Article #56
Subject: I-House/Berkeley Forum on Peace in the Middle East
Author: Andrew W. Harrell
Posted: 6/21/2010 10:59:02 AM

“Can the Obama Administration Forge Lasting Peace?”
A week of discussions on Middle East Peace
organized by International House, UC Berkeley and the Exploritas travel agency

Monday June 7, lecture one by Dr. Larry Michalak, UC Berkeley Center for
Middle Eastern Studies:
Culture and Politics in the Middle East
otis@berkeley.edu

(see the posting elsewhere in this discussion board subdirectory of
President Obama’s Nobel Prize
acceptance speech for terms of reference for the current administration
philosophical viewpoint on Peacemaking).

Recommended selections from the reading list that was sent to partcipants:

General:
Approaching the Qur’an: The Early Revelations by Michael Sells
This book was banned in North Carolina. But, I found it an excellent
introduction to the Islamic Bible the Quran. I have posted some of Dr. Sells
translations of the early suras (which form the core of the revelations) in
the http://yhwhschofchrist.org/prayers Quran prayer forum.
You also may be interested in the notes I took on the during Pope’s recent
visit to Israel, these are posted in
The prayers… problems for God to solve subdirectory.

The Koran: A Very Short Introduction by Michael Cook

Israel-Palestine:
The Lemon Tree: An Arab, a Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East by Sandy
Tolan
Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, Charles Smith: A very useful and
fact filled
book that contains most of the diplomatic peace negotiation documents over
the last 30 years.

History of the Middle East:
The Modern Middle East, a History. James Galvin

Iran:
Modern Iran: Roots and Results of Revolution by Nikki R. Keddie

Iraq:
Mission Al-Jazeera: Build a Bridge, Seek the Truth, Change the World by Joshn
Rushing.
See below for comments on the excellent film on Al-Jazeera during the 1st
Gulf War which contains footage of the US bombing their compound in Baghdad
and killing one of the reporters. It is quite possible that this was
intentional, a situation similar to the Israeli’s attacking and bombing our
intelligence gathering ship the USS Liberty in during the 7 day Middle War.

US Foreign Policy in the Middle East:
The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt
Contending Visions of the Middle East: The History and Policy of Orientalism
by Zachary Lockman



Our current phonetic alphabet originated from the Phoenicians and metal
miners in the Sinai Peninsula.
Asiatic languages arise in Turkey. Indo-European in Iran, Semitic in the
Sinai.
The Syrian people translated Aristotle from Arabic back to Greek in the 12th
century.
Of course Egyptian hieroglyphics have phonetic letters so there may not have
been a clean break in the development of the modern Phonecian/Semitc letters.
See the fascinating book “How to read Egyptian Hieroglyphs by Mark Collier
and Bill Manley, UC Press for the hieroglyphs and some recent 2010 articles
in the Biblical Archeology Review for more on this.

PATIO, 1) Persians, 2) Arabs and Hamitic Africans, 3) Turks, 4) Israelis, 5)
others… a short acronym to remember the different how the peoples in the
Middle East are defined by their language. The Persian language is
characterized by subject-verb-object relationship. They are in general a
tolerant civilization Afghanistan’s tribes are mostly Persian. The Turkish
language starts about the 10th century AD and arises from the horse nomads
from Asia. The Israelis had a BC kingdom that lasted a couple of hundred
years. Others include Berbers, Chaldeans, Kurds, Armenians. These people are
connected to the source of the Indo-European languages which modern
Causasians share.

Some general conclusions from the whole week of lectures, stated by various
participants:

“If we can crack down on the Egyptians to open doors for peace, we can crack
down on the Israelis.”
“Maybe we should tell the Israelis that for all the money they spend on
building new apartments in the disputed areas that the US will cut out an
equal amount from the budget of our foreign aid to Israel.”
“What we need is Peace with justice in order to have lasting peace.”
“We need to help Palestine get its act together, so they can have one voice
and be effective in negotiating with Israel(we can do this by working through
the Arab league)”
“Jerusalem was the main object of the war of 1948. The Arabs took most of it
and held it until 1948. But, what is its status now?”
“Israel has declared that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. But up to now
no country has moved their embassy to Jerusalem.”
“Israel need to accept Jerusalem as the capital of part of an Arab state.”
“Recently Orthodox Jews have been taking over more of Jerusalem. They say for
instance, ‘Arabs breed like rabbits… and don’t serve in the military.”
“If there were a Palestinean state there could be a ‘right of return’ to this
state.”
“Borders could be changed.”
“Palestinians might accept 20 to 25 per cent of the area if they had a
captial in East Jerusalem.”



Lecture 2 Monday June 7 Afghan/US Foreign Policy by Professor Wali Ahmadi, UC
Berkeley, Near Eastern Studies.

1950s area in grip of Soviets, nationalization of oil in Iran by Mousedeq… US
began to side with Pakistan with respect to the Pashtun status questions.
Afghanistan considered “outlandish” US did not support the modernization of
their Army so they went to the Soviets for this. Haq faction opposed Soviets,
but they were replaced in 1975 by the Pashtuns. Kamal replaced by Nazi? Bula
in 1986 (head of Soviet Secret Police. Kabul fell in 1992 to deeply divided
Mujahadeen . In 1997 the Taliban emerge from a group of madrassahs (religious
study groups which have free tuition) which became places for anti-Soviet
resistance. The oil rush contributed to the US interest in the area but the
US did not embrace Taliban even though this was recommended by Mr. Akmanozaid
(spelling?). Later the US requested the Taliban hand over Osama Bin Laden.
They refused. So this cemented US opposition to them. Lately, there has been
a return of the Taliban due to: 1) imposition of a political order which
does not represent their hopes.
2) Corrupt and dysfunctional government headed by a US puppet.
3) US being sidetracked by an invasion of Iraq.
The basic mistake the US has made is repeated the “treatment of the region as
a patchwork of tribes (backward).”

Lecture 3 Tuesday morning, Dr. Michalak, Conflict Resolution in the Middle
East
1937 statement by David Ben Gurion “With the compulsory transfer (of the Arab
population) we would have a vast area for settlement. I support the
compulsory transfer. I don’t see anything immoral in it.”
Before World War I there is a history of problems with piracy in the Middle
East (the US marines were used to intervene against the Barbary pirates). In
terms of foreign policy after World War I “realpolitik”
(the politics of expediency more than principle) was used by Clemenceau and
the British against the Ottoman Empire. The Italians also believed
that “winners could screw over the losers”. The Balfour declaration was
issued in which the europeans moved in and took over the Middle East.
Colonization was a good word.
The Ottomans were on the side of the Germans. The Ottoman Sultan signed a
treaty of seven which essentially gave up all of Anatolia. In the new treaty
of Lausanne in 1923 we get the “New Turkey”.
The American approach of Woodrow Wilson was less “realpolitik” and more
idealistic. It included the following principles: 1) self-determination, 2)
open covenants freely arrived at. Ever since then American Foreign Policy has
been characterized by high principles and high morals instead of the openly
avowing of national interests which characterizes “realpolitik”.
After World War II, we have the Cold War where the United States in public
tried to represent “bad over good”. Instead the US in private overthrew the
Mosaddiq regime in Iran. The reason was not to promote democracy but because
this region was the key to exploitation of the areas “oil resources”. The
British empire was based on its Navy and the power of the Navy was based on
readily available oil.
The US has been involved on the side of the Israelis every since Eisenhower.
Since 1977 Menachim Begin (a former terrorist) was in charge in Israel. He
was a nice man, but very ruthless. The camp David agreements were compromised
after Egypt agreed it would never attack Israel. This gave them military
dominance of the entire region. Contrary to the public perception all the
parts of this treaty were agreed to before the conference. Begin then used
this agreement as “cover” to invade Lebanon. There are two possible Middle
East peace solutions: a “two state solution” and a “one state solution”.
George Bush Sr., a smart man, led the U.S. in its invasion of Iraq after the
first Gulf war which Iraq started by invading Kuwait. The war was not
presented as being about “oil” and at that time we were still a “knight in
shining armour” in terms of our rationale for it. But, its real rationale was
based on a “realpolitik” argument of self-interest.
Each US administration inherits a situation which it did not make. The
prophet Mohammed is supposed to have been a successful negotiator between
Christians and Jews. There is a story how he mediated among the arab tribes
when the Rock was moved, letting each tribe hold a corner of what is was
attached to while it was moved. In the Middle East, there is a long history
of intermediation of talks in order to set up pre-agreements for peace
conferences. Arab tradition has the “dove” as a symbol of mediation
for “courtly love”. It keeps one party from losing face if the other party
does not agree to a proposal. The Iranian hostage crisis was resolved by
means of Algerian mediators. George Bush Sr. negotiated this. The Iranians
would keep the hostages until they got the military spare parts they needed.
The U.S. is not a very good mediator because it has already taken sides. What
we have to do to get peace is to 1) work with others, 2) be more frank in the
dealings, 3) use mediators. The best mediators to get are someone completely
out of the picture, eg. The Norwegians were used to facilitate the OSLO
accords.

Lecture 4, Tuesday afternoon, Prof. Maziar Behruz, San Francisco State
History Dept., Iran and the US.

5 issues: 1) palestinian issue, 2) nuclear issue, 3) terrorism, 4) Israel,
5) US occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan

5) Iranian viewpoint: “Why is the US encircling us with huge occupation
forces in Iraq, Afghanistan, Persian Gulf, Gulf of Oman?”
Since they view foreign policy in “realpolitik” terms they believe there is a
need of atomic weapons for themselves.
In the Bush administration, 2001,2002 instead of opening up new progress
after the Clinton approach, the groundwork was layed (through axis of evil
statements) for confrontation. The Iran/Iraq war 1980-1988 was the longest
war there in the twentieth century. The aim of the Obama administration in
Iraq and Afghanistan is not to have victory that creates conditions in which
this area is manageable, but to create conditions where we can learn. “If you
open your fist, we will shake it!”
2)
The non-proliferation treaty (NFT) says that if governments voluntarily agree
not to develop nuclear weapons, then they will receive nuclear technology.
North Korea pulled out, now they have 7. India, Pakistan, Israel have not
signed, they developed their own technology. Japan, Germany, Italy can
transition to military nuclear technology, but they choose not to. Iran can
now enrich uranium up to 3%, for military grade you need 90%. Is a nuclear
armed Iran a threat to the region? No, because if they use it, it would be
the last time for them. Iran cannot be dictated to. It needs to be negotiated
with. The current Obama offer:
“Give us (ie give it to the Russians) ½ of your 3% uranium.

Film, Tuesday night, “Control Room” A documentary exploration of Arab and
American bias in news reporting about the Middle East. It chronicles the arab
Al Jezeera’s experience in trying to broadcast news during the 1st Gulf War.

“Purpose of Al jazeera is to educate the people about free debate(democracy)”
Senior producer

The Bush administration called Al jazeera “the mouthpiece of Osama Bin Ladin”

The US is inventing a purpose as it goes along when it says it believes
that “Saddam has the “will” to use nuclear weapons against us” (statement of
Centcom public affairs officer PAO LT). To reply to this the Al jazeera rep
asks “When…when did He do this?”
“The US initialy hopes that 40 cruise missiles and some paratroopers are
going to capture Sadaam, but that failed.”
“You can crush everyone, but don’t ask us to love it as well” Al Jazeera (AJR)
“I have absolute confidence in the ability of the American people to stop the
American empire.” AJR

American PAO LT “AJ is biased toward Sadaam…one example they never show
Iraq troops killing babies, only the US bombing”.

To Arabs the images of Israeli soldiers attacking Palestinians merge into
that of the American troops attacking Iraq and the large amount of collateral
damage of this war. This has resulted in Arab perceptions of the aggression
of the US side during the war and been a disaster for the US public relations.
“The Americans are trying to change everything in the area in order to lease
the Israeli President.”


The media is centered on feelings, because that is what attracts viewers.
Therefor, it does not focus in on words, only images. And, doing this, it
usually misses the truth of what is really happening. For example, the
Lockerbee bombing: This terroist incident has now been shown to most likely
have been done by the Iranians in response to an earlier US shoot-down of
their commercial jet in the Persian Gulf. But, the news media has not
discussed this possibility (discovered after a long investigation) because
earlier the conventional wisdom put out blamed Quadaffi and his secret
service for it.

Lecture 5, Islam and Politics by Prof. Emily Gottreich, UC Berkeley Center
for Middle Eastern Studies
emilyrg@berkeley.edu

Islam is currently the fastest growing religion in US. Most growth is
occurring among Latinos. There are different types of Islam: Sunnis, Suffis,
Salawis, Shia. What is the difference between Islam and Muslims, between
Bzyantine(Greek) and Zorasterian Empire ? A new empire emerged by means of a
single Man (an arab prophet). He came from a pagan background. Judaism and
Islam are very similar religions. Both are monotheistic and have trouble with
the “Trinity” (How can there be One?). Both rely of dietary laws and both
have strong legal traditions. Hence it may be more correct to talk about a
Judaic/Islamic civilization in the Middle East than a Judaic/Christian one.

Colonization is a source of many of the problems in the Middle East. It has
directly impact on the culture, relgion, and exploitation of the region for
its natural resources. For instance, the French invasion of Egypt (3 years)
and Algeria. It is with the Iranian Revolution of 1979 that Islam comes back
to center stage.



One of the main political challenges today is the debate between
democratization and authoritarianism. Islam is simultaneously Church and
State. Judaism was first associated with the State, then distanced itself
from it. Christianity arose in opposition to the State. Moses delivered Law.
Jesus founded Faith. Mohammed is a very real historical figure (in contrast
to Moses and Jesus). He was a ruler for a long time. There is no “render unto
Caeser what is Caeser’s” in Islam. Non-Muslim pay a tax.
The Big Question is: “How do you advance Islamic democratic reforms with
current US Policy?”

Lecture 6 Dr. Hatem Bazain (teaches Islamic Law at Boalt Hall, UC Berkeley
Law School), Palestine and 20th century US foreign policy in Middles East
based on two pillars

1) oil
2) History of Palestine/Israel
Balfour, an anti-semite who wanted to get the Jews out of England.
In the UN resolution 181 palestinians were not party to the UN discussions
and hence became victums.
There was a 50% Jewish to 42% Palestinians. Before that the Palestinians
owned 94% of the land.
In terms of population, Palestinians were 65% and the Jews 35%
As a result of 181, the 1st war takes place. The arab officers were led by
the British who were the only legitimate forces attemping to engage. There
was interdiction on the sea of supplies and ammunition coming to help the
Arabs.
After the war the Israeli plan “Dalet” involved massacres occuring in Arab
areas in order to depopulate them. The massacre of Dassea(?) was carred out
by Menachim Begin. Albert Einstein distanced himself from this in a letter
written against it at the time. The concept used to justify these massacres
was “You do not have right to your land because we are going to make
the ‘desert bloom’”.
After this were UN Resolutions 242 and 338. These call for israel to withdraw
from all position after the 1967 war. There were now about 4-5 million
refugees who were relocated around borders still in driving distance of their
ancestral homes.
The Oslo agreement provided for security for the Israeli settlements and laid
out rights for water and airspace.
The Palestinians were given 2.5% of West Bank to govern.
In Area A there is control over population but not land.
In Area B there are joint patrols
In Area C there is complete control by the Israelis.

Israel operates under the principle that facts on the ground shape the
negotiations.
The Palestinians are not resisted Israeli because of direction from Iran but
would be
Doing this whether Iran was helping or not..

Lecture 7 Maj Gideon Lustig IDF, Vice Counsel General of Israel to the
Pacific NW.
Bachelor degree in Islamic studies, specializes in terrorist studies.

A month ago Sen. (Vice President) Biden visited the region trying to start
talks. A statement was unfortunately released at that time that 1600 new
housing units were to be built.
There needs to be 1 government controlling the Gaza strip. Right now there
are 3 (Hamas has a shadow government).
Land taken in 1948 was not from a “Palestinean entity”
Israel wants a Palestinean state. But it would insist on a demilitarized one
(with no tanks or long range rockets). There is now a threat due to Kassam
and Katuyusha rockets that they have. Iran and Syria are collaborating with
Hezbollah to destabilize the region.
Maj Lustig said He believes that we should always look at the “big picture”
when talking about the Middle East. He then gave some slides about the
general situation and states in the region.
Some of the partcipants made the comments after he left that the reason he
took this point of view was not to have to answer questions about current
events (the recent interdictions of shipments).

Lecture 8 Friday 9 am, Professor Nicole Watts, San Francisco State U., The
Kurds and the US.

The Kurds have never really been in a settled status. Formed as a group about
1000-1500 years ago, their Indo-European language stands out from the Persian
of the rest of the area.
PKK Kurdish guerrillas, part of the Kurdish communist party in Turkey
Being Kurdish is not about skin color or religion.
Speaker does not think a new “Kurdistan’ is the answer to the Kurds problems.
Its not so simple. Not all Kurds live in historic Kurdistan, what happens to
them if
A new state is created?
The US has not put any pressure on Turkey to talk to the PKK .
The KDP formed Stalinist leftist Kurds in Turkey.
Up to 1991 and the 1st Gulf war the Turkish military was aligned with us.
After that the Parliament’s
Began to change their attitude because of our foreign policy. Turkey still
wants to get in the EU.
But, it has such a large population that the EU is afraid this would hurt
them economically.
The PKK maintains multiple command posts in Europe, one in Cyprus, one in
Baghdad.

The KDF and PKK have long sought for more independence for themselves
They also opposed the US Army in Iraq.
In the 1990 the PKK engaged in active warfare in Iraqi Kurdistan with other
Turkish Kurds.

The US needs to push for more open debate.
Question: Is the Turkish army in lock step with the ruling party against the
Kurds?
Answer: No. there is a lot of discussion at the high levels of the government
about how to
Handle the Kurdish situation. If Turkey were to invake North Iraq if would
only be to protect its own
Interests rather than to get anything.

The EU thinks Turkey needs to clean up its act with respect to the Kurds. Up
to now the Kurds do not
Have observer status in the UN.

Lecture 9, Friday morning, wrap up and summary of week by Dr. Michalak
Lecture
1) PATIO, an acronym that references the people in the area, provides the
context for developing Peace in the region
2) Afghanistan—We got sidetracked in Iraq and gave the Taliban in this area
reestablish themselves. How will we know when Iraq or the Afghans are
democratic? Obama has come into a chess game where the current administration
in Afghanistan is ineffective, corrupt.
3) Promises film—Some people hold hope for a resolution between the
parties “But, in order to have a partner or process you have to have
a ‘peace’ to keep’”
Palestinean rockets provide an excuse for Israeli to go on persecuting the
Palestineans.
4) The US policy has an unfortunate tendency to do the things we feel are in
our interests and clothe this in morality. Mediation is the key so solving
conflicts in the Middle East.
5) Iran—M.B. talked about how our nuclear proposals generate the greatest
threat with respect to destroying World Peace because of instability between
India and Pakistan. It is rational for Iran to want to get the bomb. The
countries that already have it need to first reduce there arsenals before
trying to prevent others from getting it.
6) Control Room film—Us probably targeted the building with the correspondent
on the roof, who was killed, in order to prevent intelligence threat to our
operations. The Israeli’s did the same thing in the 7-day war against our
ship Liberty in the Suez canal.
7) Islam--- Islam reached a high point during the middle ages. Since then it
has been declining, especially due to the Industrial Revolution in the West.
They have a dilemna, “How can you keep your own soul while assimilating with
the West.
8) Palestine—Speaker did not see any hope for progress in Peace talks until a
2nd Obama administration (if this happens).
9) Israel--- Speaker backed off from small picture (people being killed on
the West Bank) to talk about the “big picture” It is not just the
Palestineans who are kidnapping Jews, the Israelis have been kidnapping
Palestineans for years. A group of the Palestineans do not recognize Israel’s
right to exist. But an element of the Jews also do not recognize the right of
the Arabs to be in the area (they want to resettle them outside of the
current state of Israel). Clinton asked Yassar Arafat would he accept a state
outside of Israel. He said no, for he would be assasinated if he did. The
speaker thinks the Israelis need to more helpful to the Palestineans in order
to help the US>