human rights

• September 5, 2008

  Stalin, Genocide, and the Poison of Nation States

  

  An abandoned guard tower in one of hundreds of gulags (prison camps) across the Soviet Union, remains as a symbol of profound human suffering. First instituted by Lenin to imprison priests, political opponents, and common criminals, Stalin was then responsible for sending 12-15 million people to these camps. The prisoners were used as forced labor to work on massive industrial projects. As more laborers were needed for bigger projects and those falling behind schedule, Stalin justified the arrests of more people to be sent to the gulags. Millions were executed in these camps or perished as they labored on massive modernization schemes. It is said of the Siberian railroad project that the work was never done, nothing was achieved and it went nowhere. (credit: Jonathan Lewis)

  It continues to amaze me how destructive it is for we as humans to confuse good and bad with who is a representative of …

• September 2, 2008

  EXCELLENT SUPPORT OF ISRAELI/SYRIAN PEACE FROM EX-AMBASSADORS

  Note this extremely well-argued realist piece from Robert Pelletreau and Ed Walker in the Boston Globe. All of my experience in Syria suggests to me that most of their points are accurate and should be appealing to the more rational side of the Bush team in its last months. It can only help the reputation of the Republicans to aggressively pursue a new approach to Syria right now. It could be the foreign policy success that has eluded them for eight years. Here is an excerpt:

  Dr. Sami Taki, a close associate of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, said in late July that Syria might change its alliance with Iran if Syria achieves peace with Israel.

  The United States stands to gain a great deal from an Israeli-Syrian agreement. Having served as US ambassadors to five Middle East countries, we are convinced that a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace is essential to

  …

• August 15, 2008

  LEO THE HEALER REVISITED

  I had written a piece earlier on Leo Kramer’s pioneering work supporting Palestinian and Israeli doctors who work together. Leo’s follow-up article, Israeli, Palestinian Doctors Affect Change on the Ground, is even more revealing. Leo writes that the medical work is vital because doing is more important than talking, a theme I have been trying to push recently in It Is What You Do That Defines You. Leo writes:

  These efforts, however, must also be directed toward achieving results on the ground. That means ameliorating the insecurity of the Israelis, while addressing the deprivation of the Palestinians, their need for medical services, goods, utilities, food and freedom of movement. The overt violence of the conflict is bad enough for both sides, without the medical and humanitarian border crises, which thwart the struggle to maintain a basic standard of living for the Palestinians.

  To properly approach security and

  …

• August 1, 2008

  Which Israel on Film is Real? You Choose

  There is so much chaos in Israel and Palestine right now politically and in terms of peace and violence that it is hard for those of us who know them intimately to keep it all in perspective. For today I just ask you to choose which Israel. I thought I had seen everything. Here is a scene of a senior Israel Defense Forces commander ordering a soldier to shoot at close range a bound and blindfolded Palestinian teenager who earlier can be seen waving a Palestinian flag at a demonstration.

  This is filmed by a little girl from her window. Her father is subsequently arrested by the police. They can be heard in the background speaking in the film. Here is another version of the film accompanied by an official news story followed by an Israeli human rights group report. Of course, because this was caught on tape …

• July 25, 2008

  Religious Peacemaking in the Middle East

  Below is a letter from Elana Rozenman, an important religious peacemaker in Israel. The letter is a window into a world of Jewish/Christian/Muslim/Druze peacemaking that few know anything about outside of Israel, and yet their experiments in coexistence, dialogue and cooperation need to be studied and embraced. Notice the way in which the group copes with an attack in Jerusalem.

  Hebrew translation follows תרגום לעברית בהמשך
  Dear Friends,

  July 2- 3 we held a gathering of the Abrahamic Reunion CC in Zichron Yaacov along the Northern coast of Israel. We were men and women — Christians, Jews, Muslims, and Druze — sheiks, imams, rabbis, priests, and spiritual leaders. We were Israeli and Palestinian — joined by Sufi International supporters from the U.S. and Germany, including Anna and Shahabaddin David Less, and Andy Blanch. Our joint coordinators were Eliyahu McLeah, Ibtisam Mahamid, and Jirias Mansour.

  The Jerusalem group had traveled together

  …

• July 4, 2008

  SHI’A CRESCENT OR SHI’A CRUMB CAKE?

  An important backdrop to the militant American foreign policy of recent years is the fear that also pervades many Arab capitals of a rising “Shi’a Crescent” across the Middle East, which refers to the rise in militant power of Shi’ites across the region. Shi’ites represent about 12% of the Muslim population worldwide, as opposed to Sunnis who are the vast majority. King Abdullah of Jordan gave a grim warning of this rise on December 8, 2004 in anticipation of the Iraqi elections.

  But Dr. Moshe Maoz, Israel’s most senior expert on Syria and Iran, and also passionately committed to peace, has exposed this fear as oversimplified and misplaced, in an important study for the Saban Center. What appears as a rising crescent of the moon is actually more like crumb cake. There are separate and isolated movements across the region of Shi’ites asserting their presence, their rights and their power. …