Potentials, Challenges ahead of Muslims’ Reaction to US Embassy Move to Al-Quds

Alwaght- the US President Donald Trump's moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to al-Quds (Jerusalem), his presidential campaign promise, gas bring the Palestinian cause as the top issue in the whole region and the Muslim world.

Many countries around the world voiced their opposition or concerns over Washington's provocative move. Regarding the Muslim countries, despite their unified stance against the US measure, some states have a history of the inconsistency of views and actions, short-living protests, and use of inefficient instruments to deal with Palestinian case which makes them practically unable to protect the Palestinian rights and deter the Israeli regime's crimes.

However, due to fact that Israeli regime is implementing a long-designed roadmap to fully occupy the Palestinian lands including al-Quds, where hosts one of the holiest sites in Islam, Muslim governments have decided to support the Palestinians. According to the Turkish officials whose country currently presides over the Organization for Islamic Cooperation (OIC), the member-states in their recent emergency conference on May 18 have considered a set of mechanisms to take practical steps against the US embassy relocation and Israeli regime's violation of Palestinians' rights.

But what potentials do Muslim states have to realize their pro-Palestinian agenda. Here is only a short list of them: 

- Accounting for about 25 percent of the global population

- Having 12 percent share of the global trade

- Presence in the international organizations with 57 states

- being located in strategic regions such as West Asia

- Enjoying the very rich energy and mineral resources, and also huge military development capacities

If united, Muslims not only would be able to eliminate the hardest challenges and risks in political, economic, and military terms but also they could pursue their national interests together more powerfully. However, Muslim states are not as united as they could be and some of them are even at loggerheads with each other.

One of hurdles ahead of Muslim states to force Israeli regime to end its crimes against Palestinians is the unwavering US support in diplomatic and military terms for Tel Aviv. Since Trump assumed the power at the White House in early 2017, the US as a superpower very openly unveiled its pro-Israeli biased policy in mediating the so-called peace process between the Palestinians and Israelis. This element works as a firm deterrence to the functionality of any punitive measures taken by the Muslim states to counter the embassy moving. The US has a right of veto, which means the Muslim-proposed anti-Israeli, pro-Palestinian resolutions at the United Nations Security Council are totally ineffective. The great economic strength is another factor coming to the US help to make up for any possible damages coming from any boycott imposed on the countries siding with the US in its controversial diplomatic mission relocation.

On the other side, there is another significant hurdle making any confrontational measures impossible to function properly and it is the existence of dictatorships profoundly reliant on the West and particularly Washington whose dictates are precisely followed by them in favor of the Israeli regime. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and even Egypt are the main states with huge reliance on the US.

Despite these roadblocks, once the Muslim states decide to push forward with penal steps against those providing backing to the US illegitimate transfer of embassy, Trump’s project will suffer a hard blow.

Clearly, Donald Trump won the presidential race with a set of promises, first of them was boosting the economic and living conditions of the American citizens under the “America first” slogan, followed by a pledge to scale down the US expenditures as well as aids to the international organizations and foreign countries. Therefore, Muslim states could sanction Guatemala and Paraguay that followed the US suit to relocate their embassy to al-Quds as a deterrent measure against few countries that mull doing the same.

Moreover, the US is enjoying the veto power at the UNSC. But frequent vetoing of massively-supported resolutions comes with political prices to Washington. Additionally, Muslims can raise the case to the International Court of Justices based in Hague. A potential verdict against the US move that recognizes the embassy transfer illegal, could prevent small countries from taking steps akin to Washington’s.

All in all, if the Muslim world fails to firmly respond to such small countries as Paraguay and Guatemala for their embassy moving, very definitely more small states will prospectively bribed or forced into recognizing al-Quds as the capital of the Israeli regime.  

One year on, Trump remains the cause of - and solution to - the Qatar crisis

Andreas Krieg

In reality, Washington has been this crisis's centre of gravity from the beginning

Photo: US President Donald Trump shakes hands with the Emir of Qatar Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, DC, on 10 April, 2018 (AFP)

When it turned out the statements released by Qatar's news agency were the product of an external cyber-attack, and not the actual words of the country's emir, few could imagine it was all part of a masterplan to change the regime in Doha.

The events that unfolded threw the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) into the worst crisis since its creation - a crisis so obsolete that now, a year later, it is hard to believe that the blockade against Qatar is still ongoing. But US President Donald Trump seems to have made a commitment to get it fixed.

Counting the cost

For a year, Qatar has been subjected to an air, land and sea blockade by its three Arab neighbours, leaving it with just a small corridor through Iranian air space to supply its population. For a year, families on both sides of the border have been forcefully separated, tearing apart centuries of tribal and family ties. For a year, a war of narratives and unsubstantiated allegations has been waged by Abu Dhabi and Riyadh to undermine Qatar's reputation regionally and internationally.

The self-declared "anti-terrorism quartet" has spiced the feud with the presentation of fake emirs and silly announcements, such as the most recent statement by Saudi Arabia to build a canal to cut off Qatar.

There have been a range of estimates circulating about the economic costs of the blockade on Qatar. Multiple outlets have gone with the argument that Qatar has spent up to $38bn on relieving the pressure from the blockade - a number that has not been officially verified. The IMF has gone with $40bn, though it could also be as low as between 25 and 30 billion.  

For a year, a war of narratives and unsubstantiated allegations has been waged by Abu Dhabi and Riyadh to undermine Qatar's reputation regionally and internationally

In the initial months of the blockade Qatar, spent in excess of $2bn per month cultivating new routes to supply the country with food, building material and other essentials. Economies of scale have brought costs down.

Yet the financial costs of the blockade have not just been borne by the government, but an increasing number of private individuals and commercial companies who have chipped in to the national effort to deal with the consequences of the crisis. 

After the initial escalation, the blockading countries quickly exhausted their means to exercise pressure. Qatar was presented with a list of demands it could never have met without surrendering its sovereignty.

This suggested that these extreme measures were just a prelude to a military intervention, rather than a means to actually extract any concessions from Doha.

In reality, Washington has been this crisis's centre of gravity from the beginning. After years of unsuccessfully trying to change Qatar's liberal policies, mute Al Jazeera and replace its revolutionary royal family, the UAE and Saudi Arabia had sensed an opportunity to take sweeping actions against their neighbour with a new American president, one who had colluded with the two crown princes and their surrogates.

A man looks at his phone on the corniche in the Qatari capital Doha on 2 July, 2017 (AFP)

Through an impressive communication stunt, the UAE in particular had built relations deep in the heart of neo-conservative power in Washington, creating the impression that they had unprecedented freedom to manoeuvre in the region.

A strategic miscalculation

But six months into the crisis, at the end of 2017, it became clear that the actions of the blockading countries had been based on a massive strategic miscalculation. While Trump had endorsed the blockade in his infamous Rose Garden Speech in June 2017, by the autumn he was ready to help mediate.

Aides from the US State and Defence departments were able to convince the president that the US had more to lose than gain from a feud that was undermining its regional front against terrorism and Iranian expansionism. At the same time, Qatar had demonstrated - not least in its Strategic Dialogue with the US in January 2018 - that it has not just always been a reliable partner in the region, but that it is the more reasonable party in this crisis.

Through an impressive communication stunt, the UAE in particular had built relations deep in the heart of neo-conservative power in Washington, creating the impression that they had unprecedented freedom to manoeuvre in the region

Although Qatar has made it clear that its sovereignty is not up for negotiation, it has been open to Kuwaiti mediation. With the signing of extensive and far-reaching memorandums of understanding with the United States and other European partners, Doha has underlined its commitments to fighting terrorism and terrorism finance.

Qatar has retreated from the theatres of the Arab Spring, surrendering the playing field to its neighbours, who wish to enforce their myth of "authoritarian stability". Hence, any grievance that Riyadh and Abu Dhabi might have had after 2011, Qatar has long addressed – something the Trump administration has acknowledged.

Trump's promise to Qatar's emir in April 2018 to solve the Gulf Crisis has set in motion the US diplomatic machine, bypassing the Kuwaiti emir, whose honest and unbiased attempt to mediate between the parties has not been respected by Saudi Arabia, the UAE or Bahrain.

Lasting damage

Instead, Trump has proposed Oman take on an arbitration role, representing Saudi Arabia and Bahrain in Doha. The UAE has so far resisted any pressure from Washington to pave the way for reconciliation – MBZ's decision not to fly to Washington appears to be less a voluntary one and more one based on Trump's refusal to receive him after Abu Dhabi's decline to accept the US's initiative.

MBS, on the other hand, has built heavily on US endorsement. He requires Washington's help in getting out of the Yemen quagmire and assistance in liberalising the crippled Saudi economy.

Egypt and Bahrain might follow their big brother even if Abu Dhabi continues to go it alone, as it does already in Yemen.Therefore, with indirect channels of communication being reestablished via Oman, and US pressure to end this obsolete crisis, Saudi Arabia might feel more inclined than UAE to reach a deal with Doha. 

Whatever the outcome of the latest initiative, the peoples of the Gulf will not forget what happened last summer. More significantly, they will not forget how it happened. The damage to the social fabric of the region and the organisation of the GCC will be lasting.

Andreas Krieg is an assistant professor at the Defence Studies Department of King's College London and a strategic risk consultant working for governmental and commercial clients in the Middle East. He recently published a book called Socio-Political Order and Security in the Arab World.

The view from Iran: Treacherous America, spineless Europe

Seyed Mohammad Marandi

US President Donald Trump has a problem with 'Death to America' slogans. Is the widespread desire of ordinary Iranians to end US arrogance, duplicity and hegemony that difficult for The Donald to grasp?

Photo: An Iranian woman walks past a mural on the wall of the former US embassy in the Iranian capital Tehran on 8 May, 2018. (AFP)

There's a method to Trump's madness, some Iranians believe - while others see little actual methodology involved in his decision-making process. Before the age of Trump, the conversation in Tehran about relations with the West has almost always involved debate on two key questions: US trustworthiness and EU significance.

The longstanding and prevailing view has been that the United States is politically dishonest and the European Union is inconsequential. During the 2013 election campaign of President Hassan Rouhani, this assessment of the US was publicly challenged while the consensus about the Europeans remained unchanged.

Substantive results

President Rouhani believed that the European Union did not have the capacity, or at least the will, to act as a global player. After all, he spent a considerable amount of time leading nuclear negotiations with Germany, France, and the United Kingdom and concluded that these three countries were ineffectual and that Iran needed to negotiate with the United States for substantive results.

After lengthy deliberations in Tehran, where advocates of direct negotiations insisted that the US had decided to change policy and accept Iran's full legal right to a peaceful nuclear programme, direct US-Iran talks were scheduled.

Despite deep skepticism about US reliability and intentions, the Iranians decided to put their assessment of the Americans to the test. Before the 2013 Iranian presidential election, they accepted a US proposal for secret and direct negotiations in Oman.

Despite deep skepticism about US reliability and intentions, the Iranians decided to put their assessment of the Americans to the test

Further proof that the stars were aligned was that Iran's former ambassador to the United Nations, Dr Javad Zarif, a veteran diplomat with substantial experience dealing with US politicians, think tanks and media, was to lead these negotiations after President Rouhani's inauguration.

In order to open a new chapter in Iran-US relations, Rouhani and his political backers were willing to make significant concessions to close a nuclear deal. The individual in this camp who was probably the most cautious about conceding too much was the foreign minister himself. Meanwhile, those who passionately opposed the deal warned about past experiences, relentlessly reminding the government and the public of the US history of deceptiveness.

After all, they had decades of experience with US "promises" since the 1981 Algiers Accords in which the US committed itself to no longer intervene politically or militarily in the internal affairs of Iran.

American aggressions

Almost from the onset, the Americans repeatedly and flagrantly violated the agreement - through "crippling sanctions", funding terrorist organisations, downing an Iranian civilian airliner, destroying Iranian oil facilities, aiding Saddam Hussein in his use of chemical munitions and providing him with political cover during his devastating eight-year war with Iran.

Still, the Iranians persisted in extending opportunities for goodwill. After the Iran-Iraq war ended, for instance, Iran gave a major oilfield to the US Conoco oil company to develop. Despite the US government being kept abreast of developments during four years of Iranian negotiations with the energy company, Washington blocked the deal immediately after an agreement was reached.

A handout picture provided by the Iranian Parliament on 9 May 2018 shows Iranian MPs preparing to burn a US flag in the parliament in Tehran (AFP)

In the aftermath of terror attacks on September 11, Iran negotiated and cooperated with the United States over Afghanistan, only to be labeled a part of an "axis of evil." Under Obama, the United States imposed "crippling sanctions," punishing ordinary Iranians and killing thousands of people who were unable to obtain live-saving pharmaceuticals until Iran was able to find ways to bypass the sanctions.

Today, due to years of experience and the very recent global shift in balance of power, Iran is much better prepared and positioned to deal with sanctions

It armed Iran's adversaries to the teeth, unleashed armies of Takfiri jihadists inside Iran's geographical "strategic depth," and deployed the world's most potent weapons systems on Iran's borders.

Those aggressions are okay, but Trump has a problem with "Death to America" slogans? Is the widespread desire of ordinary Iranians to end US arrogance, duplicity and hegemony that difficult for The Donald to grasp?

Despite his skepticism about US sincerity, Ayatollah Khamenei gave the go-ahead for President Rouhani to pursue nuclear negotiations, stating publicly that if the United States demonstrates good will other issues could subsequently be discussed.

As expected, the opposite happened. While the Iranian side angered its domestic critics by exercising significant flexibility, the US administration began violating the spirit and letter of the agreement almost immediately after it was announced.

An ugly visa restriction law and the Iran Sanctions Act were passed under Obama, more individuals and companies were sanctioned, but most importantly, behind closed doors, the US was warning banks, financial institutions, insurance companies and others not to do business with Iran - in clear violation of Articles 26 and 29 of the agreement.

The Iranians, meanwhile, not only complied with every expectation of the agreement, in certain instances they beat the clock in delivering their commitments.

Tangible results

Under Trump, the collapse of the JCPOA gained pace and reached a stage where most Iranians believe it to be dead. Over almost three years, they have seen few tangible results from halting their peaceful nuclear programme and meeting every one of their obligations.

Iranians believe that as the US exits the agreement, the US government will be seen by the international community as irresponsible, unreliable and aggressive. In contrast, by delaying its own exit for a few weeks to explore EU spine-growth capabilities, Iran will be vindicated further.

As they were vindicated when incoming US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo admitted to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that Iran was not moving towards building a nuclear weapon even before the nuclear deal - unwittingly destroying a 15-year-old dishonest US narrative.

Ironically, this comes as Russia and China are facing similar hostility and pressure, and as a result, have reached similar conclusions.France's Emmanuel Macron and Germany's Angela Merkel will also be viewed as damaged goods for persistently attempting to appease Trump and receiving nothing whatsoever in return. The EU is increasingly seen as ineffectual if not irrelevant, thus creating a greater incentive for Iran to pivot to China and Russia, both economically and politically.

Today, due to years of experience and the very recent global shift in balance of power, Iran is much better prepared and positioned to deal with sanctions. Unlike a decade ago, it has powerful regional allies and its relationships with rising non-western powers have evolved significantly.

If western countries shut their doors, there are other doors opening to Iran and the ultimate biggest loser in this process will be the US, a weak and submissive Europe, and their erratic regional client regimes. The choice is theirs to make.

- Seyed Mohammad Marandi is a professor of English Literature and Orientalism at the University of Tehran. 

Netanyahu's plot to destroy Palestinian identities

David Lawley

US transferred its embassy to al-Quds because the Zionist lobby in the US is enormous, Walkelin said, adding that there are lots of banks and money they are bringing to the United States; Jewish lobby in America is very powerful indeed and they are always doing business inside the country; nobody cares about morals or family values, people’s lives, love and peace and these things; they only care about how much money are in their pockets and how much pleasure they can have with that money.

David Lawley Walkelin visited Iran in mid-May to atted the 6th International Conference of Independent Thinkers and Artists (New Horizon), where he sat with Mehr News correspondent Lachin Rezaian to discuss JCPOA and US embassy move.

Regarding the trust in European countries to continue the implementation of JCPOA, he said “yes, Iran can trust in EU.”

He said the issue now is the re-imposition of sanctions; US did not actually destroyed the deal, however, it just left the door a little bit open; Trump said he wouldn’t certify the deal, which means that somebody can take it back to the Congress in 60 days. And also due to the pressure that Europe will give to Trump, maybe the US might change the decision.

Netanyahu wants European countries to withdraw from Iran deal like the US, too. In his eyes the deal is not good, because after some years, Iran can start its nuclear program again and they don’t want that because they believe, which is rubbish, Iran would use nuclear weapons against them.

It is necessary for Iran to have the nuclear program, so JCPOA is a good idea to stay in it.

Expressing that President Rouhani made a good decision on protecting the deal, he said “nuclear deal is a good deal; the involved parties have worked a lot on it and it has many advantages; for Iran it is a good deal because Iran can still develop its ballistic missiles and other weapons.”

Walkelin underlined that “it is necessary for Iran to have the nuclear program, so JCPOA is a good idea to stay in it, especially that it is the only deal we have; having a deal is better than no deal.”

On the possibility of implementation and survival of JCPOA without US, he said “it is a question for the future, you cannot tell it right now. We have to wait what is going to happen to the deal in the Congress and if they would vote for the sanctions.”

He stressed that Netanyahu is trying to push Iran to take the first move; he wants Iran to try to hit Israel so that he can hit it back ten times bigger. He keeps trying that.

Touching upon the relocation of US embassy to Jerusalem al-Quds, he called Trump’s move again a dangerous one. “It is up to the Palestinians and President Rouhani and other nations who are supporting Palestine to step in proving that al-Quds has been in the entire history a holy city, it doesn’t belong to Jews. You don’t make a holy city the capital of one religion, so the decision was nonsense and the most provocative move Trump could have done which has been faced with the protests in the rest of the world. “

He said Mr. Rouhani must pay visit to other countries who do not support Trump on the issue and honestly and openly talk about what else they can do to deconstruct the idea.

Regarding the motivation behind the move, he said the relocation of embassy was an idea totally based on Zionist desire to clear and destroy all of the Palestinians and have the whole land for themselves; that is exactly how Netanyahu sees it. He is pragmatic, he wants to leave the legacy of destroying all Palestinian lands for the Zionism. “They are not interested in anything less that the entire place belonging to Israel,” he added.

US transferred its embassy to al-Quds because the Zionist lobby in the US is enormous; there are lots of banks and the amount of money they are bringing to the United States; Jewish lobby in America is very powerful indeed and they are always doing business inside the country; nobody cares about morals or family values, people’s lives, love and peace and these things; they only care about how much money are in their pockets and how much pleasure they can have with that money.

David Lawley Wakelin is a documentary film maker. His work includes "The Alternative Iraq Enquiry", a documentary alleging that Tony Blair is a war criminal. In May 2012, he interrupted the Leveson inquiry during Tony Blair's statement, alleging that Blair had been paid off by the American bank JP Morgan Chase for agreeing to take the United Kingdom into the Iraq war. Blair denied the charge. Lawley Wakelin was later fined £100 plus costs. Speaking on the steps outside the court afterwards, Mr Lawley-Wakelin revealed he had received messages of support from the Nobel Laureate Mairead Maguire and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

Trump’s Lies Are Louder Than His Iran Nuclear Exit

TEHRAN (FNA)- Bonus points if you caught Trump's lies Tuesday night, May 8, when he announced the United States would exit the Iran nuclear deal - also known as the JCPOA.

Here, we are not holding our breath that President Trump will start re-imposing the NPT-illegal sanctions against Iran. But we are holding him accountable for what he said. Indeed, President Trump’s torrent of misleading statements and flat-out lies will need an army of journalists working 24/7 to set the record straight. To help those who focus, on the resistance front, Iran’s fight against terrorism and extremism in Syria and Iraq, its commitment to the nuclear deal, and other regional and military defense issues, in the following we will call out Trump whenever he distorts the facts about such matters, and we expect to update it regularly.

The quotes that follow are taken from Trump's May 8, 2018, statement about withdrawing the United States from the nuclear deal between Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany:

Lie

President Trump announced that the US will withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal and is preparing to reinstate all sanctions it had waived as part of the accord.

Reality

The decision unravels the signature foreign policy achievement of his predecessor, President Barack Obama, and isolates the United States from its European allies. The US government never lifted its sanctions even after signing the nuclear agreement. Iran has been and still is unable to get LCs from international banks and is yet to have full access to the international SWIFT banking system. American companies are barred from doing business with Iran and the ones that did, like Boeing, are not delivering any passenger plane to Iran.

Lie

Iran is the leading state sponsor of terror. It exports dangerous missiles, fuels conflicts across the Middle East, and supports terrorist proxies and militias such as Hezbollah, Hamas, the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.

Reality

As acknowledged by numerous US administration officials and former or current politicians, the CIA trained and weaponized Al-Qaeda to counter the former Soviet Union in Afghanistan. The Taliban has been and is still being breastfed by Saudi Arabia. The same is true about ISIL. The terrorist group was created after the illegal US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, and took large swathes of lands in the Levant with support from Saudi Arabia, Israel and the United States. It was only after the intervention of Iran and Russia that the terrorist group lost all its territory. Former Vice-President Joe Biden as well as former Pentagon Intelligence Chief and National Security Advisor Gen. Micheal Flyn both took the United States' allies, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, responsible for the creation of terrorist and extremist groups like ISIL and Al-Nusra Front in the Middle-East.

Lie

No action taken by the regime has been more dangerous than its pursuit of nuclear weapons — and the means of delivering them. In fact, the deal allowed Iran to continue enriching uranium and — over time — reach the brink of a nuclear breakout.

Reality

As stated by British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, “The Iran nuclear deal is not based on trust about Iran's intentions; rather it is based on tough verification, including measures that allow inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency unprecedented access to Iran's nuclear program.” The International Atomic Energy Agency also has confirmed that “Iran remains in compliance with its commitments under the landmark nuclear agreement.” The IAEA has already issued ten reports verifying Iran’s full compliance with the agreement.

Lie

Today, we have definitive proof that this Iranian promise was a lie. Last week, Israel published intelligence documents — long concealed by Iran — conclusively showing the Iranian regime and its history of pursuing nuclear weapons.

Reality

A former chief of Israel's Mossad spy agency has said the documents revealed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a prime-time televised press conference last week contained no new evidence, and “the nuclear program files do not have a smoking gun.” Mark Fitzpatrick, director of the non-proliferation program at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, also says, “The documents that Prime Minister Netanyahu displaced on 30 April did not reveal anything that was already known by the IAEA.”

Lie

If I allowed this deal to stand, there would soon be a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. Not only does the deal fail to halt Iran’s nuclear ambitions, but it also fails to address the regime’s development of ballistic missiles that could deliver nuclear warheads.

Reality

As maintained by former US Secretary John Kerry: Trump’s claim that the agreement "sunsets," thus allowing Iran the relatively unfettered ability to proceed with a nuclear weapon, "No, it never sunsets. There's no sunset in this agreement.” Kerry’s parting words for Donald Trump are: “Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but no one is entitled to their own facts.” Director General of the IAEA Yukiya Amano has likewise confirmed Iran's compliance with the JCPOA, warning that any collapse of the deal would be a great loss: "As of today, I can state that Iran is implementing its nuclear-related commitments…If the JCPOA were to fail, it would be a great loss for nuclear verification and for multilateralism."

Lie

Finally, the deal does nothing to constrain Iran’s destabilizing activities, including its support for terrorism. Since the agreement, Iran’s bloody ambitions have grown only more brazen.

Let the History Begin

In March 2003, when the Bush administration launched its invasion of Iraq, the region, though simmering as ever, looked like this: Libya was stable, ruled by a strongman; Syria was experiencing stability and tranquility under the Assad family; Iraq was not experiencing daily balsts and bloodshed; the Turks and Kurds had an uneasy but functional ceasefire; and Yemen was quiet enough, other than the attack on the USS Cole in 2000. Relations between the US and most of these nations were so warm that Washington was routinely rendering “terrorists” to their dungeons for some outsourced torture.

It’s easy enough to hustle through these unfortunate countries in the region in various states of decay before heading into the heart of the chaos: Libya is a failed state, bleeding mayhem into northern Africa; Egypt failed its Arab Uprising test and relies on the US to support its anti-democratic militarized government; and Yemen is a disastrously failed state, now the scene of a US-backed, Saudi-led war (with a thriving al-Qaeda outfit and a small but growing arm of the ISIL thrown into the bargain).

In light of all this, it’s hardly surprising that no one with a sound mind in Europe or elsewhere is willing to believe Trump’s baseless accusations against Iran. What if the US hadn’t invaded Iraq in 2003? Things would undoubtedly be very different in the Middle East today. The Twitter-in-Chief can stipulate that Iran is a threat and need to be contained. In reality, the US has few clear goals in the region, but is escalating anyway. Whatever world order Trump may be fighting for in the Middle East, it seems at least an empire or two out of date.

Dr. Zahra Mostafavi, met with artists during a visit to 36th Fajr Film Festival

Dr. Zahra Mostafavi Secretary-General of Society for the defense of Palestinian People paid a visist to the thirty-sixth Fajr Film Festival and met with several domestic and foreign artists.

Rashid Al-Mashrawi, a Palestinian filmmaker, met Dr. Zahra Mostafavi and said: “I am pleased to attend this festival. I am glad that the thirty-sixth Fajr International Film Festival has selected my film to show and participate in this festival. Every time I come to Iran, I learn a lot about both cinema and life.”

The Palestinian filmmaker continued: “I hope that this Palestinian film becomes popular because it specifically looks at the Palestinian issue. The film was made to say that we, as the people of Palestine and the Islamic Ummah, should unite with each other so that we can get rid of Zionist occupiers.”

"I thank you because you came to see my movie," he told the Imam's daughter.

"We believe that not only the Palestinian people must be united, but we also insist that all Muslims must be united and all of humanity must be united," said Dr. Zahra Mostafavi, addressing the Palestinian filmmaker.

Then Dr. Zahra Mostafavi and the accompanying staff sat in a showroom to watch the film "write on the snow".

Before playing the movie "Writing on the snow" in the salon, the Palestinian filmmaker welcomed the guests and said: “In this film, I tried to represent the wounds of my country.”

Oliver Stone Censures US-Israeli-Saudi Efforts to “Wreck” Iran

By

 IFP Editorial Staff

The renowned US director Oliver Stone has criticised the US foreign policy in the Middle East, lamenting that the county has joined hands with Israel and Saudi Arabia to harm Iran.

“US, Israel, and Saudi Arabia, three dangerous heavyweights, verbally attack Iran almost every day for imaginary reasons, while not living up to the spirit of the international [nuclear] agreement [signed] in 2015,” he wrote in a post on his Facebook page.

The filmmaker said the three are implementing plans to divide the war-stricken Syria, wreck Iran and destroy the Middle East.

“That’s beyond sick, but it’s the product of the neoconservative game plan from [George W.] Bush’s term,” he said.

The director, who was in Tehran last month on his first visit to Iran to attend the 36th edition of Fajr International Film Festival, described Iran as a beautiful country with a 2,500-year-old culture and history and people of warm hearts.

Torture and Peace Museums

During his stay in Tehran, Stone said he visited Ebrat Museum, formerly a prison run by SAVAK, the brutal security service of the US-backed Pahlavi regime in Iran.

Stone described the museum as “horrifying”, lamenting that thousands of opponents of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi were tortured and killed in the prison with the help of “techniques and training” provided by the Central Intelligence Agency.

The director said he also visited Tehran’s Peace Museum, which is devoted to the victims of chemical weapon warfare during Iran-Iraq war (1980-1988).

“[In the war], [former Iraqi dictator] Saddam Hussein, our then-ally, used extensive WMD–mustard gas and other, with our assistance, to attack Iran,” he said.

“I also met the walking-wounded veterans of WMD war. It’s a shock. And yet we ‘false flag’ WMD in Syria and Iraq all the time. We love chemical warfare by proxy. That’s so sick!” he wrote, referring to US claims that the Syrian government has several times used chemical weapons to attack foreign-backed militants fighting it.

A 70 Year long Story in interview

Ramzy Baroud

He was born in a refugee camp in Gaza, his childhood friend was one of the four killed in the First Intifada uprising of 1987 and his father died under siege in Gaza. Ramzy Baroud looks back at the past 70 years and recounts why this Nakba is more important than ever.

During the First Intifada uprising of 1987, the Israeli military carried out what the residents of my refugee camp in Gaza referred to as the “Eid Massacre”. The killing of four young people in the camp, including my childhood friend Raed Munis, took place on the first day of the Muslim holiday.

Once the young men were buried and as we mourned in our humble refugee home, my father fiddled hopelessly with the radio, trying to find any news broadcast, anywhere, that reported on the terrible events that took place in our camp on that day. No one did.

It was then that I realised that the story of my neighbourhood needed to be told. With time, I also understood that my refugee camp was a microcosm of a larger phenomenon in which the Palestinian discourse is purposely marginalised and Palestinian voices are deliberately muted.

For nearly 25 years, I have undertaken a journey to reclaim the narrative of Palestine, on behalf of my neighbours, my friends and my people.

My recently published book, The Last Earth: A Palestinian Story, is my latest volume that aims to provide a collective articulation of the Palestinian struggle, centred around the Nakba – the destruction of the Palestinian homeland in 1948 – and the millions of refugees that continue to live in exile since then.

One of the stories in the book is that of Ahmad Al-Haaj, an ageing communist living in Gaza. He escaped Palestine in 1948, when his village Al-Sawafir was attacked and then set ablaze by invading Jewish militias. These militias later became the Israeli army. To this day, Al-Haaj, 85, refuses to build a house in the besieged Gaza Strip.

I spoke to Al-Haaj as I conducted a series of interviews with Palestinian refugees in Palestine, the Middle East and around the world to try and understand what compels them to revere their “right of return” to their homes from which they, or their ancestors, were expelled 70 years ago.

Al-Haaj does not own a home in Gaza, because he fears that the moment he does he will resign himself to his exile. For him it is an emotional burden that he simply cannot afford to take on. He spent many years in an Israeli prison for his refusal to accept banishment to Gaza.

Throughout his life, Al-Haaj often thought of Al-Sawafir and told his family stories to anyone willing to listen: their happy lives before exile; the pain and loss after. The same sentiment echoes amongst many Palestinians, even those who were born after the Nakba.

I spoke to young people who feel so deeply connected to villages which all vanished long before they were born.

The Nakba – which in Arabic means “the catastrophe” – is not a mere date to be commemorated every 15 May; it is far more encompassing than a single event, however tragic. It represents the life that millions of Palestinians were unfairly denied; every day since has been a life of destitution, exile and want.

The Nakba, in some way, has thus become part of the collective identity for all Palestinians. It is now so ingrained into the consciousness of all Palestinians that it would be impossible to imagine a truly peaceful future without justly and carefully addressing that original crime.

Although I was born and raised in a Gaza refugee camp and then moved to the United States, strongly relating to a village that was erased from the map decades earlier is not, for me, an irrational act. My village of Beit Daras remains the single most important piece of earth that truly matters to me.

As a child, I learned from my grandfather to be proud: he was a handsome and strong peasant, with an unshakable faith. He managed to hide his deep sadness so well after he was expelled from his home in Palestine, along with his entire family. As he aged, he would sit for hours, between prayers, searching within his soul for the beautiful memories of his past. Occasionally, he would let out a mournful sigh, a few tears; yet, he never accepted his defeat, or the idea that Beit Daras was forever gone.

My political consciousness developed as a result of the misery of the refugee camps, the determination to redeem the painful past, which saw the demise of my village, and the perpetual destitution of my family. My parents and grandparents, along with siblings, friends, classmates and neighbours are all buried in the refugee camp. My father died under siege in Gaza and neither Israel nor Egypt allowed me to see him for a final goodbye. Our Nakba is ongoing.

Seventy years after the Nakba, the battlefield is still there, delineated most starkly at the Gaza border where tens of thousands of Palestinian refugees continue to rally, holding their  Great Return March, starting 30 March and ending on Tuesday, 15 May.

At both ends of this ongoing fight, Palestinians and Israelis champion a legacy that spans decades: Palestinian youth are carrying on with the same struggle that was espoused by generations of Palestinians since the onset of the Nakba. The Israeli army – which has killed scores and wounded thousands in recent weeks – is implementing the same bloody policies that armed Zionist gangs carried out when they ethnically cleansed the citizens of Palestine in 1948.

It is as if time has stood still, or that history has reproduced itself in a most profound pattern. For change to happen, a paradigm shift is required. This tragic and violent reality cannot be allowed to continue forever.

It is critical that we relate the present to the past. The settler colonial mentality of the past continues to control Israel’s actions today, as it will govern its future behaviour if apartheid is not demolished, the occupation is allowed to perpetuate and the Nakba is not reversed.

The current Israeli land grab in the West Bank and the mushrooming illegal settlement construction that is squeezing Palestinians out of Jerusalem is a repeat of an earlier episode, a perpetual drama that has lasted more than a century.

Zionist colonial settlement in Palestine began in earnest in 1881, when the leaders of the Zionist Movement in Europe eyed Arab Palestine as an exclusive home for Jews, paying little heed to the indigenous inhabitants of the land. These early ambitions culminated into a bloody but well-orchestrated terror campaign in 1947-48, resulting in the creation of the state of Israel atop the ruins of Palestine. Nearly 600 Palestinian towns, villages and localities were destroyed to make space for an exclusively Jewish state.

Since then, only names and titles have changed. Zionist militias that orchestrated the genocide of the Palestinians prior to the establishment of Israel merged together to form the Israeli army; and the leaders of these groups became Israel’s leaders.

At the end of his life, my grandfather’s only wish was to be buried in Beit Daras. Instead, he was crammed into the ever-bourgeoning Nuseirat Refugee Camp cemetery. However, he remained a Badrasawi – as the people of my village are called – to the end, holding so passionately onto the memories of a place that, for him – for all of us – remains sacred and real.

For the millions of refugees, and for the thousands of protesters at the Gaza border, Palestine is no longer just a piece of earth but a perpetual fight for justice – in the name of those who died along the dusty trails of exile and of those who are yet to be born.

Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and editor of Palestine Chronicle. His forthcoming book is ‘The Last Earth: A Palestinian Story’ (Pluto Press, London). Baroud has a PhD in Palestine studies from the University of Exeter and is a non-resident scholar at Orfalea Center for Global and International Studies, University of California Santa Barbara.