Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, May 2000, pages 62-65

Southern California Chronicle

Egypt’s Amr Moussa Answers Difficult Questions With Diplomacy and Candor

By Pat and Samir Twair

Egyptian Foreign Minister Amr Moussa proved his mettle as a diplomat March 19 as he adroitly responded to difficult and even hostile questions during an open discussion sponsored by the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee at the Los Angeles Airport Hilton Hotel.

On hand with Foreign Minister Moussa was Egyptian Ambassador Nabil Fahmy and Egypt’s Consul in San Francisco Hagar Islambouli.

The veteran diplomat told the more than 300 Arab Americans in the audience, “Your message has been strongly heard in the Arab world [as well as] the importance of consulting with you.”

The most promising aspects of the Arab world today are economic prospects, he said. Slogans of Arab unity have been replaced by actions to build shared interests such as pan-Arab free trade to be realized in the year 2007.

Stressing that free trade and democratic governance go hand in hand, Moussa said the Egyptian government has created necessary reforms so that its economy is ready to take off. With U.S. investments amounting to more than $15 billion in Egypt, the foreign minister said that Egypt has built a modern infrastructure during the two decades it has engaged in a mutual partnership with the U.S.

“This new dynamism reflects the spirit of globalism,” he said. Commenting that he looked forward to a strong Arab-American lobby, he emphasized “this is not a call to compete with any other lobby but to establish a new code of conduct between the mother countries and Arab Americans.”

As the floor opened to eager discussants, the first question dealt with Egypt’s role in the peace process.

“The peace process is known for its ups and downs—especially its downs,” he replied. “By now the Palestinians control less than 45 percent of Palestinian land and that is not enough. With perseverance, the Palestinians should achieve their goal to establish a Palestinian state on land [under Arab control] prior to June 4, 1967, with East Jerusalem as their capital.”

Noting that earlier negotiations dealt with interim measures such as the transfer of land, Moussa said the Israeli-Palestinian talks that opened March 22 in Washington, DC would concentrate on Jerusalem, refugees, borders, water and Palestinian statehood.

“If there is no political will, these issues could drag on for years,” he said. “We are not going to let the Palestinians down. The Syrian track is just and loyal. If Israel wants to build relationships [with the Arabs] it must retreat to the lines of June 4, 1967.”

Moussa called on the Clinton administration to persuade Israel to comprehend the benefits of peace in exchange for land it has occupied since 1967.

“The track record of Israeli policy is to move ahead, then fall back. We don’t take promises for granted any more and it is no longer sufficient to see a handshake on TV. We want the real thing—if the Israelis withdraw, there will be peace.”

Several questioners dealt with the lack of human rights in Arab countries, to which he responded: “Many states are coming out of a period of tension, but things are moving in the right direction.” However, he agreed, Arab governments should relax and allow the little man to speak his mind.

Another asked “How many Iraqi children must die and Lebanese children be immolated before Egypt objects?”

“Iraq is an important part of the Arab world,” he replied. “We cannot lose sight of how the people are suffering from the sanctions. If we want the Middle East to move ahead, we must address the problem of Iraq. Egypt’s policy does not support continued sanctions. We are very clear that sanctions should not go on in perpetuity.”

Citing Moussa’s earlier statement that Arab countries have invested $200 billion in the U.S., a member of the audience asked if Egypt’s economic reforms might attract Arab investors.

The foreign minister concurred and added that people who do not have Egyptian citizenship can buy or lease land in Egypt.

When asked if Egypt has abdicated its leadership role in Israeli-Palestinian-Syrian and Lebanese peace talks, he stated: “Talks will now center on the issue of refugees of 1948 as well as on the status of Jerusalem. The right of return or compensation for lost properties and even psychological damages will be discussed. As the oldest and largest country in the region, as the nation that was in the forefront of decolonization and that led the fight against the Israeli usurpation of Palestine…we stand firmly behind the Palestinians.”

Why, asked another, were the Arabs united only when it came to standing against Iraq?

“Arab unity does not require that we all be one state,” he answered. “Read me, we shouldn’t torture ourselves with the notion that we don’t do anything right. We are not that divided, even though we may not yet be at the level of unity of interests, positions and cooperation that we hope for.”

A large contingent of American Copts was on hand. One asked why Copts, who account for 10 percent of Egypt’s population, are excluded from government, police and university jobs.

“You used one inaccurate word, excluded,” Moussa responded. “I read [your Web sites] a lot on the Internet and your statistics are skewed. We follow a system that puts the right man in the right place. We don’t appoint a policeman or diplomat as a Muslim policeman or Muslim diplomat.”

As shouts rose from the Coptic corner, Moussa commented: “We should hear you, but not your shouts. You have a case. When a position is to be filled, if a certain group is missing in overall appointments, this should be addressed. Egypt is for all Egyptians.”

In closing, Moussa stressed that there must be an Arab-Israeli peace, not just an Israeli peace.

Senatorial Candidate Tom Campbell Addresses Arab Americans

California Congressman Tom Campbell, who won the Republican primary to run against Senator Dianne Feinstein in November, appeared at a pre-primary town meeting called by Arab American Institute president James Zogby at the Arabic Early Church in Reseda.

Stating that he is running on the issue of fairness, Representative Campbell said he is one of 24 congressmen who voted for the right of Palestinians to declare an independent state. While 380 legislators voted to deny Palestinians the right to announce statehood, 31 congressmen did not vote.

“The first step is to shame people for not speaking out,” he declared. “The second step is to act on what is right.”

Representative Campbell co-authored with Michigan Democratic House Whip David Bonior House Resolution 2121, calling for the repeal of a law permitting the use of secret evidence against aliens.

“This breaks the 5th Amendment, which says an individual cannot be put in jail if he is not made aware of the charges against him, but the Immigration and Naturalization Service says they can do this to non-citizens because the ‘border follows the alien no matter where he is.’”

Representatives from campaign headquarters of Bill Bradley, George W. Bush and John McCain were on hand as well as candidates for Congress and the state assembly.

In addressing the large group that turned out despite a thunderstorm, Zogby stated: “Politics isn’t what is right, it’s about what you can get. Its function is power and if you’ve got it, you can get a lot. You must build coalitions and be a force. We have causes that are right and good, but contributions are made to those in power by only one side. If you don’t contribute, you can’t complain.”

UCLA Exhibit Depicts Bedouin in Israel’s Negev Desert

“Photographing the Periphery: Immigrants and Nomads in Israel’s Negev Desert” was the title of a discussion focusing on a group of more than 40 photographs by Ron Kelley on view through Oct. 1 in UCLA’s Fowler Museum of Cultural History.

Kelley’s work, photographed from 1991 to 1992 in Israel, depicts the contradictions of Bedouin trying to survive in the Negev Desert, where Israel has been accommodating incoming waves of Russian and Ethiopian Jewish immigrants since the mid-1980s.

Lending insight into the photographs, which focus on the contrasts of relocation as opposed to dislocation—the meeting of immigrants and the indigenous populations of the Negev—were Jonathan Friedlander, assistant director of UCLA’s Center of Near East Studies, and UCLA anthropologist Prof. Sondra Hale.

Friedlander explained that Kelley’s work was the third in a broad UCLA study on the displacement of Middle Eastern populations. In the 1980s, the UCLA Near Eastern Studies Center launched a project, under the title of “Sojourners and Settlers,” dealing with the immigration of Arab laborers to the U.S. The second project was a book, entitled Irangeles, that focused on Iranian émigrés in Los Angeles. Kelley’s latest study, entitled “Transitions,” deals with the life and times of immigrants and nomads settled on the periphery of Israel’s urban culture.

It is clear from Kelley’s photographs that the losers in the Negev equation have been the Bedouin. More than 80,000 descendents of semi-nomadic Arab tribes who tended herds in the Negev Desert have been relocated into seven townships. Russian and Ethiopian immigrants have been settled in modern urban centers affording modern apartments with running water and electricity and comfortable schools.

“We are dealing with photography as anthropology,” commented Professor Hale. “We see the anomaly of Israel as a modern state in the Third World, its post-modernist ethnicity is ambiguous, demonized and venerated for gathering all Jews to live among Arabs, yet marginalizing Arabs.

“The Bedouin are there by accident—much as native American tribes were occupying space that threatened European settlers,” Hale continued. “Even Bedouin cemeteries were in the way, as we see in a photograph of graves encroached by an Israeli shopping mall.” In the foreground is a skeleton exposed from a desecrated Bedouingrave within eyeshot of the commercial center.

Kelley, who studied anthropology while earning an MFA in photography from UCLA, takes the perspective in his work of how might makes right, whether it is an Israeli woman dancing defiantly while brandishing a machine gun or a Bedouin woman in hijab walking past a billboard of a scantily clad woman advertising a Western product.

Kelley’s photography suggests tension and contained aggression as well as that, in Israel, the potential for violence is perpetually just around the corner.

Friedlander commented that on his frequent trips to the Middle East he “always is shocked by the overwhelming presence of weapons. A major part of the Israeli culture is the preeminence of power.”

While Friedlander says Kelley’s photos reveal the pain of Israel, we would argue they show the angst of the displaced Bedouin.

Professor Hale supported this with her observation that Russian and Ethiopian Jews, as opposed to Bedouin, are two parallel lines that never meet…except in the bus station, post office or market.

“Kelley captures the underlying violence, the ubiquitous militarism that pervades this contested land,” she stated.

Hale questioned to what degree the Ethiopians and Russians are being “absorbed,” inasmuch as the Falashas have gone on record that in Ethiopia they were looked upon as Jews, yet in Israel they are regarded as Ethiopians. The same, Professor Hale said, holds true for Russian immigrants who were designated as Jews in the former Soviet Union but are called Russians in Israel.

Friedlander said that whereas Israel tried to welcome its immigrants into some kind of melting pot in the 1950s, today they are following what he called a current U.S. model of multiculturalism.

As the exhibit makes clear, what will happen to the Bedouin shuffled off to South African-style townships with inferior schools and inferior housing doesn’t speak well for the idealism the Israeli state professes.

Iraqi Opposition Convenes Town Hall Meeting

The overthrow of Saddam Hussain can only come from within. This was the message conveyed at a town hall meeting with five leaders of the Iraqi opposition convening in Anaheim in commemoration of the ninth anniversary of the popular uprising.

Speakers were Dr. Barham Saleh of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan; Dhergham Kadhum of the Iraqi National Accord; Dr. Hamid al-Bayati, Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq; Rommel Eliah, Assyrian Democratic Movement in the U.S.; and Dr. Hassan A. Hamoudi, Politburo of the Iraqi Communist Party. Serving as the moderator was Muhannad Eshaiker.

When the speakers were asked to define their common goals, Kadhum noted that whether one has been outside Iraq for 30 years or is still inside the country, the common goal is to get rid of Saddam and establish democracy in Iraq.

Responding to a query about what the opposition has achieved since 1991, al-Bayati said it would require 10 lectures to cover everything. “We agreed we have a united opposition. It is an illusion that there are more than 100 parties and that we must wait for all to concur on every little point.”

Saleh noted the best test for the opposition would be to prepare a constitution. Bayati responded that “the constitution must be made by the Iraqi people. They are the ones who are suffering and they are entitled to draw up their own constitution with help from the external opposition. If we start to talk about a constitution, the people will say we already are being divisive.”

Hamoudi pointed out that power is being diminished for the opposition because of the fighting between two Kurdish factions. He predicted that if sanctions were lifted, Saddam would lose power. He said Washington is wrong to reason that the economic embargo is the only way to prevent Saddam from rebuilding his military machine.

“Saddam is trying to benefit from the embargo,” Hamoudi said. “It is unprecedented for a foreign country like the U.S. to impose sanctions on a sovereign nation. It is just unacceptable.”

An Assyrian in the audience asked what guarantees his community will have from future persecution.

“The past two decades have not been pleasant for the Assyrians and we must have a serious discourse now on how we can guarantee the rights of all minorities,” stated Saleh. He added that in areas the PUK is administering, codes have been established for the rights of minority groups.

As for the Shi’i, Saleh said they have been the underdog for too long and it is time for them to speak up. He admitted that some groups within the opposition voice fears of Shi’i expansion. These apprehensions should be allayed, he said, by establishing new parameters to respect each other’s rights and to guarantee freedoms for all minorities.

A member of the audience proposed that an Iraqi advisory council be established to increase the participation of three million Iraqis living abroad and that its members be nominated on a yearly basis through the Internet.

“This is a fascinating idea,” responded Saleh, who said the Internet has worked wonders in uniting the Kurdish diaspora. “Now we’ve even started working with Kurds living in Iceland. In the past, governments could control isolated populations, but thanks to satellite TV, we can reach the Iraqi people inside Iraq.”

The biggest task for the Kurds, he stated, is to unite the divided parties.

Al-Bayati said his Islamic party disseminates a clandestine newsletter inside Iraq that enumerates crimes perpetrated by Saddam and publishes information on dissidents who have been imprisoned or executed. The council also supports militants inside Iraq and provides support for families of martyred men.

In the past, Saleh disclosed, the opposition expected the U.S. Army to dislodge Saddam from Iraq. “This won’t happen,” he said. “We must take advantage of the opportunities Washington offers us. We can’t blame our ills on the outside world. Instead, we must define our priorities. The notion of a silver bullet to take out Saddam is no solution. That silver bullet could replace one dictator with another. There must be a comprehensive change toward a constitutional government.”

Added Bayati: “We have advised Washington that its policy is backfiring on the Iraqi people, who think they have been betrayed by the U.S., first during the uprising of ’91 and again in ’96 at Arbil when Saddam’s tanks attacked opposition forces. The people see U.S. planes circling overhead and they wonder if they are forwarding information to Saddam, because the next day his tanks come.

“Don’t forget,” the Islamist said, “Saddam’s propaganda machine says the U.S. wants him to remain in power. In conclusion, we advise the State Department to make it known to the Iraqi people that it does take their interests to heart and to express this in the media. So far, we’ve only heard the U.S. say its interest is in the Gulf, never that it is concerned with the people of Iraq.”

It was pointed out that the U.S. tends to act as if its only concern is the build-up of Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction. What is needed are more satellite reports such as two made in 1999 that established Saddam is destroying villages and draining marshes.

Francis Ricciardone, a State Department coordinator for the Transition of Iraq, was introduced. He announced a new Web site at <www.usia.gov/regional/nea/nea.htm.> Iraq Under Saddam.

Armenian Ambassador Addresses WAC

Armenia’s Ambassador to the U.S. Arman Kirakossian and the U.S. Ambassador to Armenia Michael C. Lemmon shared the podium at a World Affairs Council luncheon in the Downtown Los Angeles Biltmore Hotel. “United States-Armenia Relations: A View From Two Sides” was their shared topic.

Noting that Armenia is one of the oldest nations and youngest democracies, Ambassador Kirakossian said all his countrymen are aware of Washington’s assistance after the deadly earthquake of 1988 and Armenia’s struggle for independence in 1991. Stating that a newly organized economic task force will serve as the framework for bilateral actions between the two nations, the envoy said Armenian exports to the U.S. have doubled in the past two years.

The New York Police Department ordered 30,000 jackets from Armenia and, he quipped, he hoped the LAPD would follow suit. Other exports are dried fruits, specialty cheeses, wine, textiles and information technology.

U.S. Ambassador Lemmon noted that Armenia has most likely performed better than any other former state of the Soviet Union. “Rule-of-law has been instituted and corruption is being combatted,” he said. The diplomat praised Armenia’s policy of inclusion over exclusion which has developed ties with both Israel and Arab states, China, Japan, South Korea and Russia.

The parliamentary elections of May 1999 made a substantial step forward in creating a unified government, he noted. Armenia was well on its way to achieving its vision of becoming an international crossroads for Central Asia, Russia, Turkey, the Gulf, Levant and Egypt, Lemmon said. This encompassed more than oil and gas pipelines, and included road and rail connections.

Then on Oct. 27, 1999 Armenia was grievously wounded when Prime Minister Vazgen Sarkissian and nine members of parliament were assassinated. The attack brought on fear and suspicion leading to a political stalemate. Lemmon called on the Armenian people not to let the assassins win by destroying their dream.

Ending on an optimistic note, the American diplomat said there is a real possibility that the Nagorno-Karabakh problem with Azerbaijan will be settled in the year 2000.

“A healthy discussion of trade-offs in a peace settlement should lead to a mutually acceptable solution,” he continued. “This will be enhanced by assurances from the U.S. and European Union that they are ready to provide resource support.”

“Each Caucasian state is susceptible to divisions, but individually, they are unable to attract sufficient investment to develop the Caspian Basin/Caucasus hub,” Lemmon concluded. “Political stability of each impacts on the others and the Caucasus Cooperation Forum to follow.”

AAPG Stages Poetry Festival, Elections

More than 500 guests gathered at Le Foyer banquet hall March 16 for the annual poetry festival of the Arab American Press Guild. Lebanese Consul General John Makaron was on hand along with leaders of the Arab-American community, the Syrian Catholic Church and bishops of the Oriental Orthodox Church.

Poet Ester Williams, an Egyptian engineer, opened the festival with her poem, “America is a Miracle,” dedicated to her mother, and a piece entitled “Friendship,” offered in Arabic’s Egyptian dialect.

Jordanian Ahmad Shoumaf recited two original works, “The Bedouin” and “Greetings to Baghdad,” while Lebanese Druze poet and singer Moatha al-Aridi rendered three nationalistic poems that earned him calls for encores.

Palestinian poet Khairy Hawari recited his poem “Greetings to the Rabbi,” and Samer Saba read a poem in commemoration of Nizar Kabbani. Hasan Hasoun selected two original works, “Qana” and “An Ode to the People of Fairouza,” while Issa Batarsa offered “An Arab’s Letter to the White House.”

Dr. Wafa Sultan recited her work entitled “To My Daughter” and another piece, “Definition of a Homeland.” The large hall became silent as Palestinian poet Salwa El-Said read her work, “When the Salt Blossoms” and a piece entitled “I Am Tired.”

Saddo El-Deeb, a poet and singer brought for the festival from Syria’s Jebel Houran by AAPG member Solomon Suddi, offered several original pieces in his booming bass voice. He also sang a song, “Ana er-Habi.”

Outgoing AAPG President William Ghazarian presented the festival award to Bishara Qasis Mechammil in recognition of his book Urban and Bedouin Poets, published in Arabic in 1998.

On March 20, the AAPG elected a new slate of officers at its 15th annual meeting. Samir Twair was elected president. Serving on his board will be Samer Saba, Bahnan Yamin, Sami Abu Joude, Suhad Rashad, Hasan Hasoun, George Harmoush, Ester Williams and Abdelhai Hamoud.

Pat and Samir Twair are free-lance journalists based in Los Angeles.

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