Wednesday, March 20, 2019

Under Israeli pressure, Germany revokes Rasmea Odeh visa

Rasmea Odeh

Ali Abunimah

Riri Hylton-19 March 2019

Palestinian activist Rasmea Odeh was bannedfrom speaking at a public meeting marking International Women’s Day in Berlin on Friday after German officials revoked her visa.

The event was titled “Palestinian Women in the Liberation Struggle.”

The Israeli government claimed credit for the action.

According to the newspaper Haaretz, strategic affairs minister Gilad Erdan issued a statement saying the German decision came after pressure applied by him and “a slew of Jewish organizations in Germany, as well as protest by the Israeli ambassador in Germany.”

Officers surrounded the 72-year old as she arrived outside the venue and ushered her away from supporters protesting the decision. She was handed a document from the Berlin Senate and told to vacate the area.

The 26-page report claimed her appearance could endanger Germany’s relationship with Israel and threaten peaceful coexistence. It also referred to BDS Berlin, the event co-host, as an “anti-Semitic coalition.”

Odeh was scheduled to speak alongside Palestinian poet Dareen Tatour, who was imprisoned in Israel last year for posting a poem on social media, when Berlin city officials forced the Dersim Cultural Community Center to cancel the talk.

Odeh decided to speak outside the venue to an audience of over 100 but police cornered her on arrival, following her until she boarded a bus out of the area.

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Charlotte Kates@charlottekates

Last night in Berlin: The attack on Rasmea Odeh is an attack on Palestine https://ift.tt/2ObRqgw via SamidounPP

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6:16 AM - Mar 16, 2019

Torture

In 1969, Odeh was arrested, raped and tortured by Israeli soldiers. Twenty five days later she signed a confession for alleged involvement in two bomb attacks in Jerusalem, one of which killed two civilians.

She was released from Israeli prison a decade later in a prisoner exchange.

Odeh testified about the torture at a United Nations special committee and has been an outspoken proponent of Palestinian rights ever since.

In 2017, Odeh was deported from the United States to Jordan following a conviction for immigration fraud. The charges stemmed from her failure to disclose her 1969 conviction by an Israeli military court based on the confession that followed her torture.

From the time of her indictment in 2013, through her trial, Odeh, who had been a long-time community organizer in Chicago, became a focus of solidarity.

Smear campaign

Despite the evidence, media outlets continue to refer to Odeh as a “terrorist,” often failing to mention the torture conditions under which her confession was made, or the 1977 Sunday Times investigative piece which brought her story to light.

The smear campaign against Odeh began as soon as she arrived in the German capital.

The newspaper Der Tagesspiegel published a total of four articles where it accused Odeh of spreading hatredtowards Jews, compared her to Islamist hate preachers, and referred to BDS – the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement for Palestinian rights – as anti-Semitic. The Berlin Senate’s report cites the newspaper’s article in its reasoning.

US ambassador Richard Grenell and Israeli ambassador Jeremy Issacharoff threw their political weight behind the campaign to ban Odeh, while Berlin mayor Michael Mueller, who was once threatened by the Simon Wiesenthal Center that he would be placed on its annual anti-Semitism list, condemned the planned talk as “extremist propaganda.”

Representatives across the political spectrum also weighed in. The Green Party’s Volker Beck, a long-time supporter of Israel, was among the pro-Israel protesters outside the community center on Friday whilst the center-right deputy leader in the Berlin Senate, Cornelia Seibeld, called Odeh an anti-Semite.

Berlin’s interior minister and center-left official Andreas Geisel conflated criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism in his remarks to the media.

The incident marks another moment in the growing hostility toward supporters of Palestinian rights in Germany.

Three activists were recently taken to court for disrupting an Israeli political representative at a 2016 pinkwashing event.

Pinkwashing is the public relations strategy that deploys Israel’s supposed enlightenment toward LGBTQ issues to deflect criticism from its human rights abuses and appeal particularly to Western liberal audiences.

The activists were charged with trespassing and assault.

Local and federal bodies across Germany continue to pass measures that equate BDS activism for Palestinian liberation with anti-Semitism.

Charlotte Kates, an organizer with political prisoner solidarity group Samidoun in Berlin, said the incident was “an attack on Rasmea’s right to speak and the right of people in Europe hear her.”

“What she has to say presents progressive ideas and political thought that challenges Israeli apartheid, racism, colonialism and occupation.”

Cyclone Idai could be the Southern Hemisphere’s deadliest storm

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By Ishaan Tharoor-March 20 at 12:59 AM

We don’t know how many people have died since Cyclone Idai made landfall last Thursday on the coast of Mozambique before barreling west into Zimbabwe and Malawi. Aerial photography and drone footage have shown the apocalyptic scenes left in the cyclone’s wake: Fields of crops were ruined, rising floodwaters tore bridges off their moorings, mudslides smashed roads and whole villages were swept away. Survivors found themselves trapped on new “islands,” surrounded by the brackish waters that obliterated their homes.

The United Nations estimated that more than 2.6 million people are in need of immediate assistance. Aid officials believe the tropical storm damaged or destroyed some 90 percent of the Indian Ocean port of Beira, Mozambique’s fourth-largest city. Though the country’s authorities placed the official death toll at under 100 so far, President Filipe Nyusi spoke to local media after flying over affected areas in a helicopter and said that “everything indicates that we can have a record of more than 1,000 dead.” In Zimbabwe, the official death toll stood at 98; in Malawi, it’s at 56 — but the actual figures may take months to determine.

“The region affected by Idai is one of the poorest in the world,” wrote my colleague Max Bearak, who was en route to the ravaged city on Wednesday. “Infrastructure was already lacking, and the storm has destroyed key public institutions like hospitals and water sources.” Beira is a major entry point for food and gas inland; its paralysis raised fears of possible shortages across the region at a time when resources are already deeply strained.

Rescue efforts were hampered by collapsing infrastructure, poor telecommunications and heavy rains that continued through Tuesday. A giant storm surge, reported to be above 19 feet in some areas, transformed Beira — a city of half a million people — into a woeful waterworld, largely cut off from the rest of the country. According to the New York Times, the main highway into the city is impassable, while debris and toppled trees clog up other secondary roads.

“Everything is destroyed, everything,” said Deborah Nguyen, a World Food Program official, to The Post. “When I got here on Sunday, you could see the tops of palm trees in rural areas. Now it is just an inland ocean. The rain isn’t stopping anytime soon.” Her organization is nevertheless still attempting to airdrop food to stranded communities.

If the death tolls rise to the levels suggested by Nyusi and others, then Idai may prove an epochal event. “If these reports, these fears, are realized, then we can say that this is one of the worst weather-related disasters — tropical cyclone-related disasters — in the Southern Hemisphere,” Clare Nullis, a spokeswoman for the World Meteorological Organization, told reporters.

Yet the scale of the calamity has yet to fully register around the world, with news of the storm’s destructive path only making major headlines almost a week after it made landfall. “There’s a sense from people on the ground that the world still really hasn’t caught on to how severe this disaster is,” Matthew Cochrane, a spokesman for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, said at a briefing in Geneva.

That’s unfortunately not surprising, given the extent to which disasters in areas of the world like sub-Saharan Africa tend to get short shrift in the global conversation. In a reflection on the “erasure of African tragedy,” Atlantic writer Hannah Giorgis pointed to the implicit bias beneath some of the initial reporting around another recent calamity — the crash of an Ethiopian Airlines jet and the death of all the passengers and crew aboard.

“Both the impulse to question the largest African air carrier’s credibility and the hyper-focus on Western passengers are consistent with the pervasive, long-running Western disdain for — or simple inability to empathize with — people of African descent,” wrote Giorgis.

It’s also true that onlookers, especially those far away, get numbed by tragedies of this scale. “For decades, social scientists have documented a troubling quirk in human empathy: People tend to care more about the suffering of single individuals, and less about the pain of many people,” Jamil Zaki of Stanford University wrote last year following a devastating tsunami in Indonesia that killed hundreds of people and displaced tens of thousands more. “Such ‘compassion collapse’ is morally backwards — dozens or hundreds of people, by definition, can lose more, fear more, and hurt more than any one of us; human concern should scale with the amount of pain in front of us. Instead, it dries up.”

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.@UN teams have arrived on the ground in #Beira where #CycloneIdai has left a trail of devastation, cutting off electricity and communications, destroying homes, medical facilities and crops.

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But, now, even the news releases of aid agencies carry chilling anecdotes: Save the Children, for example, warned of the perils facing some 2,500 children and their families, stuck in the town of Buzi in Mozambique’s Sofala province. By Tuesday, there were fears that rising floodwaters would wholly submerge the town.

The response to the unfolding disaster is also straining a beleaguered humanitarian response system that’s already facing funding shortfalls. And long after the floodwaters recede, governments in the region will have to reckon with a grave reality — that extreme weather events like this cyclone will be more common in the years to come, as the warming of the planet continues to affect global climate patterns.

An index compiled by the World Bank ranked Mozambique as the African nation that is third-most exposed to weather-related disasters, including drought, cyclones and the lethal epidemics that often follow in their wake.

“As the effects of climate change intensify, these extreme weather conditions can be expected to revisit us more frequently," Muleya Mwananyanda, Amnesty International’s deputy regional director for Southern Africa, said in a statement. “The devastation wrought by Cyclone Idai is yet another wake-up call for the world to put in place ambitious climate change mitigation measures.”

Palestinian communities in shock after three West Bank killings

Strikes shut down Nablus and Abwein village following firefights that Palestinians say were entirely avoidable

A boy looks inside a damaged house where a Palestinian gunman was killed by Israeli forces in the village of Abwein in the Israeli-occupied West Bank (Reuters)

By Akram Al-Waara-20 March 2019( in Bethlehem, occupied West Bank)

Residents of the Palestinian village of Abwein were startled on Tuesday evening when Israeli forces, dogs, drones, bulldozers and camera crews descended on its historic centre and a dramatic face-off began.

The soldiers and police surrounded a house sheltering Omar Abu Leila, a 19-year-old Palestinian suspected of killing an Israeli soldier and a settler two days earlier near the illegal settlement of Ariel in the occupied West Bank.

“Around 7 pm, Israeli special security entered into the old town of Abwein and surrounded an old house where Omar Abu Leila was hiding,” Muwafaq al-Huweil, head of the Fatah party in the Ramallah district, told Middle East Eye.

'It was as if they were going to war with another army, not coming to arrest one 19-year-old boy'

- Muwafaq al-Huweil, Fatah official

Huweil, 50, told MEE that residents were startled by the sheer amount of force deployed in the area.

“It was as if they were going to war with another army, not coming to arrest one 19-year-old boy,” he said.

Israeli media and security officials released statements on Tuesday saying that the forces surrounding the building called on Abu Leila to evacuate.

"The assailant opened fire at our forces and was killed during the exchange of fire," a Shin Bet statement said.

But Huweil disputed the Israeli narrative of events, saying that Abu Leila was not the first to fire.

“Yes they called out on the loudspeakers for him to leave, but tens of eyewitnesses say that the soldiers then immediately started opening fire, sparking a shootout,” Huweil said.

He added that clashes erupted between local youth and Israeli forces, who used live fire, tear gas and rubber bullets against the Palestinians.

A man shows ammunition outside a house where a Palestinian was killed by Israeli forces, in Abwein village, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank (Reuters) — A man shows ammunition outside a house where a Palestinian was killed by Israeli forces in Abwein (Reuters)

“The youth in the village had no connection to Abu Leila, but when they heard he was hiding there, they went to go support his struggle,” Huweil said.

According to Huweil, more than 10 youths were hospitalised after being shot with live ammunition, while several others were wounded by tear gas and rubber bullets.

“The soldiers were out to kill Abu Leila, and kill anyone else who stood in their way.”

Nablus deaths

Abu Leila was not the only Palestinian killed by Israeli forces on Tuesday.

Two other young men, Raid Hamdan, 21, and Zaid Nouri, 20, died after being shot by Israeli forces at a contested religious site near the West Bank city of Nablus.

An Israeli army statement said the two were shot after explosives were hurled at a group of Jewish worshippers visiting the site they believe to be the tomb of the prophet Joseph.

Palestinians in Abwein and Nablus later declared a day of strikes on Wednesday over the deaths.

Nightmare neighbours: What if a religious settler project took over Britain?

Kamel Hawwash

“Many people view these young men as heroes,” Huweil said. “The way [Abu Leila] fought until the very end, it’s very powerful.”

“We are proud of the person who fights against the occupation and sends a message to the international community about what the occupation is.

“They killed one person, Abu Leila, but they cannot kill the Palestinian resistance. This is the message that people received yesterday.”

Impending demolition

Abu Leila’s home village of al-Zawiya ground to a halt on Wednesday as locals mourned the death of one of their own and anxiously awaited for any news on the status of Abu Leila’s body, which was seized by Israeli forces following the shootout.

“The last news we received from the Palestinian liaison's office was the confirmation that it was Omar Abu Leila who was killed,” al-Zawiya mayor Naeem Abu Shqeira, 40, told MEE.

“Our village is a small, quiet village on the edge of Salfit, close to the Green Line” demarcating the West Bank and Israel, Abu Shqeira said. “This news for us was shocking. No one could believe that this happened in our village.”

'When a people are under occupation and subjected to daily violence, it drives the youth to do these kinds of things'

- Naeem Abu Shqeira, mayor

Abu Shqeira said that the village’s residents hold Israel fully responsible for the whole situation.

“Any attack that happens, like the one Omar did, we put the responsibility on the occupation,” he told MEE. “When a people are under occupation and subjected to daily violence, it drives the youth to do these kinds of things.”

“Our children grow up seeing oppression and violence, and how the Israelis attack us and steal our land,” he added, saying it was “a natural reaction” for young people like Abu Leila to “fight for their rights and for their people”.

“The reason why people attack Israelis is not because they are terrorists, it’s because of the occupation.”

Netanyahu electioneering

In the wake of the Ariel attack, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the site of the assault and the home of the Israeli settler who was killed, a rabbi living in the Eli settlement.

During his visit, Netanyahu promised the swift punitive demolition of Abu Leila’s family home and vowed to push for a change in Israeli policy that would seek the death penalty for any Palestinian who commits an attack against an Israeli.

How local resistance challenges power structures in Palestine

Timothy Seidel

In the predawn hours of Sunday, hours after Netanyahu visited the attack site, Israeli forces arrived at Abu Leila’s family home and began measuring it and taking photos in preparation for demolition, his uncle Khaled Abu Leila told MEE.

“It’s not just one family living in the house, there are four families,” Abu Leila, 55, told MEE, adding that two elderly widows were also living in the building.

“More than 16 people will be made homeless if they go through with this demolition. And we know they will, they always do,” he said.

Such a visit by Netanyahu would generally be considered unusual. But given that Israeli elections are only two weeks away, Abu Shqeira and Huweil told MEE that the premier’s visits were nothing more than “campaign advertisements”.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanhayu arrives at the scene of gun and knife attack, carried out by a Palestinian the previous day, at the Ariel junction (AFP) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanhayu arrives at the scene of gun and knife attack carried out by a Palestinian the previous day, at the Ariel junction (AFP)

“What Netanyahu is doing now is strengthening his election campaign,” Abu Shqeira said. “In these cases they could easily arrest people, but they choose to kill them.”

“It’s all part of their strategy,” he added. “Netanyahu says he will push for the death penalty, but any time a Palestinian is accused of something he is executed in the streets. How is that any different?”

Huweil echoed Abu Shqeira’s sentiments, saying: “The violence that occurred last night in Abwein and Nablus is not just because Omar Abu Leila carried out an attack.

“Last night they killed two other Palestinians in Nablus for no reason. These are all electoral publicity for Netanyahu to appeal to his right-wing base and the settlers who he needs to vote for him.

“For the Israeli public, especially the right wing, whoever kills the most Palestinians is the one that has the most political clout, and the best chance of getting elected.”

A New Transactional Style

by Dr. Gerhard Wahlers-19 March 2019

The first two years of Donald Trump’s term as the 45th president of the United States have seriously damaged Europe’s confidence in the US as a partner, and put a strain on transatlantic relations. However, this review of American foreign policy under Trump, which takes a look at how Europe and the US are actually cooperating in five regions and five policy fields, reveals a differentiated picture with some rays of hope. Trump has taken a more nationalistic, unilateral, and protectionist approach to policy, and adopted a more confrontational style.

This has certainly reduced the number of overlaps between US and German interests, but it has not prevented pragmatic cooperation in key policy areas. Over the last two years, Trump’s foreign policy has, in many respects, followed the route of traditional US policy.

Thus, the preservation of the transatlantic partnership – for which Germany has no alternative, particularly in terms of security and economic policy – remains, just as it once was, both possible and necessary.

Continuity Generally Prevails in Foreign Policy

As our contributors highlight, the policies of the Trump administration – especially as relates to security issues and Russia – have been characterised above all by continuity.

Despite all of Trump’s rhetorical sabre-rattling, he has held fast to the key transatlantic alliance – NATO. Indeed, over the past two years, the US has ramped up its presence in Europe as a deterrent to Russia. In many respects, the US’s approach to China also stands in continuity with its former policies, although it is being pursued much more aggressively and via other means. Trump’s withdrawal from the Middle East ties in with Obama’s policy. The termination of the nuclear deal with Iran represents a return to the traditional American Middle East policy and “corrects” the historical “anomaly” of rapprochement under Obama. The same applies to the withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement. The apparently unilateral shift in US foreign policy is not really a break with the past. Instead, it follows the traditional American logic, which regards the multilateral system merely as a means to an end – the enforcement of American security and economic interests. This being said, the new protectionism in trade policy does represent a clear break with the traditional maxims of US foreign policy; although the critical attitude towards the World Trade Organisation dates back to the era of President George W. Bush, and the US has always had its share of critical voices with regard to trade.

A New Transactional Style

First and foremost, it is the president’s style and rhetoric that has changed. Trump’s transactional, often erratic style has given US foreign policy a new rationale. True to his campaign slogan “America First” – an exaggerated extension of Obama’s “Nation-Building at Home” –, US foreign policy is now more strongly geared towards domestic voter groups. Trump’s policies are a symptom of a deeper process of domestic political change in the US. It takes into account the increasing divisions in American society, which have been emerging over many years as a result of changes in the country’s economic and socio-political structures. As the US midterm elections showed, Trump’s policies are supported by large sections of the American public. The same applies to the president’s aggressive rhetoric, which clearly articulates this course.

There Is No Alternative to the Transatlantic Partnership

Following Trump’s logic, transatlantic relations are now more than ever understood by the US as a means to an end, rather than a partnership of values. Even after Trump leaves office, it seems unlikely that the US will change its course given the aforementioned domestic political changes. The media’s focus on Trump and the president’s style and rhetoric have affected confidence in the US as a reliable, protective, and regulatory power. However, Europe has no alternative to the transatlantic partnership in terms of other world regions and shared values. Over the last two years, the congruence of common interests has diminished in the ten 4 areas examined. Nevertheless, our authors describe how nothing has stood in the way of pragmatic cooperation in many areas, and this seems set to continue. This applies first and foremost to cooperation in what is probably Europe’s most important transatlantic field of cooperation – security policy, particularly as regards Russia, and the fight against international terrorism. The digital revolution is another area that will become increasingly important for both sides, and there is also potential for cooperation in Africa. With regard to China and Iran, the US and Germany are pursuing congruent goals, but arguing about the right means with which to pursue them. The US and Germany are diametrically opposed in the area of a rule-based, multilateral system, including on climate change, development policy, and international trade, and, with some exceptions, in their approach to the Middle East conflict.

The Preservation of the Partnership is Possible

Over the next two years of the Trump presidency, it will, therefore, be important to maintain a dialogue with the US, and to shape relations in a pragmatic way. The rule-based world order is vital to Germany’s interests, but it cannot defend it without the US – and certainly not against the US. However, the federal systems and different constellations of actors in the two countries offer opportunities for a multi-layered dialogue. A transatlantic friendship does not mean it is necessary to be in total agreement.

Germany and the EU must have the courage to take a clear stand. For the US, the competition of ideas also applies to politics. In the US, objective criticism is also seen – if not by all, by many – as a strength and a sign of respect. It is therefore important to concretise, substantiate, and raise awareness of topics of mutual interest.

With regard to the multilateral order, Germany and the European Union must actively advance into the areas from which the US is withdrawing. Efforts to find multilateral partners – such as Canada, Australia, the Latin American countries and Japan – may complement, but not replace, the transatlantic partnership. A key factor in maintaining relations with the US will be to increase the European Union’s internal and external capacity to act, and to assume more responsibility in international politics. The current “disenchantment” with transatlantic relations could act as a vital catalyst in this respect.

Dr. Gerhard Wahlers is Editor of International Reports, Deputy Secretary General and Head of the Department European and International Cooperation of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung . Click here to read the latest issue if the International Reports, where this piece first appeared.

His face turned blue, then he died

Friends pay tribute to Hasan Shalabi, killed by Israel on 8 February. Ashraf AmraAPA images

Sarah Algherbawi-18 March 2019

Rami Dababish was trying to help the wounded when he found himself facing a thick cloud of tear gas. Feeling the suffocating effects of the gas, he stepped back and squatted on the ground. Then he noticed there was a teenage boy beside him.

Dababish, a field medic, told the boy not to venture any farther. But the instructions made no difference. A short while later, Dababish saw the boy fall over.

Running towards the boy, “I found blood flowing out of his neck,” Dababish said. “I tried to stop the bleeding by putting gauze on the injury and pressing on it. Then his face turned blue. It was only a few minutes before he died.”

This killing occurred on 8 February during the Great March of Return, weekly protests in Gaza demanding that Palestine refugees be allowed go home to the towns and villages from which Zionist forces expelled them in 1948. The victim’s name was Hamza Ishtaiwi. He was 17.

“Hamza held neither a gun nor a stone,” said Dababish. “He was a peaceful protester – like the other youth and children demonstrating every Friday for their right of return.”

Hamza had been planning to leave Gaza. One week earlier, he had spoken with his aunt Bothaina Ishtaiwi, who is working as a journalist in Turkey. Hamza had asked Bothaina for help to reach Turkey so that he could study there.

“If I knew he was going to be killed, I would have agreed to his request,” Bothaina said by telephone.

Defense for Children International Palestine has stated that Hamza was approximately 200 meters from the fence separating Gaza and Israel when he was struck by a live bullet.

“I never expected to see Hamza injured or killed,” said Muhammad Ishtaiwi, the boy’s father. “He was always away from the border fence [during the weekly protests] and didn’t hold any kind of weapon.”

“Our little man”

The Ishtaiwi family wants an international investigation into Hamza’s killing by an Israeli sniper.

In a letter to Rashida Tlaib, a member of the US Congress, the family contended that Hamza was killed “in cold blood” and that Israel has used “excessive fire” against many other participants in the Great March of Return since it began last year.

Hasan Shalabi, aged 13, was also killed on 8 February. He was protesting close to the Khan Younis area in Gaza when he was shot in the chest by an Israeli sniper.

The Shalabi family, which lives in Nuseirat refugee camp, has suffered much hardship in recent times. Hasan’s father Iyad is a civil servant. Around 18 months ago, his salary was reduced considerably by the Palestinian Authority.

Hasan sought work to try and compensate for the drop in his father’s income. He was a talented football player. Yet after he lined up a job, he seldom joined his friends for a kickaround after his daily lessons.

“Hasan used to work in a bakery after school; he worked until midnight for $3 a day to help us,” said his mother Fatma, a niece of the senior Hamas representative Ismail Haniyeh. “I never felt that Hasan was a child. He was our little man. He felt a sense of responsibility towards his family. I have no idea why Israel killed him. He was a pillar of this house.”

Hasan had one brother and five sisters. He never got to meet Jouri, who would have been his sixth sister. She was born 20 days after he was killed.

“Like a rocket”

Sixteen-year-old Hasan Nofal was another victim of Israeli state violence on 8 February.

On that day, Hasan joined the Great March of Return near al-Bureij area, along with his friend Nael Muharib.

After buying cans of Coca-Cola, the two boys approached the fence between Gaza and Israel.

“I was holding Hasan’s can,” Nael said. “I was about to give it to him when I suddenly saw something small coming towards us like a rocket. It hit Hassan on the head and he lost consciousness.”

The flying object was a tear gas canister.

Hasan was rushed to hospital. He spent four days in intensive care before dying from his injuries. The tear gas canister had fractured his skull and caused serious brain damage.

It was by no means the first occasion that a tear gas canister proved to be a lethal weapon. At least five Palestinian children have died since the beginning of 2018 after being struck with such canisters.

Israel has continued firing tear gas in large quantities since Hasan’s death.

On 15 February, Ahmad Abu Rashed, 13, was hit on the head with a tear gas projectile in an area near Jabaliya refugee camp.

Ahmad, a martial arts enthusiast, used to perform karate moves for crowds gathered during the Friday protests. He was undertaking such a performance when he was injured.

Accompanied by other members of his family, Ahmad was around 500 meters from the boundary fence, according to his father Suleiman.

“We were drinking tea and Ahmad was practicing karate,” Suleiman said. “The targeting of Ahmad was direct and intentional.”

Although Ahmad’s skull was fractured, he managed to survive.

Ahmad has vowed to continue protesting at the injustices inflicted on his people. “Once I have recovered, I will go back and take part in the Great March of Return,” he said. “And I will perform karate again.”

Sarah Algherbawi is a freelance writer and translator from Gaza.

Iraq Prepares to Evict U.S. Troops

Pro-Iran factions are pushing for the move just as the Islamic State is starting to hit back.

A partial view of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, is reflected in the visor of a U.S. Army helicopter crew member as he looks out of a Chinook helicopter flying from the U.S. Embassy to Baghdad International airport on Jan. 9. (Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images)

BY GENEIVE ABDO

| MARCH 20, 2019, 4:32 PM
Momentum is building among deputies in the Iraqi parliament to oust U.S. troops entirely from the country—an outcome that would leave Iraq’s political future in the hands of neighboring Iran and leave its citizens more vulnerable to the Islamic State.

Today, the United States fields an estimated 5,200 troops in Iraq. They are there as part of a security agreement with the Iraqi government to advise, assist, and support that country’s troops in the fight against the Islamic State. But the Iraqi parliament is expected to vote soon on draft laws calling for a full withdrawal. For now, things don’t look good for the troops.

For one, there’s a strong union of Iranian and Iranian-backed military and political powers that is actively trying to push the United States out. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Commander Qassem Suleimani, who is close to the Fatah Iraqi political faction, is determined to do so. The party of the Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who is usually at odds with Suleimani but is in agreement on this issue, has said all foreign troops must go, not just the Americans.

The purported reason? More sovereignty. Fadhil Jabr Shnein, a deputy in the Iraqi parliament and a member of a leading pro-Iranian parliamentary group—Asaib Ahl al-Haq, the paramilitary arm of which fought in Syria to keep President Bashar al-Assad in power—said in an early March interview with the Arabic publication Al-Etejah Press, “There is a broad consensus among the various political blocs and national forces to eject foreign presence in all forms.” However, Shnein’s reference to “foreign” forces likely does not include Iranian forces, as his coalition is loyal to Iran.

The Shiite commanders of the Iranian-backed Iraqi militias, known as the Popular Mobilization Forces, are likewise pushing for a U.S. withdrawal. Qais al-Khazali, a virulently anti-American Shiite commander who is close to Suleimani, even threatened U.S. troops on his Twitter account. He claimed the U.S. presence was intended to serve Israel and not Iraq, and he vowed to target U.S. troops if they do not leave the country. His threats should be taken seriously. The Popular Mobilization Forces are practically as powerful as the regular military. Although many fighters are on the Iraqi government payroll, they operate outside Bagdad’s control and possess their own weapons.

Beyond the various pro-Iranian forces in Iraq, the Trump administration is also at least partly responsible for putting U.S. troop expulsion at the top of Baghdad’s agenda. In late December 2018, U.S. President Donald Trump’s meeting with U.S. troops at Al Asad military base provoked outrage among Iraqi politicians and citizens because he did not follow protocol and announce his visit ahead of time—a move that some Iraqis felt was a violation of their sovereignty. Then, in early February, he announced that he wanted U.S. troops to remain in Iraq to watch Iran, setting off a diplomatic firestorm in Baghdad.

All this has compelled even pro-U.S. politicians to denounce the presence of American troops. Iraq’s President Barham Salih, a longtime diplomat in Washington, has publicly supported a more minimal U.S. presence, for example, although Iraqi security and political sources say he is actually against a U.S. withdrawal. In early March, Salih said, “We are surprised by the statements made by the U.S. president on the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq. Trump did not ask us to keep U.S. troops to watch Iran.” This was an indication of the high pressure Salih is likely under to question the United States’ presence in his country.

Although popular opinion seems to be turning against the United States, there are still some factions that want it to stay. Baghdad may yet reach a compromise on the troops.Assuming they do in fact support a continued U.S. presence, for example, the Iraqi prime minister and president could still stall for a variety of reasons, although neither have veto power over parliamentary decisions. Moreover, among Iraq’s Shiite population, popular sentiment is turning increasingly against Iran, according to a recent survey conducted by Munqith al-Dagher, who runs a polling agency in Iraq. Favorable Iraqi Shiite attitudes toward Iran fell from 88 percent in 2015 to 47 percent in 2018, according to Dagher’s polling. This shifting sentiment should empower the Iraqi government to create distance with Iran, something Iranian loyalists have so far managed to head off.

While there is broad agreement among those calling for the United States to withdraw, there is little clarity about what a troop withdrawal would mean in practical terms. The other members of the coalition fighting the Islamic State might decide to leave if the United States is forced to do so. And if other states withdraw as well, the Iraqi security forces, which need training and technical support, would be unlikely to combat the Islamic State on their own. It is also unclear whether the hypothetical legislation will allow U.S. troops to remain on the Iraqi-Syrian border to try to prevent Islamic State fighters from crossing into Iraq from Syria. If it doesn’t, the Iraqi military would have to take on the fight without U.S. air cover.

And that bodes ill for the country. Over the last year, the Islamic State has made a comeback, firstly with attacks in remote areas of the country and more recently on the outskirts of urban centers, such as Baghdad. As part of the jihadi group’s resurgence, it is extorting the same Sunni Iraqi communities from which it found support in 2014 and 2015. The majority of fighters and supporters are Iraqi—a major challenge for the state going forward, because they are not foreigners who can be sent away.
Stepped-up Iranian domination would be in neither Iraq’s interest nor that of the United States. In early March, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani visited Iraq—the first such visit by an Iranian president in many years, a sign of Iran’s intentions to expand economic cooperation with the country.

The Iranians want to use the Iraqi market to compensate for the vast economic downturn that has followed renewed U.S. sanctions on Iran. The much-publicized trip demonstrates that the Iraqi government is stuck in the middle. Iraq relies on Iran for goods and electricity supplies, so cutting ties is not only politically unlikely but also impossible.

While legislative deal-making continues, the Iraqi parliamentarians could perhaps agree to a compromise on troop withdrawal if an attractive offer were made by Washington or U.S.- aligned political Iraqi factions. However, the question remains as to whether Iraq is more worried about the Islamic State—and could thus countenance a continuing U.S. presence—or more interested in keeping Iran happy. Unless the more moderate forces within the parliament and the government at large are willing to take a risk, it is likely some form of legislation will be approved to limit, if not expel, the United States.