeli occupation as a pre-determined and systematic policy of negating Palestinian right to their land, their cultural heritage and discrediting their historical claims.
“We call upon the international community, fellow artists and cultural workers and organizations to:
• Continue your solidarity, advocacy and lobbying with regards to the injustice that Palestinian people have witnessed.
• Pressure your governments to lift the siege on Gaza and developing a system of accountability for the damage caused by the Israeli occupation bombings and destruction.
• The international community needs to oblige Israel to abide by the Fourth Geneva Convention and international law and protect Palestinian tangible and intangible cultural heritage.
• Palestinian private and public sector institutions, namely the Ministry of Culture, should adopt the rebuilding program of all destroyed cultural and artistic venues and organizations.
• We implore UNESCO to issue a statement and resolution condemning the destruction of Palestinian tangible cultural heritage, and demand the international community rebuild the Center and other cultural and artistic organizations destroyed by the Israeli occupation in Gaza Strip.”
Professor Tugrul Keskin is Professor-Director of the Center for Global Governance at Shanghai University, China. Keskin was the Graduate Director at the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Maltepe University, Istanbul, Turkey.
He taught previously at the Department of International and Global Studies and as an affiliated faculty of Black Studies, Sociology and the Center for Turkish Studies at Portland State University, Portland, Oregon.
He served as the Middle East Studies Coordinator at PSU for six years. His research and teaching interests include International and Global Studies, Social and Political Theory, African Society and Politics, Sociology of Human Rights, Islamic Movements and Sociology of Middle East.
Previously, Dr. Keskin taught as an Instructor of Sociology and African Studies at Virginia Tech University, VA and taught as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Sociology at James Madison and Radford Universities. He received his Ph.D. in Sociology from Virginia Tech, VA with graduate certificate degrees in African Studies, Social and Political Thought, and International Research and Development.
Professor Tugrul Keskin is Professor-Director of the Center for Global Governance at Shanghai University, China. Photo courtesy of Abdennour Toumi
He is the founder and moderator of the Sociology of Islam mailing list, the founder and editor of the Sociology of Islam Journal-BRILL, and regional editor of Critical Sociology-SAGE (Middle East and North Africa). His current research involves Artificial Intelligence and International Relations, China and the Middle East, and the U.S. Foreign Policy and Think-Tanks in the Post-Cold War Era.
Recent Books:
Middle East Studies after September 11 Neo-Orientalism, American Hegemony and Academia. Brill, 2018. HYPERLINK “https://brill.com/view/title/26757” https://brill.com/view/title/26757
U.S. Foreign Policy in the Middle East: From American Missionaries to the Islamic State. Palgrave, 2018. HYPERLINK “https://www.routledge.com/US-Foreign-Policy-in-the-Middle-East-From-American-Missionaries-to-the/Gresh-Keskin/p/book/9780815347149” https://www.routledge.com/US-Foreign-Policy-in-the-Middle-East-From-American-Missionaries-to-the/Gresh-Keskin/p/book/9780815347149
Forthcoming:
Rethinking China-Middle East Relations in the Age of Neoliberalism. Brill, 2019 Mojtaba Mahdavi and Tugrul Keskin.
In the light of the ongoing the U.S.-Turkey diplomatic tensions, The Arab Daily News’ MENA correspondent Abdennour Toumi spoke with Professor Tugrul Keskin and got his analysis and insights on the complex relations between Ankara and Washington.
Professor Keskin: I think you ask the main question about the relations between the United States and Turkey. Turkish policy makers did not see or understand the transformation in the U.S. foreign policy, which changed substantially in the mid-80s. The Turkish government and policy makers thought, and still believe, that Turkey still holds geo-strategic importance in the U.S. foreign policy objectives; however, this is not the case in the post-Cold War era.
[We] live in a different world than the 50s. Economy, society and politics have changed globally since the mid-80s. Turkey missed these changes…
– The Arab Daily News: The July 2016 failed coup has made the relationship between the two capitals electric, if not toxic. How could Washington polish its image with the Turkish leaders and people? President Trump was elected in November 2016.
Professor Keskin: I think it is very complicated and difficult to polish or change the U.S. foreign policy image with the Turkish leaders and people in the short term. What the United States has been doing in the Middle East or globally is based on the U.S. national security interests, which are based on the post-Cold War era of the U.S. foreign policy objectives.
One of the most important U.S. foreign policy objectives in this era is a containment of China and the creation of a global alliance against the increasing trend of the Chinese influence in the world. So far, the United States has failed to create this global alliance; in the meantime, [we] started to see an increasing trend of ethno-nationalist Kurdish politics in the Middle East since the late 80s.
The United States sees this rising trend of Kurdish nationalism as an opportunity for its own national interests in order to realign regional politics against Iran, Iraq and Syria, but there will be unintended consequences of this policy for Turkish territorial integrity.
The largest Kurdish population in the Middle East lives in Turkey, approximately 9 to 14 million people, and most of them speak the same dialect, as do Iraqi and Syrian Kurds.
The U.S. support for this ethno-nationalism to contain specific objectives, such as weakening Iran, dividing Iraq and Syria is through destabilization of the region by using the Kurds. Iran is an important factor in the U.S. foreign policy because the Persian Gulf provides more than 60% of Chinese oil needs, China has a solid relationship and strategic alliance with Iran. Turkey did not understand this geo-strategic and geo-political chess game, and it is paying the price.
– The Arab Daily News: Could the arrest of Pastor Brunson in Turkey be interpreted as a pressure card for Ankara in its legal fight for the extradition of the leader of the Gülen Movement?
Professor Keskin: Pastor Brunson versus Fethullah Gülen is an absurd case. Their political weight is totally different. I do not think the United States fully supported the military coup, but if the coup was successful, the Washingtonian elite in D.C could not have been happier because the United States prefers the Gülen movement over the AKParty; it does not mean the AKP is an anti-American political party.
The AKP is a neo-liberal party with Islamic tendencies. Thus, the Gülen movement is definitely behind the failed military coup. This sinister network of the Gülen has been infiltrating the government bureaucracy since the late 80s, but the real infiltration started during the AKP governance. They know each other more than [we] know them. Also, there are still many Gülen followers working with the AKParty.
Turkey has been changing since the AKP came to power in 2002. The AKParty used to be supported by the Washingtonian elite or American “deep state” against the secular Turkish bureaucracy. The AKP was supported by Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Morton Abramowitz, Henri Barkey and many other influential Jewish politicians between 2002 and 2010. As a result of this strategic alliance between the AKP and the Jewish groups/the U.S. deep state, the old secular Turkish bureaucracy was eliminated, and was replaced with nativist pro-Islamist mid-level bureaucrats, in this stance the AKP grasped the power and has been a repressing opposition…
For instance, the Fethullah Gülen movement used to be a bodyguard of the AKParty between 2002 and 2010. Both the AKP and the Gülen movement were supported by the Washingtonian elite in D.C, who created the Ergenekon trial and eliminated the “deep state apparatuses.” But this Ergenekon network is not a deep state in Turkey. The deep state in Turkey contains groups of people from high-level diplomats and businessmen from TÜSIAD, some academicians, some high-level military officials, some journalists and bureaucrats from the high-level Judiciary system.
Actually, the real deep state in Turkey’s collaboration with the AKParty and the Gülen movement agreed to eliminate Ergenekon network. the AKP, the Fethullah Gülen movement and the Turkish deep state worked together to get rid of these people.
The honeymoon between the AKParty, the Gülen movement and the real Turkish deep state was over after the elimination of this Ergenekon network, because they all have different interests and objectives. Also, let’s not forget, power and money corrupt political groups who have never been in power before. Therefore, [we] started to see corruption, oppression and nepotism in the Turkish bureaucracy, universities and businesses sector, etc…
The Pastor Brunson’s case is the iceberg of a bigger problem, and I do not think Pastor Brunson is as important as he has been portrayed in the media. He is a punchbag between the United States and Turkey. There are more important people than Pastor Brunson. Why haven’t they been arrested? Because both sides (the U.S. and Turkey) are playing a game for further negotiation.
– The Arab Daily News: Washington doesn’t seem responsive to the Fethullah Gülen extradition. If the tension continues, how could Washington avoid cutting diplomatic relations ties with Ankara?
Professor Keskin: Please remember, the United States has not appointed an ambassador to Ankara; it has arrested a government employee from Halkbank, Hakan Atilla, has frozen two Turkish ministers’ assets in the United States and has armed and trained pro-PKK groups in Northern Syria. These are not friendly “strategic” policies!
Do you think Fethullah Gülen will be extradited from the United States to Turkey? I don’t think so. The tension will continue until both sides are satisfied. Also, let’s not forget: the issue between Erdoğan/AKP and the U.S. political elite is not personal — it is about strategic interests. If they agree to work together, both parties will go back to their honeymoon.
– The Arab Daily News: Knowing the region is full of contradiction: Don’t you think the ongoing war of communiqués via the media between Ankara and Washington could breakthrough the Syrian dossier that would create a communication channel with Tehran?
Professor Keskin: Turkey made a mistake in Syria. We should not forget how the Syrian civil war started. Under former Foreign Affairs Minister Dr. Ahmet Davudoğlu, the AKP pro-Islamic political elite saw an opportunity in Syria and tried to overthrow Assad by using radical Islamic groups as a proxy war against the BAAS (al-Ba’ath) regime.
This policy also was supported financially and politically by the U.S. intelligence circles.
Turkey and the United States negotiated and created a strategic partnership against Assad in Syria in late 2011; however, both countries have different interests and objectives in the post-Assad era. The AKParty support for the Muslim brotherhood movement in Syria and the U.S. support for Kurdish groups and other Islamic groups conflicted with both sides’ interests. Nevertheless, other political actors stepped in. Iran and Russia have played a vital role supporting Assad’s Syria; under the current circumstances, Turkey cannot go back to Iran and offer a collaboration on the Kurdish issue, but not on the territorial integrity of Syria under the Assad’s regime.
Turkish-Iranian rapprochement is also based on Washington’s negotiation with Iran.
– The Arab Daily News: How do you read President Trump’s direct talks offer with the Iranian leaders? Meanwhile, he just announced the restoration of the sanctions on Iran; it sounds odd or is this just Trump’s diplomacy?!
Professor Keskin: This is not exactly President Trump’s diplomacy; there are other actors in Washington who are against Iran nuclear deal under Obama. They are in power with President Trump’s presidency. I don’t think it is fair to blame President Trump for every U.S. foreign policy decision. Foreign policy decision-making process is more complicated than ordinary people will be able to understand and it is based on long negotiation between different bureaucratic, political and military actors.
– The Arab Daily News: Turkey is the U.S. strategic ally in the region and a NATO member; one asks how could he impose trade sanctions on the country and its leaders? Or does President Trump look at diplomacy with a business mentality?
Professor Keskin: President Trump’s presidency is a result of the American white middle class.
Domestically, unhappy masses with the U.S. economy voted for President Trump. Some people think the U.S. president can change everything in domestic and foreign policies. This is not the case. There are rules and regulations, a complicated negotiation process for decision making, ethnic and interest lobbies…
Of course, President Trump’s approach is different than the approaches of former Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, but President Trump still needs foreign policy advisors and national security teams who are coming from bureaucracy, which is a different version of “deep state.” The U.S. foreign policy toward Turkey had changed long before President Trump came to power.
I don’t think people understand this.
– The Arab Daily News: Nonetheless, Ankara is willing to apply the reciprocity principal or like the Turks say: “Çalma elin kapsisini çalarlar kapini” and freeze all U.S. official assets and its trade relations with Washington. What’s going to happen to the Trump Tower in Istanbul?
Professor Keskin: I am not sure about this question, but Turkey cannot read the global changes and the U.S. foreign policy objectives. I doubt that even the AKParty cares about this. The AKP lives in a bubble…
– The Arab Daily News: Professor Keskin, as an expert on the U.S. foreign policy in MENA, and now on China foreign policy in the region, what is your evaluation of the two countries’ paradigm after the direct involvement of Russia in the Syrian civil war?
Professor Keskin: Traditional Chinese foreign policy is non-interventionist; however, this is slowly changing. On the other hand, China is not happy about the wars in Syria and Libya, but it did not intervene. Iran is a different story because Iran is directly related with China’s national security interests. And the United States knows this strategic partnership between China and Iran very well. If you look at the U.S. allies in MENA region, China is having non-political relations with Israel, Egypt and Pakistan. All of these countries today have solid economic relations with China.
For Turkey, the Chinese approach is very different and hesitant toward Turkey because of the Uyghur issue. Both sides do not trust each other, even though President R.T. Erdoğan appointed a new ambassador to Beijing who is a Kurdish Nationalist and not a career diplomat and President Erdoğan announced a China Action Plan, which is based on attracting Chinese investment to Turkey. Turkey however, harbored ETIM guerillas fighting in Syria and Iraq. China looks at this with suspicion.
– The Arab Daily News: What do you think about Ankara’s zero problem doctrine strategy with its southern neighbors and the prospect of the Syrian civil war and its complexity?
Professor Keskin: I don’t think utopian Islamists will understand international relations because they do not rationalize the foreign policy; instead, they believe in ideology. Ideologists will always lose in international relations, because [we] have multiple actors in foreign policy. That does not mean [we] should not have foundations and ethics of foreign policy. Zero problem foreign policy approach is a utopian ideology in International Relations. Dealing with the world politics is not the same as managing an apartment. Therefore, zero problem foreign policy should not be taken seriously by academicians.
– The Arab Daily News: The growing war in Northern Syria in the so-called Rojava cantons, which is a geographical extension for the PKK by other means. Could this be translated as the bone of contention between Washington and Ankara over the Kurdish question in Turkey?
Professor Keskin: Certainly, this is the main issue between the United States and Turkey. And I don’t think it is a solvable issue, unless the United States changes its national security objectives/interests or Turkey accepts an independent Kurdish state, which is an existential threat to Turkey. Though, the Kurd fighters in Syria are not from Syria actually; they are from Turkey so Rojava is a fabricated term; this land and geography originally belonged to Arabs. But recently the region has been ‘kurdified’ (becoming Kurdish).
– The Arab Daily News: The ethnic-nationalism sentiment that is marching in Turkey and its southern neighboring countries is with the support of the United States to minorities’ nationalism in these countries?
Professor Keskin: Ethnic nationalism is an interesting phenomenon, like Tamils in Sri Lanka, Biafra conflict in Nigeria, Uyghurs in Xinjiang, Kurds in Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran, and so on … They all want to have an independent state. This separatism creates underdevelopment and chaos. As a result, the state uses security in order to control the territory; hence, security apparatuses of any State dominate the state’s policy toward that region.
Actually, this is a trap, which produces a vicious cycle for the region. When the United States and other governments’ policy makers see this “opportunity” as a tool for foreign policy negotiation, an ethnic conflict becomes a commodity in the foreign policy. Do you think this is ethical? It is not, but what is an ethical foreign policy in International Relations?
– The Arab Daily News: Is the Kurdish project an extra-destabilization factor in the region?
Professor Keskin: Kurdish ethno-nationalism is definitely a major destabilizing factor in the Middle East more than any other issues, including the Palestinian question, and Kurds will continue to play a major role for the next few decades in the Middle East.
However, Kurds are also in the difficult position, because they live around the major civilizations and powerful states: Arabs, Turks and Iranians.
Today, Kurds are seen as a puppet of imperialism in the region; this is not a good image for the Kurdish people. Some Kurdish groups are playing a proxy war for the U.S. and Western interests in the Middle East; this reminds [one] of when the United States supported Central and Latin American para-military groups in the late 70s and ’80s.
– The Arab Daily News: Would the Kurdish proto-state enhance the relation between Ankara and Tehran?
Professor Keskin: Iran and Turkey used Kurdish cards against each other. Both countries’ senseless and ill-advised policy on the Kurdish issue created problems for their own interests. Instead of collaborating on the Kurdish issue, Iran uses pro-PKK groups against Turkey, and I am not sure why Iran does not understand that the Kurdish card will be a boomerang effect against Tehran. It is very similar to Hafez Assad’s ill-advised policy on the Kurdish issue in the 80s and ’90s.
The Syrian regime supported the PKK organization against Turkey, today, the same Kurdish group is fighting for independence in Syria to divide the country and collaborating with the United States. I think Turkish, Iranian, Syrian and Iraqi foreign policies are manipulated by other groups and actors. If Tehran and Ankara do not get closer to each other on the Kurdish issue, they will both pay the price of their bold policies.
– The Arab Daily News: Turkey is facing a serious finance challenge, how could this end? Are the Turkish government and people ready to face an Argentinean scenario?
Professor Keskin: Turkish economy has been restructured based on neo-liberal tendencies of hardcore capitalism since January 24, 1980. None of the elected governments in Turkey have opposed neo-liberalism, privatization and deregulation of the market. Traditional Turkish bourgeoisie represented by TÜSIAD, is the main beneficiary of these economic policies.
They have worked with every elected government since January 24, 1980, including military dictatorship between 1980-83. So, the AKParty is not different from them; they supported the AKP, but the AKP came to power with a strong support from the middle class level Anatolian conservative petite bourgeoisie, which is based on a short-term investment model, unlike TÜSIAD.
Anatolian conservative petite bourgeoisie is the main beneficiary of the AKParty’s neo-liberal policies. the privatization and the deregulation of the market profited to this conservative business network. They are not like big industrialists; their economic views and approach are based on government policies of privatization and financial support, hence, the ongoing economic crisis is not a surprise, this was expected.
– The Arab Daily News: Does the New Turkey (Yeni Turkiye) leadership style and foreign policy bother Washington and its natural ally in the region (Israel) hegemony in MENA?
Professor Keskin: I don’t think so, as I have said before, the Jewish lobby and Israel worked with the AKParty in the past. They might work again if Netanyahu loses the election or changes his ideological orientation. Israel and Turkey are natural allies in the Middle East, similar to Egypt, Saudi Arabia’s new leadership, Algeria, Morocco, the UAE and Qatar. Today, Israel is not a pragmatic state; it is an ideological State. When a State loses its pragmatism, then it starts to face social, political and economic problems.
Israel is facing these problems today so that Turkey.
– The Arab Daily News: What is next for Ankara?
Professor Keskin: Turkey has been transforming socially and demographically. As a result of this transition, people have been moving from rural areas to large cities since the early 80s, they have generated socially, politically conservative and economically neo-liberal base — the AKP is a result of this transformation. This is modernization with political and social side effects. Therefore, the AKP still receives more than 40% of the votes from those who moved to the urban areas.
Ankara’s next move depends on this transition and the AKParty’s future; however, Turkey’s future is tied to the AKP’s future, which is sailing without a destination.
– The Arab Daily News: Thank you Professor Keskin for your time.
Uri Avnery, a longtime Israeli Jewish peace activist and the founder of Gush-Shalom, the peace movement in Israel, died on Sunday August 20, 2018. Avnery was taken to a hospital last week after collapsing during the massive pro-peace rally in Rabin Square protesting against the racist “Nation State” law.
Avnery was originally a teenage member of the Jewish terrorist organization, the Irgun Tzvi Leuhmi, which was founded by terrorist killer Menachem Begin, an immigrant from Poland who orchestrated the killings of hundreds of Arabs and British soldiers in Palestine during and after World War II. Begin later became an Israeli Prime Minister who negotiated a peace agreement with Egypt to thwart peace with the Palestinians, while Avnery distanced himself from his violent roots to embrace peace activism and reconciliation. Avnery broke with the Irgun in 1942 over their violent tactics.
Avnery was elected to the Israeli Knesset in the 1970s and 1980s and went on to become an accomplished writer and advocate for reconciliation and supported of the Two-State Solution, one Israel and one Palestine.
Uri Avnery with Yasser Arafat in 1982. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.
Avnery was also the first Israeli to publcily meet with Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian hero who forced the world to recognize the rights of Palestinians and who sought a peace accord with Israel that was thwarted by political agendas promoted by the beleaguered American President Bill Clinton. Clinton, who tried to impose one-sided Israeli demands on Arafat, later falsely blamed Arafat for the failure of peace, a blame that was embraced by the racist, anti-Arab mainstream American news media that today continues to shield Israel from criticism of its brutal policies.
Avnery was also one of the loudest voices denouncing the Israeli government and military policy of using snipers to shoot and kill civilians who were protesting on the Palestinian side of the Gaza-Israel border.
Uri Avnery at a Hadash protest in Israel against the Lebanon war 2006. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.
Gush Shalom issued the following statement:
Gush Shalom grieves and mourns the passing of its founder, Uri Avnery. Until the last moment he continued the way he had traveled all his life. On Saturday, two weeks ago, he collapsed in his home when he was about to leave for the Rabin Square and attend a demonstration against the “Nation State Law”, a few hours after he wrote a sharp article against that law.
Avnery devoted himself entirely to the struggle to achieve peace between the State of Israel and the Palestinian people in their independent state, as well as between Israel and the Arab and Muslim World. He did not get to the end of the road, did not live to see peace come about. We – the members of Gush Shalom as well as very many other people who were directly and indirectly influenced by him – will continue his mission and honor his memory.
On the day of the passing of Uri Avnery, the most rightwing government in the history of Israel is engaged in negotiations with Hamas. Ironically, the same demagoguery accusations which were hurled at Uri Avnery throughout his life are now made against Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman.
In the history of the State of Israel, Uri Avnery will be inscribed as a far-seeing visionary who pointed to a way which others failed to see. It is the fate and future of the State of Israel to reach peace with its neighbors and to integrate into the geographical and political region in which it is located. Avnery’s greatest opponents will ultimately have to follow in his footsteps – because the State of Israel has no other real choice.
(Ray Hanania is an award winning former Chicago City Hall reporter, and syndicated columnist with the ArabNews.com. Email him at rghanania@gmail.com.)
By Eileen Fleming
Before that day we all 9/11, this American did not give much thought for another beyond my community.
But after the events of September 11 2001, I wanted to learn why did a few—and back then it was but a few—people in the world hated Americans so much that they could cold bloodedly murder innocent people.
I also wanted to do some good in the world and that led me to the non-profit Interfaith Olive Trees Foundation for Peace, which inspired me to journey eight times to both sides of Israel’s Wall in Palestine from June 2005 through November 2013.
After my last trip I knew no need for me to return because the work I have been called to do is: TRY and wake up good but ignorant Christians to Holy Land reality and I gave it my best shot in my first book [and so far only fiction] Keep Hope Alive, which is based on the memories of a 1948 Palestinian Muslim refugee from the Galilee, who did not have Jesus is his head but in his heart and actions.
Keep Hope Alive also tells the story of my spiritual journey as a child of the ’60’s, entwined with a brief history of what happened to the indigenous people of the Holy Land after civilized white men carved it up in 1947: 
Excerpt from KEEP HOPE ALIVE Chapter 10: THAT DAY
Khaled, now seventy-five and a newlywed since July, turned to Fatiha and cried, “This madness must stop. Retaliation only ups the ante, and the wheel is still in spin. But I am nearing my end. I have been dreaming of mass communication for decades and olive trees my entire life; now, I must act!”
Within hours of viewing the tragic news that stopped the word on a Tuesday morning just before Fall. Khaled phoned his many friends: Jews, Christians, Muslims, and others to gather in downtown Orlando at Lake Eola and pray for peace. He told everyone, “Praying for peace without action is like praying to win the lottery and never buying a ticket. But unless we work for peace, saying ‘peace, peace, peace,’ means nothing. If we want peace, we must work for justice.”
Jack had been restless for three days. Julianne was in New York City at her sister’s home and wasn’t due back for three more. His knees began throbbing more the moment she drove out of sight on the morning of September 8, 2001.
After returning home on Monday night from the Brother Lawrence Addictions Center, Jack mindlessly ate two Lean Cuisines, then spent the rest of the evening trying to read. He fell asleep just before dawn and dreamt he was on the blacktop running track at the middle school where Julianne taught seventh grade English, where they both rollerbladed in the early mornings before the students arrived on campus.
Jack spent a ten-hour day at the BLAC, as its founder and administrator, and the mornings on the track were when the couple had their best conversations. He inhaled the aroma of tar as he wondered what was keeping Julianne from him. He bladed for what seemed like hours, when a silver spandex-clad apparition with a golden helmet flew by, sharply turned, and with a backward stroke, called out, “Hi, Jack, don’t look down; don’t look back; look out straight, Jack, look out straight, don’t look back!”
“Yeah, I can; I can do that,” Jack responded, but the apparition had already vaporized into the distance. Then Jack rolled onto an exquisite grace, knees freed from bone-on-bone grinding and not an ache in his fifty-three-year old body that had been abused by two motor vehicle accidents and hours of overuse syndrome. Jack glided on the blacktop effortlessly for what seemed like hours, when suddenly, a roar of thunder assaulted his senses, and his eyes were magnetized upward, to view two fireballs thrown down from on high, miles from where he stood. He saw them hit the ground; one traveled east, the other west, and then they circled back around, burning a path straight towards him. Just before they collided, Jack woke up, not believing he had only been dreaming.
Not until after he had downed a pot of coffee did the phone ring. “Jack? Are you watching TV?”
Maureen, the day supervisor at the BLAC asked, as she fingered the framed mission statement that sat upon every employee’s desk and on the north wall of every resident’s room:
‘Peace, peace, peace. God’s peace be upon you. But living today in a time of war, crying out peace, peace, peace, where there is no peace. Fearing age and death, pain and darkness, destitution and loneliness, people need to get back to the simplicity of Brother Lawrence.’ [-Dorothy Day]
Brother Lawrence was a monk in the 17th century, who lived in a monastery and was consigned to the kitchen. He spent his life baking bread, chopping onions, scrubbing pots and floors. He also ran all the errands, did all the shopping, and always brought back the finest of wine. He loved his brothers deeply, but they merely tolerated his many eccentricities, or he was totally ignored. Truly, I tell you, if ever a saint was born to bring hope to the addicted and those addicted with obsessive-compulsive tendencies, he is the one. For Brother L had learned that by continually re-remembering the Lord, no matter what the activity, or where one might be, the Lord was ever-present and a holy habit was born, just re-remembering that.
Jack thrived on curiosity and spoke as he reached for the remote. “Mo, you know I never watch TV in the daytime; what’s up?”
“Well, isn’t Julianne visiting her sister in the city?”
“Yeah, in fact, today’s plan was to meet her sister’s co-workers on Floor 101 of the North Twin Tower.”
“Jack, turn the TV on.”
“Oh, Mo, I just did; my God, is it the end of the world?” He spoke as he hung up the phone and never heard Mo say, “I don’t know.”
Jack knew in his bones that Julianne had been vaporized as he recalled a song he had first heard at a Bob Dylan concert in 1981:
See the massacre of the innocent
City’s on fire
Phones out of order
I see the turning of the page.
Curtain’s rising on a new age.
See the Groom still waiting at the altar.
And then, II Chronicles 6:1 welled up within him: “The Lord has said that he would dwell in thick darkness.”
Dr. Jake Hunter heard the news that stopped the world for a day from his third patient of the morning.
Terese didn’t know until Jake called her before his next patient.
Kat had been dancing in her loft studio in Panacea, Florida, all morning, ignoring neurological symptoms. She did not turn her cell phone on until 11:45 a.m., and then gasped, “Christ, who died? The entire Hunter clan has called me. I’ll phone Mom,” she said, just as “Let it Be” chimed from her cell.
“Hi, Kat, I have been trying to reach you.”
“Mom, what’s the deal? What’s going on?”
“Turn the TV on.”
Kat did and gasped, “Oh my God, is it the end of the world?”
“Nobody knows.”
“Mom, I am coming home. I’ll bring Bob; I think I’ll stay awhile.”
“Okay, okay, drive carefully.”
Kat packed three weeks’ worth of clothes, put Bob, her blue-eyed cat, in his kennel, and wrote a sign for the front door that read “KATZ STUDIO CLOSED UNTIL???”
She taped it to the door and never looked back again. “Bob, I have been dreading telling dad about my symptoms, because I don’t want to admit them. But, I have been summoned from the land of denial and must face the facts on the ground. If I have the dreaded Gehrig’s disease like my cousin Nick, I will be livid. He was a saint; I am not. I am not dancing as I once did; I don’t glide anymore, I have gotten clumsy, and all of these muscle twitches are driving me crazy! I am pissed! I am too young for this! Oh Christ, I hope it is just a bad cervical spine, like Dad’s. I can live with the pain, but I must be able to move about, or I’ll go nuts. Nick was a saint even when he couldn’t move, but I will be an unholy terror if I can’t dance. Bob, if I have ALS, will you please just shoot me and put everyone out of my misery?”
Kat sighed deeply and popped in a favorite mix she had burned of Tom Petty and U2, and then lost herself in the music until Bono began to wail:
If I could yes I would,
If I could, I would let it go
Into the half light and through the flame
Into the light and to the day,
Let it go and so to find the way,
To let it go, and so to find the way.I am wide awake, I am wide awake, wide awake
If I could, you know I would:
Let it go:
Desperation,
Dislocation,
Separation,
Condemnation,
Revelation,
In temptation,
Isolation,
Desolation,
Let it go and so to find a way
I am wide awake,
I am wide awake,
I am wide awake, wide awake!
Kat mused, “Strange, how seeing that horror on TV woke me up to some things, too.”
The Sunday after that day the world stood still, the Hunters’ seven children and eighteen grandchildren had gathered together. Everyone was down at the lake except for Jake, Terese, and Kat, who were in the family room.
Jake contemplated Kat’s chances of having ALS or a bad neck, and brooded.
Terese said, “There’s an interfaith gathering today in Shea Stadium, and I want to view it.”
She turned the TV on just as the shofar sounded in New York City, and hundreds of priests, rabbis, sheiks, and clerics of all kinds somberly filed into the stadium in front of a sorrowful nation.
Kat became luminous, “Wow, look at how beautiful all of that is! All of those holy ones in their uniqueness and all the shades of people in the stands reaching out to each other–how blessed we are in America to live among such diversity, and how beautiful it is to see us coming together out of such sorrow. This is the way we can let the pain go: by reaching out to the stranger, we comfort them and heal ourselves. America’s worst day has brought us and the world together. Why, it’s only a few angry mad men who did the evil; the international community can confront this together, by confronting this evil as sister and brother. What an incredible opportunity America has been given to lead the world this way and not seek revenge. Imagine the dysfunctional family of Father Abraham building on this momentum, to confront the evil that is terrorism, by confronting it with good and unity among us. Didn’t St. Paul say that the only way to resist evil is with good? Imagine how much better the world will be when America chooses not to use military power, now that we all know our nuclear arsenal cannot protect us American’s will want to discover why these mad men did this evil and go after that! The global village is the community to address this issue; terrorism is everywhere, and now America has woken up to the fact that we are not immune. We are all in this world together; we will either learn to share this world as sister and brother, or we will blow it up.”
Terese responded. “Kat, human nature is to strike back and seek revenge, but we have the witness of Christ, Gandhi, and Reverend King how to effectively respond to violence. I hope and pray this president follows their ways, but I see hawks circling.”
Jake cleared his throat and intoned, “Another thing is that acting out of fear makes one do stupid, irrational things. You know I have always said to never ever react out of fear, for the gospel says fear not! And fear drives out compassion and hardens the heart.”
A Los Angeles man pleaded guilty today in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California to willfully failing to file a Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBAR), which would have disclosed his foreign bank accounts, announced Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Richard E. Zuckerman of the Justice Department’s Tax Division.
According to court documents, Ben Zion Birman, of Los Angeles, California held offshore accounts in Israel at Bank Leumi Le-Israel B.M. from 2006 to 2011. Birman willfully failed to file with the Department of Treasury an FBAR for calendar year 2010, despite having over $1 million in Bank Leumi accounts. In an effort to further hide his money, Birman instructed Bank Leumi to hold bank mail from delivery to the United States, and obtained access to his offshore funds through the use of “back-to-back” loans, which were designed to enable borrowers to tap their concealed accounts. These lending arrangements permitted Birman to have funds issued by Leumi’s U.S. branch that were secretly secured by funds in his undeclared accounts in Israel.
In December 2014, Bank Leumi entered into a deferred prosecution agreement after the bank admitted to conspiring from at least 2000 until early 2011 to aid and assist U.S. taxpayers to prepare and present false tax returns by hiding income and assets in offshore bank accounts in Israel and other locations around the world. Under the terms of the deferred prosecution agreement, Bank Leumi paid the United States a total of $270 million and continues to cooperate with respect to civil and criminal tax investigations.
U.S. citizens, resident aliens, and permanent legal residents with a foreign financial interest in or signatory authority over a foreign financial account worth more than $10,000 are required to file an FBAR each year disclosing the account.
Birman faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison, as well as a period of supervised release, restitution and monetary penalties. Birman’s sentencing is scheduled for December 10, 2018.
“The Department of Justice is committed to vigorously investigating and prosecuting offshore account holders who maintain undeclared accounts and willfully ignore their U.S. reporting and tax obligations,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Zuckerman.
Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Zuckerman commended special agents from IRS-Criminal Investigation, who are investigating the case, and Tax Division Trial Attorneys Leslie Goemaat and Melissa Schraibman Grinberg, who are prosecuting the case. The Tax Division thanks the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Central District of California for its assistance.
Additional information about the Tax Division and its enforcement efforts may be found on the division’s website.
