I hate war

War is tragic. People fighting one another is pathetic. This article http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/13/world/middleeast/lebanese-port-drifts-amid-conflicts.html?pagewanted=2&ref=world is just one reminder in one country in one region. People suffer everywhere because of war. The war in Syria is no different. 

A Useful Cross-national Exchange on Public Diplomacy

Thanks to John H. Brown's Public Diplomacy Press and Blog Review for posting this story, copied below, from
http://news.kuwaittimes.net/2012/12/04/cultural-diplomacy-plays-role-in-building-societies/

Cultural diplomacy plays role in building societies

KUWAIT: Sheikha Hussa Al-Salem Al-Sabah welcoming the participants on Monday.

KUWAIT: The role of cultural diplomacy in building bridges among different people came under focus at a symposium organized by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) on Monday at the UN House in Mishref. The symposium, a first of its kind in the Middle East and North Africa, saw experts from various walks of life bringing their experience to the table.

These included Sheikha Hussa Sabah Al-Salem Al-Sabah, Director of Dar Al-Athar Al- Islamiya. Iman Y. Ereiqat, Chief of Mission of IOM Kuwait, noted that ‘diplomacy’ is a science, a way of management, and the art of handling contradictions and negotiating for achieving results that could satisfy all concerned parties. “In view of the importance of diplomacy, we find it necessary to hold this forum, which is the first of its kind in the Middle East and Northern African Region, to highlight the role of diplomacy in understanding cultures of different people, and building bridges among them, to enable discussion based on mutual respect and sharing with others,” she pointed out.

The main theme of this conference was “The Role of Cultural Diplomacy in Building Bridges between Cultures”. “We, at IOM Kuwait, are proud that, in cooperation with “Aware Centre”,we managed to take this leading step of introducing such an important, distinguished and modern subject in the Arab World,” she added. “We look at you, young people, as our future, and thus decided that the invitees to this forum should be university and highschool students who have a genuine desire for learning and benefiting from the experiences of the speakers.

We all work together for participating in building real societies capable of accommodating different strata ; societies that understand others, respect them, and defend their privacy; where everyone can live without discrimination or exclusion,” Ereiqat further said . Terming the forum as a first step along the path, she said, it would be held annually and would focus on one area that can “help bridge gaps between cultures.” “We are working (so that) that the next versions will be on a regional level,” she concluded.

On his part, Dr. Ebraheen Al- Adasani from the Aware Center said that although cultural diplomacy existed since long, still many regard it as a means of exporting cultural values of one country to another, rather than engaging in a cultural interaction. “For the purposes of this symposium, I define cultural diplomacy as the pursuit of better mutual understanding with the aim of eliminating differences of perceptions between nations. Knowing one another is the essence of cultural diplomacy. And in order for it to be effective, it should be an exercise of give and take rather than a one way street. The goal is not to prove that one culture is superior to the other, but rather to understand that certain concepts are perceived in a different manner in other cultures.

This awareness will help us avoid misunderstandings,” explained Al-Adasani. Nowadays, the internet and different social media platforms have made interaction between countries and individuals of different cultures much easier and more intense. “This means that cultural diplomacy has become essential in contemporary relations. While classical diplomacy is handled almost exclusively by the State, cultural diplomacy requires the involvement of multiple actors from various sections of society.

This includes higher education institutions, NGOs, sportsmen, artists and professional associations,” he pointed out. “The Aware Center, one of the NGOs in Kuwait, works towards combating the risks of misperception and misunderstanding through cultural exchange and constructive dialogue,” he concluded. The Ambassador of the United States of America to Kuwait, Matthew Tueller, said, “We as Americans see great value in cultural exchanges and cultural diplomacy.

While we do not have a Ministry of Culture as many other countries around world do, there is an entire branch of our Department of State which promotes U.S. culture abroad, brings international visitors to the United States for cultural exchanges, and promotes U.S. Education.” On the cultural diplomacy in the Middle East, he said, “Many of you may recall President Obama’s “New Beginning Speech” that he delivered on June 4, 2009 in Cairo, Egypt.

I was fortunate to be among the audience that day and I can tell you that the atmosphere was electric. Never before had an American President embarked on such an ambitious plan to bridge the gap between America and the countries in the Middle East,” and proceeded to quote the President. “What the President articulated in Cairo is something that our Embassies around the region endeavor to put into practice every day.

At times this work can be quite challenging as many peoples’ views of America are influenced heavily by movies and TV shows or by media that distorts the image of the U.S. So, working overseas, our Embassies, and particularly our Public Affairs Sections, seek to offer a more realistic picture of the American people,” stressed Tueller. “Facilitating exchanges and face-to-face interactions between individuals is the bread and butter of our public diplomacy work.

Our Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs works around the clock to maintain a wide range of high-quality exchanges between youth, students, educators, artists, athletes, and emerging leaders in the United States and more than 160 countries,” he noted. Finally he spoke about the future of cultural diplomacy and the role of technology in helping reach even more people. “The importance of social media and connective technology is to help us reach local communities that we previously did not engage with directly.

Listening to local communities is a key element of successful cultural diplomacy. Kuwait has the highest levels of social media usage compared with other countries in the region, in spite of its small population. Kuwaitis are more active than ever on social media like Twitter and Instagram,” concluded Tueller

By Nawara Fattahova, Kuwait Times Staff

A great dream continues...

To me, President Obama's speech [http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/11/06/us/politics/06-obama-election-night-speech.html] was a message about the importance of shared -- national -- identity. It was about living together through the good times and increasingly tough times. You could forgive him the moments of triumphalism as efforts to encourage and praise the citizens. I am a little less worried this morning, even though our process of "self"-government is harder and harder because of all the problems we face. Change can be good, but with all of these problems and all the uncertainty, good change needs to be sustainable. Sustainability means we work through the problems together, and it's going to take more than four more years. That's why we need to stick together and show each other our shared commitment. I can't imagine another way.

This 'Jersey Girl is inspired...

I'm so relieved that my parents have arrived home safely, to a re-electrified house and neighborhood, and I am so inspired by our local poet, who has spent days singing on the campaign trail for love of country...

BRUCE’S SPEECH FROM MADISON, WI

Let me begin with a shout out to all of our neighbors in the Northeast who are reeling from Hurricane Sandy and its immense impact. Our thoughts and prayers are with you.

So, it’s good to be here with you today–and it will be great to feel the power of your votes and voices tomorrow.

I’m here today for Wisconsin, America, and for President Obama. For the last 30 years I’ve been writing in my music about the distance between the American dream and American reality. I’ve seen it from inside and outside: as a blue collar kid from a working class home in New Jersey–where my parents struggled, often unsuccessfully–to make ends meet–to my adult life, visiting the 9th Ward in New Orleans after Katrina, or meeting folks from food pantries from all around the United States, who work daily to help our struggling citizens through the hard times we’ve been suffering

The American Dream and an American Reality: Our vote tomorrow is the one undeniable way we get to determine the distance in that equation. Tomorrow, we get a personal hand in shaping the kind of America we want our kids to grow up in.

I’m a husband and a dad, my lovely wife Patti is here with me. We’ve got three kids growing up and on their way out into the world, I’m 63 (Patti is much younger)… but we have both lived through some galvanizing moments in American history: the Civil Rights struggle, the Peace Movement, the Woman’s Movement, we played in East Berlin one year before the Fall of the Berlin Wall, and we were with Amnesty International a year before the release of Nelson Mandela and the end of apartheid. These were days when you could feel the winds of change moving and the world shifting beneath your feet.

And… we both remember another galvanizing moment, the night that President Obama was elected.

It was an unbelievable evening, when the hope of your heart felt fulfilled, when you could feel the locked doors of the past being blown open to new and previously unimaginable possibilities– to fresh Hope and Change.

Today we have another battle. Now we are charged with the hard daily struggle to make those possibilities, those changes real and enduring in a world that challenges your hopefulness, a world that is often brutally resistant to change. We’ve lived through that struggle over these past four years when the forces of opposition have been tireless.

I stood with President Obama four years ago and I’m proud to be standing with him today. Because…

I’m thankful for the historic advances in healthcare.

I’m thankful for a more regulated Wall Street that will begin to protect our citizens from the blind greed of those who over reach.

My father worked on a Ford assembly line when I was a child and I’m thankful that we have a President that had faith in the American automobile industry and that General Motors is today making cars. What else would I write about.

I’m thankful that we have a decisive President working hard to keep America safe… and I’m appreciative of the fact that, as promised, he has ended the war in Iraq and is bringing the war in Afghanistan to a close.

I’m here today because I’m concerned about Women’s Rights and health issues both at home and around the World. I don’t have to tell you about the dangers to Roe versus Wade under our opponents policies.

I’m also troubled by thirty years of an increasing disparity in wealth between our best off citizens and everyday Americans. That is a disparity that threatens to divide us into two distinct and separate nations. We have to be better than that.

Finally I’m here today because I’ve lived long enough to know that the future is rarely a tide rushing in. Its often a slow march, inch by inch, day after long day. We are in the midst of one of those long days right now. I believe that President Obama feels those long days in his bones for all 100 per cent of us. He will live those days with us.

President Obama ran last time as a man of hope and change. You hear a lot of talk about how things are different now. Things aren’t any different–they’re just realer. Its crunch time. The President’s job, our job–yours and mine– whether your Republican, Democrat, Independent, rich, poor, black, brown, white, gay, straight, soldier, civilian–is to keep that hope alive, to combat cynicism and apathy, and to believe in our power, to change our lives and the world we live in. So, lets go to work tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that.. Lets re-elect President Barack Obama to carry our standard forward towards the America that awaits us.

accessed 11/6/12 from http://brucespringsteen.net/

Mother Nature Strikes Back...

This past week has been a trying one for most people along the Northeast seaboard, and to the west, in West Virginia. Hurricane-Post Tropical Storm-Sandy has changed the lives of thousands. Over eight million lost electricity and phone service. It hurts. Home has changed. Thank goodness for talented artists to help us make sense of our situation:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BiWZ7w_vhM

More -- more credible -- news resources

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2012/10/20121019124036610672.html
Al-Jazeera English is blogging by the minute about the blast. Watch the video if you don't want to/have time to read the story.

This and other links are available at one of the best blogs on Lebanon: http://qifanabki.com/2012/10/19/bomb-hits-achrafieh-updates-commentary/

Considering the source, but staying abreast, and still dreaming about peace...

Given yesterday's horrific news about the bombing in Beirut, many who are tied to Lebanon are glued especially hard to online and satellite reporting. Here is the first story I read this morning.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2012/10/20/lebanon-protest-bombing-general/1645983/

Protesters block roads in Lebanon after car bomb

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(Photo: Hussein Malla, AP)

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Friday's explosion in Beirut's mainly Christian Achrafieh neighborhood wounded dozens and killed 8
• Casualties included the head of the intelligence division of Lebanon's domestic security forces
• Lebanon's government declared a national day of mourning Saturday for the victims

5:57AM EDT October 20. 2012 -

BEIRUT (AP) — Protesters burned tires and set up roadblocks around Lebanon on Saturday in a sign of boiling anger over a massive car bomb that killed a top security official and seven other people a day earlier — a devastating attack that threatened to bring Syria's civil war to Lebanon.

The Lebanese Cabinet held an emergency meeting Saturday as the country's opposition called for Prime Minister Najib Mikati to resign. The state-run National News Agency said security commanders would attend the meeting to discuss how to keep the peace.

The government declared a national day of mourning for the victims, who included Brig. Gen. Wissam al-Hassan, head of the intelligence division of Lebanon's domestic security forces. Dozens were wounded in Friday's blast in Beirut's mainly Christian Achrafieh neighborhood.

Many observers said the attack appeared to have links to the Syrian civil war, which has been raging for 19 months. Al-Hassan, 47, headed an investigation over the summer that led to the arrest of former Information Minister Michel Samaha, one of Syrian President Bashar Assad's most loyal allies in Lebanon.

Samaha, who is in custody, is accused of plotting a campaign of bombings and assassinations to spread sectarian violence in Lebanon at Syria's behest. Also indicted in the August sweep was Syrian Brig. Gen. Ali Mamlouk, one of Assad's highest aides.

Al-Hassan also played a role in the investigation of the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri with a massive truck bomb. A U.N.-backed tribunal has indicted four members of militant group Hezbollah, which along with its allies, now holds a majority in Lebanon's Cabinet. Hezbollah denies involvement in Hariri's killing and has refused to extradite the suspects.

Al-Hassan's department also had a role in breaking up several Israeli spy rings inside Lebanon over the past few years, Lebanese officials said.

Lebanon's fractious politics are closely entwined with Syria's. The countries share a web of political and sectarian ties and rivalries, often causing events on one side of the border to echo on the other. Lebanon's opposition is an anti-Syrian bloc, while the prime minister and much of the government are pro-Syrian.

The civil war in Syria has laid bare Lebanon's sectarian tensions as well.

Many of Lebanon's Sunni Muslims have backed Syria's mainly Sunni rebels, while Shiite Muslims have tended to back Assad. Al-Hassan was a Sunni whose stances were widely seen to oppose Syria and Shiite Hezbollah, the country's most powerful ally in Lebanon.

Lebanon's top Sunni cleric, Grand Mufti Mohammed Rashid Kabbani, condemned the assassination, calling it a "criminal explosion that targets Lebanon and its people." He called for self-restraint saying that "the criminal will get his punishment sooner or later."

Police and army troops sealed off the site of Friday's blast as military intelligence agents investigated what was the deadliest bombing in Beirut in four years.

Sharbal Abdo, a Beirut resident who lives down the block from where the car bomb detonated, on Saturday brought his six-year-old son Chris and 12-year-old daughter Jane to see what happened the day before. They were both at school when the blast ripped through the area.

"They were very afraid yesterday, and cried a lot late into the night," Abdo said. "Today I decided to bring them here and show what happened. They need to face this situation. It may be their future."

On Friday, protesters in mostly Sunni areas closed roads with burning tires and rocks in Beirut, the southern city of Sidon, the northern city of Tripoli and several towns in the eastern Bekaa Valley.

The highway linking central Beirut with the city's international airport was closed, as well as the highway that links the capital with Syria, the officials said on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.

Rafik Khoury, editor of the independent Al-Anwar daily, said the assassination was an attempt to draw Lebanon into the conflict in Syria, which has been the most serious threat to the Assad family's 40-year dynasty.

"The side that carried the assassination knows the reactions and dangerous repercussions and is betting that it will happen. Strife is wanted in Lebanon," Khoury wrote.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Considering the source -- a mainstream U.S. service that tends to over-simplify complex situations -- it sums up the history fairly well. I'll post more stories as the hours and days pass. It's really concerning, but a good idea, that the roads from Beirut to the airport and to Damascus are shut down. I keep remembering that the majority of Lebanese do not want another war in their country, but I also know how many probably feel it's the only way to make peaceful progress. Maybe Robert Frost's sentiment that the best way out is often through (for example, search on "through" at http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/A_Servant_to_Servants) sums up how they feel. But I feel that enough peace-oriented change has occurred since the "end" of the civil war in 1990/1991 that the Lebanese and international communities can spare the country from another war. Maybe all the civil society-government efforts in conflict mediation (peace in Ireland, the Balkans) and practitioner work in collaborative dialogue and peace-building projects will embolden political leaders to have the will to prevent another war in Lebanon. Maybe this situation will embolden the U.S. government to push for a Palestinian state, the absence of which is one of the main reasons Hizbullah is so strong in Lebanon.

Please, please, not again

Late-breaking news, and in the context of the Syrian civil war, this is very bad news: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-20006389

Lebanon blast: Car bombing in Beirut kills eight

The aftermath of the explosion in Beirut

Continue reading the main story

Related Stories

• In pictures: Beirut blast
• Lebanon's fears of proxy war
• Lebanon profile

A huge car bomb has killed at least eight people and injured 78 in Beirut, Lebanese state media report.

The explosion occurred in Sassine Square, a busy part of the mainly Christian district of Ashrafiya in the centre of the capital.

Ambulances have been seen rushing to square. Witnesses say the blast was heard several kilometres away.

The intended target is unclear. Tensions in Lebanon have been rising as a result of the conflict in Syria.

Friday's attack is the first major car bomb attack in Beirut for four years.

It occurred about 200m (650ft) from the headquarters of the Kataeb, better known as the Phalange, a Maronite Christian group.

The general secretariat of the Western-backed 14 March coalition of former Prime Minister Saad Hariri is also based there.

Several cars were set on fire as a result of the blast. TV footage showed considerable damage to buildings.

A nearby hospital is calling for people to donate blood to help treat the wounded.

Abstract of Recently Completed Doctoral Dissertation

Transnational, Trans-Sectarian Engagement: A Revised Approach to

U.S. Public Diplomacy toward Lebanon

A Doctoral Dissertation

by Deborah Lee Trent

The George Washington University

Columbian College of Arts and Sciences

Washington, D.C.

31 August 2012

Abstract

Broadly, public diplomacy is governmental engagement directly with global publics in pursuit of national interests. Public diplomacy engagement involves outreach, listening, informing, explaining, collaboration, and persuasion. Specific to this dissertation, the U.S. government pursues public diplomacy for the additional purpose of strengthening relationships with global publics. This dissertation employs organizational sensemaking theory and process (Weick, 1995; 2001) to explore the mutual interests that foster, and the divergent interests that impede, credible public diplomacy with the Lebanese and Lebanese American publics. The scholarly and practitioner literatures framing the dissertation are: networked cross-sector governance; collaborative citizen engagement, relational public diplomacy; and government-diaspora relations.

The two central research questions of this dissertation are 1) How do U.S. public diplomacy personnel, relevant Congressional committee staff, Lebanese Americans in U.S. civil society, and Lebanese stakeholders make sense of the challenges of public diplomacy toward Lebanon? 2) How would these stakeholders like to change the way U.S. public diplomacy policy and programs are administered?

Analyzing the organizational sensemaking narratives generated in 77 personal interviews and 27 meeting observations of key stakeholders across government and civil society in the U.S. and Lebanon has generated three main findings. 1) The U.S. designation of the Lebanese political party and militia, Hizbullah, as a foreign terrorist organization precludes U.S. public diplomacy outreach to key Lebanese audiences and discourages engagement and collaboration among key Lebanese American citizens. 2) Despite these divergent interests between the two governments, significant mutual interests exist between the two nations. They can be strengthened by: diversifying outreach among the religious sects in Lebanon and the diaspora; and, further exploiting cross-cultural social-relational processes, traditional public and cultural diplomacy approaches, more recent social media networking tools, and collaborative management of engagement through public-private partnership. 3) Engaging collaboratively with diasporans informs and facilitates outreach with the Lebanese public, fostering new political space for mediating conflict and pursuing mutually beneficial cultural and socioeconomic projects.

This dissertation contributes to the scholarship and practice of public diplomacy and government-citizen relations a new country study that explores the increasingly important domain of networked, transnational, cross-sector governance. It proposes a transnational, trans-sectarian approach for U.S. public diplomatists to strengthen collaborative engagement among the people of the U.S. and Lebanon. This approach seeks to mitigate the primary problem of credibility of U.S. policy toward Lebanon and limited public diplomacy engagement with the Lebanese and the diaspora. Overall, the dissertation informs government-to-government and government-to-people diplomacy in the broader Middle East, where sectarian conflict, civil society uprisings, and lack of a Palestinian state are major challenges.

An Arab American Comic Strip

Source: http://www.arabamericannews.com/news/index.php?mod=article&cat=Artamp;Culture&article=5960 , accessed September 18, 2012.

DC Comics’ Geoff Johns discusses new Arab American "Green Lantern" during visit to Dearborn

By Samer Hijazi

Friday, 09.14.2012, 11:17am

DEARBORN — Last week Geoff Johns, comic book writer and Chief Creative Officer of DC Comics returned to his home state of Michigan where he made some public appearances in Dearborn coming off DC Comics' announcement earlier this month that the comic book company's superhero "The Green Lantern" would be re-incarnated as an Arab American named Simon Baz who resides in Dearborn. 

Johns engages with fans during his visit to the museum last week.

Johns, born in Detroit, is half Lebanese and grew up in Grosse Pointe and Clarkston. As a child he discovered comic books in his grandmother's attic which quickly transformed into a passion for him. He studied Media Art, Screenwriting and Film Production at Michigan State University where he graduated in 1995 before moving to Los Angeles. During his earlier years there he worked on the production of a few Hollywood films including 1997's "Conspiracy Theory," staring Mel Gibson and Julia Roberts.

From there Johns was able to meet with DC Comics personnel and was given the opportunity to pitch ideas for the company, where he was heavily involved in the re-launch of DC's comic book "Teen Titans." Further down the road he became heavily involved in other DC comics titles which included "Aquaman" and an older incarnation of "The Green Lantern." John's work would also expand into television where he served as a writer on a few episodes of "Smallville," the popular long running series based on the early years of Superman.

Johns spoke with The Arab American News during his visit to Dearborn last Friday, saying that the updated version of  "The Green Lantern" had been in the works for about two years.

"I think diversifying our universe is really important to us.  So when I had the story of re-creating a new Green Lantern, I just thought maybe I'd look at my heritage and draw from that. Immediately the publishers and editors were on board. Diane Nelson, the president, approved it right away and they were very supportive of it," Johns stated during an interview before an autograph signing at Dearborn's Green Brian Comic Book store located on Michigan Ave., where dozens of comic book fans showed up for a meet and greet. 

Johns speaking at the Arab American National Museum

Additionally, the updated version of "The Green Lantern" comic book series, which was launched earlier this month with its first issue, will be partly set in Dearborn. The stories will revolve around Simon Baz, an out of work auto engineer who ends up as a car thief before the Green Lantern ring chooses him to be a "cosmic cop." Additionally the comics will tackle some of the struggles that the Arab-American community has been facing.  The first issue in the series begins with depicting Baz as a 10-year-old dealing with the current events of 9/11 and the toll it took on his Muslim family as well as his community. 

"A lot of it will take place in Dearborn. In the next issue there will be a scene that takes place on the roof of the Dearborn Music Building. His sister Sera, will also play a big role in the comics. She works at the Secretary of State," Johns added. 

The announcement of the new series has been well received in the Arab American community, coming as a surprise to many who had been used to the idea of a genre filled with dozens of superheroes that had previously been lacking in the diversity department. Last year, another major comic book company, Marvel Comics, was applauded for taking one of the first steps in diversifying their line-up, when they announced that Spiderman would be revamped  as a half Black-half Latino character for their new comic book series. But for the Arab and Muslim communities, an Arab American Muslim superhero is seen as a major step, especially in a post-9/11 era.

"In general, when you think about Arabs and Muslims in main roles in pop culture, they're always the villains,"  Linda Sarsour, executive director of the Arab American Association of New York told the New York Daily News earlier this week. "We're always the hijackers. We're always the bad people that the good American soldiers or CIA is trying to fight. To finally have the opportunity where the Arab-American can be the super hero, to be the one who saves people, is a lot more powerful an image," Sarsour added.   

Aside from an autograph signing and a meet and greet at the comic book store, Johns also gave a presentation at the Arab American National Museum located on Michigan Ave. on Saturday. He tells us that part of his visit back to Michigan was to speak to the youth and to encourage them to follow their dreams.

"I want to spread the message of how I got into the business...my twists and turns along the way and everything that I have done. The thing about comic books and writing in general is that there is no specific path or college course to take like other careers," Johns stated.  "But the truth of the matter is, whatever it is you have a passion for, you can succeed in it. All writers get rejected, and I remember my first pitch to DC Comics was rejected. There was a lot of struggle but it's just part of the business. Even Steven King was rejected, but don't let rejection deter you. You just need the drive to do it," Johns stated. 

Johns says while talks of a film adaption of the new Green Lantern are too soon to be put on the table (last year a film adaption starring Ryan Reynolds hit theaters and was considered a box office disappointment), the olive skin complected character, who will bear an Arabic tattoo on the same arm as his lantern ring, which stands for "courage," is expected to be turned into an action figure in 2013.  

Another chapter of the long story of U.S.-Israeli Relations

Thanks to Seth Anziska (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/17/opinion/a-preventable-massacre.html?pagewanted=all)

OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR

A Preventable Massacre

By SETH ANZISKA

Published: September 16, 2012

ON the night of Sept. 16, 1982, the Israeli military allowed a right-wing Lebanese militia to enter two Palestinian refugee camps in Beirut. In the ensuing three-day rampage, the militia, linked to the Maronite Christian Phalange Party, raped, killed and dismembered at least 800 civilians, while Israeli flares illuminated the camps’ narrow and darkened alleyways. Nearly all of the dead were women, children and elderly men.

Enlarge This Image

Edel Rodriguez

Multimedia

Interactive Feature

Declassified Documents Shed Light on a 1982 Massacre

Thirty years later, the massacre at the Sabra and Shatila camps is remembered as a notorious chapter in modern Middle Eastern history, clouding the tortured relationships among Israel, the United States, Lebanon and the Palestinians. In 1983, an Israeli investigative commission concluded that Israeli leaders were “indirectly responsible” for the killings and that Ariel Sharon, then the defense minister and later prime minister, bore “personal responsibility” for failing to prevent them.

While Israel’s role in the massacre has been closely examined, America’s actions have never been fully understood. This summer, at the Israel State Archives, I found recently declassified documents that chronicle key conversations between American and Israeli officials before and during the 1982 massacre. The verbatim transcripts reveal that the Israelis misled American diplomats about events in Beirut and bullied them into accepting the spurious claim that thousands of “terrorists” were in the camps. Most troubling, when the United States was in a position to exert strong diplomatic pressure on Israel that could have ended the atrocities, it failed to do so. As a result, Phalange militiamen were able to murder Palestinian civilians, whom America had pledged to protect just weeks earlier.

Israel’s involvement in the Lebanese civil war began in June 1982, when it invaded its northern neighbor. Its goal was to root out the Palestine Liberation Organization, which had set up a state within a state, and to transform Lebanon into a Christian-ruled ally. The Israel Defense Forces soon besieged P.L.O.-controlled areas in the western part of Beirut. Intense Israeli bombardments led to heavy civilian casualties and tested even President Ronald Reagan, who initially backed Israel. In mid-August, as America was negotiating the P.L.O.’s withdrawal from Lebanon, Reagan told Prime Minister Menachem Begin that the bombings “had to stop or our entire future relationship was endangered,” Reagan wrote in his diaries.

The United States agreed to deploy Marines to Lebanon as part of a multinational force to supervise the P.L.O.’s departure, and by Sept. 1, thousands of its fighters — including Yasir Arafat — had left Beirut for various Arab countries. After America negotiated a cease-fire that included written guarantees to protect the Palestinian civilians remaining in the camps from vengeful Lebanese Christians, the Marines departed Beirut, on Sept. 10.

Israel hoped that Lebanon’s newly elected president, Bashir Gemayel, a Maronite, would support an Israeli-Christian alliance. But on Sept. 14, Gemayel was assassinated. Israel reacted by violating the cease-fire agreement. It quickly occupied West Beirut — ostensibly to prevent militia attacks against the Palestinian civilians. “The main order of the day is to keep the peace,” Begin told the American envoy to the Middle East, Morris Draper, on Sept. 15. “Otherwise, there could be pogroms.”

By Sept. 16, the I.D.F. was fully in control of West Beirut, including Sabra and Shatila. In Washington that same day, Under Secretary of State Lawrence S. Eagleburger told the Israeli ambassador, Moshe Arens, that “Israel’s credibility has been severely damaged” and that “we appear to some to be the victim of deliberate deception by Israel.” He demanded that Israel withdraw from West Beirut immediately.

In Tel Aviv, Mr. Draper and the American ambassador, Samuel W. Lewis, met with top Israeli officials. Contrary to Prime Minister Begin’s earlier assurances, Defense Minister Sharon said the occupation of West Beirut was justified because there were “2,000 to 3,000 terrorists who remained there.” Mr. Draper disputed this claim; having coordinated the August evacuation, he knew the number was minuscule. Mr. Draper said he was horrified to hear that Mr. Sharon was considering allowing the Phalange militia into West Beirut. Even the I.D.F. chief of staff, Rafael Eitan, acknowledged to the Americans that he feared “a relentless slaughter.”

On the evening of Sept. 16, the Israeli cabinet met and was informed that Phalange fighters were entering the Palestinian camps. Deputy Prime Minister David Levy worried aloud: “I know what the meaning of revenge is for them, what kind of slaughter. Then no one will believe we went in to create order there, and we will bear the blame.” That evening, word of civilian deaths began to filter out to Israeli military officials, politicians and journalists.

At 12:30 p.m. on Sept. 17, Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir hosted a meeting with Mr. Draper, Mr. Sharon and several Israeli intelligence chiefs. Mr. Shamir, having reportedly heard of a “slaughter” in the camps that morning, did not mention it.

The transcript of the Sept. 17 meeting reveals that the Americans were browbeaten by Mr. Sharon’s false insistence that “terrorists” needed “mopping up.” It also shows how Israel’s refusal to relinquish areas under its control, and its delays in coordinating with the Lebanese National Army, which the Americans wanted to step in, prolonged the slaughter.

Mr. Draper opened the meeting by demanding that the I.D.F. pull back right away. Mr. Sharon exploded, “I just don’t understand, what are you looking for? Do you want the terrorists to stay? Are you afraid that somebody will think that you were in collusion with us? Deny it. We denied it.” Mr. Draper, unmoved, kept pushing for definitive signs of a withdrawal. Mr. Sharon, who knew Phalange forces had already entered the camps, cynically told him, “Nothing will happen. Maybe some more terrorists will be killed. That will be to the benefit of all of us.” Mr. Shamir and Mr. Sharon finally agreed to gradually withdraw once the Lebanese Army started entering the city — but they insisted on waiting 48 hours (until the end of Rosh Hashana, which started that evening).

Continuing his plea for some sign of an Israeli withdrawal, Mr. Draper warned that critics would say, “Sure, the I.D.F. is going to stay in West Beirut and they will let the Lebanese go and kill the Palestinians in the camps.”  

Mr. Sharon replied: “So, we’ll kill them. They will not be left there. You are not going to save them. You are not going to save these groups of the international terrorism.”

Mr. Draper responded: “We are not interested in saving any of these people.” Mr. Sharon declared: “If you don’t want the Lebanese to kill them, we will kill them.”

Mr. Draper then caught himself, and backtracked. He reminded the Israelis that the United States had painstakingly facilitated the P.L.O. exit from Beirut “so it wouldn’t be necessary for you to come in.” He added, “You should have stayed out.”

Mr. Sharon exploded again: “When it comes to our security, we have never asked. We will never ask. When it comes to existence and security, it is our own responsibility and we will never give it to anybody to decide for us.” The meeting ended with an agreement to coordinate withdrawal plans after Rosh Hashana.

By allowing the argument to proceed on Mr. Sharon’s terms, Mr. Draper effectively gave Israel cover to let the Phalange fighters remain in the camps. Fuller details of the massacre began to emerge on Sept. 18, when a young American diplomat, Ryan C. Crocker, visited the gruesome scene and reported back to Washington.

Years later, Mr. Draper called the massacre “obscene.” And in an oral history recorded a few years before his death in 2005, he remembered telling Mr. Sharon: “You should be ashamed. The situation is absolutely appalling. They’re killing children! You have the field completely under your control and are therefore responsible for that area.”

On Sept. 18, Reagan pronounced his “outrage and revulsion over the murders.” He said the United States had opposed Israel’s invasion of Beirut, both because “we believed it wrong in principle and for fear that it would provoke further fighting.” Secretary of State George P. Shultz later admitted that “we are partially responsible” because “we took the Israelis and the Lebanese at their word.” He summoned Ambassador Arens. “When you take military control over a city, you’re responsible for what happens,” he told him. “Now we have a massacre.”

But the belated expression of shock and dismay belies the Americans’ failed diplomatic effort during the massacre. The transcript of Mr. Draper’s meeting with the Israelis demonstrates how the United States was unwittingly complicit in the tragedy of Sabra and Shatila.

Ambassador Lewis, now retired, told me that the massacre would have been hard to prevent “unless Reagan had picked up the phone and called Begin and read him the riot act even more clearly than he already did in August — that might have stopped it temporarily.” But “Sharon would have found some other way” for the militiamen to take action, Mr. Lewis added.

Nicholas A. Veliotes, then the assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, agreed. “Vintage Sharon,” he said, after I read the transcript to him. “It is his way or the highway.”

The Sabra and Shatila massacre severely undercut America’s influence in the Middle East, and its moral authority plummeted. In the aftermath of the massacre, the United States felt compelled by “guilt” to redeploy the Marines, who ended up without a clear mission, in the midst of a brutal civil war.

On Oct. 23, 1983, the Marine barracks in Beirut were bombed and 241 Marines were killed. The attack led to open warfare with Syrian-backed forces and, soon after, the rapid withdrawal of the Marines to their ships. As Mr. Lewis told me, America left Lebanon “with our tail between our legs.”

The archival record reveals the magnitude of a deception that undermined American efforts to avoid bloodshed. Working with only partial knowledge of the reality on the ground, the United States feebly yielded to false arguments and stalling tactics that allowed a massacre in progress to proceed.

The lesson of the Sabra and Shatila tragedy is clear. Sometimes close allies act contrary to American interests and values. Failing to exert American power to uphold those interests and values can have disastrous consequences: for our allies, for our moral standing and most important, for the innocent people who pay the highest price of all.

Seth Anziska is a doctoral candidate in international history at Columbia University
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A version of this op-ed appeared in print on September 17, 2012, on page A23 of the New York edition with the headline: A Preventable Massacre.

More to Chew On -- and This Idea Sounds Deliciously Effective

From: http://whistlepigwhiskey.com/ , retrieved 9/15/12

The State Department’s Diplomatic Culinary Partnership: peace through deliciousness, and not a moment too soon

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By Leslie Brenner, Restaurant Critic
lbrenner@dallasnews.com
1:56 pm on September 14, 2012 | Permalink

White House executive chef Cris Comerford (left) and Blair House executive sous chef Kiesha Sellers at the State Department reception (Leslie Brenner)

This time last week, I was in Washington, D.C. for the Association of Food Journalists’ annual conference — a first for me, and it was stupendous. This is the first of what I hope will be several blog posts about events surrounding the conference.
Most notably from a news point of view, as a group we were invited to a reception at the State Department for the launch of its new Diplomatic Culinary Partnership Initiative. The initiative strives to “elevate the role of culinary engagement in America’s formal and public diplomacy efforts.” (If only we could use culinary diplomacy real quick to cool things down in the Middle East….)  Washington Post restaurant critic and AFJ member Tom Sietsema wrote a fine preview story about it.  All part of the American Chef Corps, an impressive retinue of chefs, was in attendance, including White House Executive Chef Cris Comerford, José Andres, Rick Bayless, Mary Sue Milliken and many more. The program aims to “foster cross-cultural exchange” by having the chefs participate in public diplomacy programs and “enhance formal diplomacy” through food and cooking to engage foreign leaders at Department of State functions. “This is a really important moment for chefs,” said Sam Kass, assistant chef and senior policy advisor for healthy food initiatives at the White House. “Besides chefs,” he added, “grandmothers are the only ones with real food knowledge in this country.” (Well, some of the members of the Association of Food Journalists might argue with that…)
The food and drink were pretty fabulous, including a wine bar that focused on vintages from  Michigan, Virginia, Maryland, Idaho, Oregon, Arizona, New York and, yes, Texas! (McPherson Cellars “Tre-Colore”), and an impressive spread of American charcuterie and cheeses. Some of the chefs were set up in stations making plates — I loved Mary Sue Milliken’s heirloom bean, avocado and bacon tostada, anchored by a wonderful, tangy version of an old-fashioned three-bean salad. Art Smith and Wes Morton’s roasted farro salad with smoked Carolina swordfish was terrific, too.

Pigs in blankets and tobiko blankets on smoked salmon pigs (Leslie Brenner)

And the passed hors d’ouevres were adorable, like spaghetti and meatballs (a forkful of spaghetti atop each small meatball with a dollop of marinara); tiny pizzas (each in its own Diplomatic Culinary Partnership pizza box); and a verdant pasture of pigs in blankets (the old-fashioned kind) and pig-shaped smoked salmon canapes, each wearing a blanket of tobiko — cute! Also of note: an excellent 10-year old rye whiskey from Vermont called Whistlepig and a cocktail called a George Washington Rye Rickey.
Follow Leslie on Twitter@lesbren and join her on Facebook

A Column To Chew On

Thank you to Michael Young [http://www.dailystar.com.lb/Opinion/Columnist/2012/Sep-13/187725-america-just-cannot-be-the-loved-one.ashx?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+WhatsNewInPd+%28What%27s+New+in+Public+Diplomacy%29#axzz26NqNiagZ#When:20:34:33Z] and Donna Oglesby, tweeting @Winnowingfan .

America just cannot be the loved one By Michael Young Dozens of disappointing Pew polls later, with the United States government having earmarked vast sums of money for public diplomacy, you have to wonder whether Washington hasn’t run up a blind alley in its desire to be popular among Arabs. An obscure Israeli-American real estate developer in California uploads a video condemning the Prophet Mohammad, and mobs storm the American consulate in Benghazi, killing an ambassador. In Cairo, demonstrators attack the fortified American Embassy building. Utterly irrelevant, evidently, is the fact that Egypt has benefited from billions of dollars in American aid for over three decades, or that the U.S. helped militarily overthrow Moammar Gadhafi last year. However, the issue here is not the ungratefulness of the Arabs. There were doubtless quite a few Egyptians and Libyans unhappy with what took place this week. There were probably many more with no opinion whatsoever, who are neither fond of America nor the contrary, largely because America is absent from their daily life. That doesn’t change the fact that anti-Americanism is more the norm than the exception in the Arab world, even if a vast majority of people never expresses that sentiment in violent ways. Yet who can deny that the mainstreaming of hostility toward America greatly facilitates the violence of minorities? At no time was this more obvious than after 9/11, whose 11th anniversary we commemorated this week, when initial shock soon made way for explanations, then implicit justifications, of the mass murder that had occurred. It was 9/11, and the question posed at the time, “Why do they hate us,” that sent American officials scurrying for remedies to that hatred. Public diplomacy was given a bureaucratic face-lift, radio and television stations were opened broadcasting in Arabic, and despite the invasion of Iraq, many thought they had discovered the best therapy in the exit of President George W. Bush and his replacement by Barack Obama, who, fortuitously, had “Hussein” as a middle name. Well, apparently not. Whether it is Obama or Bush, the American sirens calling for more love are apparently not having their effect. There are many reasons for this, but listing them would serve only to reinforce the argument that the Americans are to blame and must, therefore, reshape their conduct to please the Arabs. The Americans are indeed to blame in many ways, just as many in the Arab world are at fault, not least for their hypocrisy when it comes to America. However, the disconnect between America and the Arabs goes beyond perceptions of mutual behavior to include more systemic problems. It’s a given that the powerful are disliked, and no country has been more powerful than the United States in recent decades. If you have the ability to change things, but no change comes, then you somehow become responsible for everything that goes wrong. The Americans were indeed the defenders of a debilitating status quo in the Middle East, but since 2011 they have been on the side of emancipatory change, despite intense uneasiness. Yet they remain perpetually disliked, with the poll figures sometimes edging up, sometimes down, but always reflecting deep ambiguity toward the superpower. There is the Israel excuse, of course. Washington’s support for Israel is the knee-jerk pretext whenever an explanation is sought for why America is loathed by Arabs. There is a great deal to censure in Washington’s seemingly unquestioning devotion to Israel, frequently against America’s better interests, but let’s get a grip. For years numerous Arab countries have ruthlessly mistreated or manipulated the Palestinians and their cause, without provoking a discernibly negative reaction from Arab societies. In light of this, perhaps we must seriously consider that the Arab world has so internalized its disapproval of the United States over time, integrating it perfectly into a prevailing sense of Arab misfortune and frustration, that anti-Americanism has become a constant of Arab political discourse, a crutch of sorts. That is not to say that America is blameless or the Arabs always wrong; it’s to say that the positivist belief among Americans that they can be loved simply by altering their actions and manners is naively overstated. Being loved is not nearly as important as being respected, and in that regard the United States has been riding a roller coaster. When each post-Cold War administration has cast fundamental doubt on the Middle Eastern policies of its predecessor, holding it responsible for everything that is haywire in the region, expect Arabs to enjoy those catfights, but also to see their doubts about America reinforced. The reality is that when no clear, overriding strategy exists for America’s approach to the Middle East, administrations function more on the basis of domestic politics, calculations and rivalries, and these tend to be alien to the concerns of the Arab countries they influence. Few Arabs held dear Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, but America fundamentally and advantageously overhauled its policy in the region during the 1970s under their stewardship, on the basis of a careful, long-term reading of Washington’s well-being. In contrast, though George W. Bush injected democracy into America’s regional perspectives, he soon recoiled on that front, before his legacy was overturned by Barack Obama, whose principal motive in the Middle East is to minimize American involvement. The White House and the State Department would do best to save their public diplomacy funds and focus more on a redefining a lasting, bipartisan strategy toward the Middle East that can span antagonistic administrations. This has not been done in a serious way since 9/11, and it needs to be at this essential moment when Arab countries are facing momentous change. In politics, love is overrated. Michael Young is opinion editor of THE DAILY STAR. He tweets @BeirutCalling.

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13/09/2012