Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, July/August 1999, pages 71-73

Northern California Chronicle

Demonstration in San Rafael Against Sanctions and Bombing of Iraq

By Elaine Pasquini

On April 23, 1999, a devoted group of men, women and children demonstrated on a busy street corner in San Rafael, California, against the U.N. sanctions and the U.S. bombing campaign in Iraq. The group began the weekly demonstrations at the end of January 1999 and has demonstrated in the same location every Friday afternoon since that date.

The group varies in size each week from 10 to 30, in age from 8 to 80, and is a mixture of native-born and immigrant Americans and a few visitors from the Middle East. But they all share the same concern, which is ending the sanctions imposed on Iraq at the end of the Gulf war and the ongoing bombing campaign. Silently holding handmade signs, they bring a dignified recognition to the unbearable plight of the Iraqi people.

For eight and one-half years the 23 million citizens of Iraq have been suffering under sanctions meant to weaken Saddam Hussain. But instead, Saddam Hussain has become stronger and wealthier while his people suffer chronic malnutrition and thousands of children die each month from disease due to lack of medicine and health care treatment.

The demonstrators receive encouraging support in the form of honking horns from passersby, with, by now, only a very few detractors yelling rude comments. A similar group demonstrates at the same time each week in Mill Valley, California.

These weekly demonstrations are among the numerous events sponsored by the Social Justice Center of Marin, a human rights organization, located in San Anselmo, California. The organization, in existence for several years, maintains several different task forces, focusing on diverse human rights abuses, among which are sweatshops, lifting sanctions on Iraq, the war in Yugoslavia, and areas of human rights abuses around the globe, including Mexico, Latin America, and Indonesia.

On April 22, 1999, the Social Justice Center of Marin co-sponsored a forum, held at the College of Marin, on the war in the Balkans. Approximately 500 local residents attended the forum, which included six panelists consisting of Richard Becker of the International Action Center; Anthony D’Augostino, professor at San Francisco State University; Jacqueline Cabasso of the Western States Legal Foundation; Damir Amaut, a UC Berkeley graduate student from Bosnia; and journalist Larry Bensky of KPFA-Pacifica radio network.

Many attendees voiced confusion about the issues and felt the media and/or government was not providing adequate information about the situation. They also were concerned about the possibility of an escalation, which might bring Russia, Greece and Turkey into the conflict.

Palestinian–Israeli Play Entertains Children

“Living Side by Side,” a joint Israeli–Palestinian performance for children, debuted in San Rafael, California on April 18, 1999, at the Osher Marin Jewish Community Center. This project was developed exclusively for the San Francisco Bay Area and the entire performance has not yet been seen in Israel. Israeli theater director and stage designer Avishay Greenfield says the show is being performed only in English at the present, but will eventually be performed in both Arabic and Hebrew. Though only 40 years old, Greenfield is a veteran director and producer of many projects, both in the U.S. and Israel, including children’s opera, contemporary theater, and historical pageants.

The play stars Rabea Murkus, a Palestinian actress, singer and dancer, and Israeli actor and director Noam Meiri. To a packed auditorium of mostly young, enthusiastic children, many gathered on the floor at the foot of the stage, Ms. Murkus explained: “I am a Palestinian, Israeli, Arab, Christian, and I speak Arabic and Hebrew,” followed by Mr. Meiri: “I am Jewish-Israeli. I don’t speak Arabic. I speak Hebrew,” whereupon Ms. Murkus taught the children (and Mr. Meiri) an Arabic greeting. They both spoke of living in Palestine-Israel for a long time and then began their stories.

Ms. Murkus, an exquisite dancer and storyteller, held the children spellbound through her one-woman performance of the children’s fable, based on a popular folk tale, “The Ant, the Beetle, and the Dry Spring.” This fable, well known to Palestinian children in the Middle East, engages animals native to the region in a tale of love and friendship.

Next, Mr. Meiri delighted the children with the tale “An Apartment to Let,” written by well-known Israeli writer Leah Goldberg. Meiri mimed, danced and entertained the audience with the help of masks and puppets. Both stories presented, in different styles, the motifs of love, tolerance, acceptance, respect and living with your neighbors in peace.

The Duotone Ensemble, consisting of violinist Shimeon Abalovitch and pianist Zahava Simon, who have performed together since 1984, including touring abroad, performed Yehezel Brown’s original score. The performance was also presented at the New Conservatory Theatre Center in San Francisco on April 25, 1999. It was sponsored by the Israel Center of the San Francisco-based Jewish Community Federation and made possible by a grant from the Alexander M. and June L. Maisin Foundation.

Damascus Gate Author Speaks in Corte Madera

Robert Stone, critically acclaimed author of Damascus Gate, spoke to a small audience at Book Passage in Corte Madera, California, on April 29, 1999. Stone’s appearance coincided with the release of the novel in paperback.

Stone began the evening event with a reading from his novel. The passage, the first 16 pages of the 500-page book, introduced the main character, a Jewish-Christian American journalist.

Stone conducted the readers through the Old City of Jerusalem during Passover and Easter, thus setting the tone of the entire book. Describing its layers of religious controversy, political chicanery, and intrigue, all elements of the real Jerusalem, Stone captures the uniqueness of Jerusalem, its importance to Christians, Muslims and Jews, and, above all, its passions.

Set in (pre-Oslo) 1992, his characters also include religious pilgrims, Christian fundamentalists, Jewish right-wing extremists, and international relief workers. Although the book is fiction, its plots and subplots, such as a plan to blow up the Dome of the Rock, reflect true occurrences, as there have been many plans by Jewish extremists to eliminate the Muslim presence on what Israelis call the Temple Mount and Palestinians call the Haram al-Sharif.

After his initial visit to Jerusalem in 1986, Stone wanted to write a novel set in the contested city, considered the center of the world to many. However, recognizing the overpowering religious, historical, and political elements of the Holy City, he doubted his ability to do so and was concerned about the effect it might have on him personally. He described the undertaking as “a daunting task.”

When asked by a member of the audience how he handled such a daunting task, the author responded: “You never look down.” When asked how his lengthy stay in Jerusalem affected his own religious outlook, he hesitated, admitting that sometimes an event makes you think “religion is a misfortune” while another event would make him think “it’s a miracle.”

He read extensively in the process of writing this novel, including the Qur’an, Zohar of the Kabbalah, and Torah. He made many trips to Israel, but had to leave to actually write the book, explaining: “Jerusalem was intensely charged with the interaction of God and man.” He personally experienced the powerful spirituality of the Holy City, as well as the turmoil surrounding the lives of its diverse inhabitants.

The book takes its title from Damascus Gate, Bab al-Amud in Arabic, the most impressive of the seven open gates of Jerusalem’s Old City. The Damascus Gate was built in the Ottoman period upon ruins of an ancient Roman entrance, which has been excavated and is open to the public.

The road to Damascus, 140 miles north, once began here and, according to Christians, is the road upon which Paul (formerly Saul of Tarsus) was converted to Christianity. The gate leads into the Muslim Quarter where wondrous exotic alleyways abound with sights, sounds, and aromas of timeless Middle Eastern life.

Stone, 61, grew up in Brooklyn, served in the Navy, and taught at Princeton and Yale. He has written several other books, including the award-winning A Hall of Mirrors and Dog Soldiers.

Photojournalist Speaks on Impact of Iraq Sanctions

The Humanist Center of Cultures and the Social Justice Center of Marin co-hosted a lecture and slide show by photojournalist Adam Kufeld in San Rafael, California, on May 4, 1999. Kufeld’s photoessay on the suffering of Iraqis under U.N. sanctions titled “The Official Story” appeared in the Feb. 21 issue of the San Francisco Examiner Magazine.

The event also featured Barbara Lubin, director of the Middle East Children’s Alliance of Berkeley, California. Last year Kufeld and Lubin traveled to Iraq on a humanitarian mission with three others to deliver food and medicine in defiance of U.N. sanctions. It was the first trip to Iraq for Kufeld, while one of many for Lubin.

Kufeld’s slides showed hospitals lacking basic supplies, including bedsheets; pharmacies with empty shelves; and very small children suffering from acute malnutrition. There were also scenes of dignified local residents trying to go on with their lives despite their misery, children happy to have their pictures taken by strangers, and daily life as it exists today along the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers.

Several slides of special interest were of the Ameriyah Shelter in Baghdad which was bombed on Feb. 12, 1991. Umm Greyda, the curator, has turned the shelter into a museum/shrine to the 1,200 people who died there, including several members of her family. During the attack huge water tanks burst, burning or scalding to death the occupants of the bunker, which was being used as a neighborhood refuge from the nightly air raids. The slides showed appalling evidence of this, such as handprints on the ceiling. According to the Pentagon, the bombing of the shelter was an accident.

Traveling to Basra in southern Iraq, the team delivered much-needed medicine to the Ali Baba Children’s Clinic, operated by Bridges for Baghdad, an Italian NGO. They saw what were described as the devastating effects of 300 tons of depleted uranium, used to make armor-piercing ammunition, that the Coalition forces used against Iraqi forces during the Gulf war.

Some scientists say that this radioactive waste material has invaded the food chain, the water supply and the human body. Many Iraqi children are being born with birth defects and are developing cancer at a young age.

While visiting a hospital and inquiring of a doctor as to the whereabouts of the children, Lubin was told: “We tell parents to keep them at home and let them die at home. There is very little we can do for them.”

Depleted uranium has also been found in Kuwait and in 11 other countries worldwide. Kufeld and Lubin said thousands of U.S. and British veterans also are suffering from exposure to this radioactive material, which Kufeld describes as a “low-grade nuclear weapon.”

Dil Kazzaz, an Iraqi of Kurdish descent, gave a brief history of modern Iraq, describing how Saddam was supported by the U.S. government during Iraq’s war with Iran. He described Saddam as “a different size Noriega,” saying that “without the Pentagon Saddam would have been gone in the war with Iran.”

Barbara Lubin created the Middle East Children’s Alliance in May of 1988. At that time justice in Palestine was the organization’s main work. Among other projects, they built playgrounds in Gaza and organized trips to the West Bank and Gaza.

The organization turned its attention to Iraq when the buildup of troops began in the Persian Gulf in 1990. Speaking of her visit to Iraq during the buildup of the U.S.-led Coalition troops in the Persian Gulf, she said that most Iraqis did not believe the U.S. would actually use military force to expel Iraqi forces from Kuwait. Even Yasser Arafat, with whom she met on that trip, stated: “The U.S. won’t bomb Iraq.”

She returned to Iraq two months after the bombing ended and saw the devastation from Desert Storm firsthand from north to south. Unfortunately, enormous devastation has occurred in the eight and one-half years since the end of the Gulf war as the result of U.N.-imposed sanctions.

Over 1 million Iraqis have died as the result of the sanctions, which deny them food, decent water and medicine, she said. All items sent to Iraq must be approved by the U. N. Sanctions Committee, which screens items for what it considers “dual-use” (i.e. military use).

For example, all items related to chemotherapy are considered “dual-use” and are not allowed into the country. She reminded the audience it was the job of each American to try and change U.S. government support of these inhumane sanctions through contacting his or her representatives in Congress. One member of the audience deplored how sad it was that: “You have to package human suffering in a certain way for people to be compassionate.”

Elaine Pasquini is a free-lance journalist based in Ignacio, California.