The Yomiuri Shimbun

This is the fifth installment in a series of interviews with leading intellectuals both at home and abroad about the present state of world affairs and potential solutions to challenges that face the world in 2009. The following is excerpted from an interview with author Orhan Pamuk, 56, winner of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature.

The Yomiuri Shimbun: Some say the 21st century will be a century of confrontation, namely, a “clash of civilizations.” Do you agree with that?

Orhan Pamuk: In a Harvard classroom, Samuel Huntington’s thought [of a “clash of civilizations”] is an interesting idea. There is some truth in it. But as it is represented by the international media, it has become an idea that only paves the way to more fights and more killings. The West kills more Muslims they are afraid of or embarrassed by and say, “It’s a clash of civilizations.” It is not a clash of civilizations. It is just killing people.

People with different origins, ethnic backgrounds, opinions, races, religions, even with a history of fighting each other, should and can live together. This is an ideal I believe in. You may say, “Oh, naive Orhan, they can only kill each other.” But I don’t want to believe that humanity is that bad.

I don’t think Palestinians and Israelis can live happily in the same street and kiss each other for at least another 50 years. But Kurds and Turks have been living [alongside each other]. If the Turkish government is wise, they can continue to live [side by side] for quite a long time. So what I believe sometimes may contradict what happened in history. Cynics do not have ideals. I have ideals. I believe that this is possible and that’s why I want Turkey to join the European Union, which has higher standards of respect for different cultures and multiculturalism.

You may say, “You are naive–look at your book ‘Snow.'” I have a character who lives through all these dilemmas. He naively believes, like me, in all these things and falls into politically bad situations. But I don’t want a cynic’s life.

The Ottoman Empire realized coexistence to some extent.

You can only run an empire with a sort of tolerance. Do not think that they were multicultural, like EU or American tolerance. They were totally different. It was inevitable. If you are running an empire, you have to be tolerant to minorities. What I respect most in the Ottoman Empire was that they did not impose Islam too much. They imposed Islam, but compared with [the extent that] the West [imposes its values], relatively less. An empire is always multiethnic.

There has been a long history of confrontation between Western and Eastern cultures. Istanbul has been a powerful symbol of that confrontation and coexistence.

Some people only point out the confrontations of cultures in their lives, give their energy to focus on confrontations. I always point out how harmoniously they come together. Some people go out and only see head-scarved girls and mini-skirted girls and the conflict. Some people go out and see how they do not notice each other and live in peace in the streets of Istanbul. It depends on what you want to see. But, yes, this is a country where all the contradictions are abundantly available and visible. Is that a bad thing or a good thing? Politicians, groups who want to get people’s attention through cultural difference, through secularism and conservatism, dramatize these things.

Turkey is more politically troubled than socially troubled. If there is a social problem, that is poverty–class distinction between the rich and the poor. But politically, the representatives of the secularists, who are heavily embedded in the state apparatus, secularists and the army, are clashing with the popular Islamic voters. And this clash is really harming the country. Both sides are responsible for it. And most of the time lower classes and women suffer from it. Islamic boys can go to universities, but women cannot if they wear head scarves. Islamist politicians go into the parliament and enjoy life, but women cannot if they wear head scarves. The suffering of lower classes is not represented in the media. Turkey’s first problem is that there is so much class difference between a very rich, leading bourgeoisie, making 50 percent of the national income, and the immense poverty. This real conflict is expressed through secularism, Islam and the army, and this kind of politics.

Turkey is a multicultural country, not politically but ethnically and religiously. But I do not only see these problems as East clashes with West. Only after September 11th was “clash of civilizations” set as a sort of a standard model for the world.

While more then 99 percent of the population is Muslim, the state is secular. Some say this secularism has reached its limit. Don’t you think this secularism is unnatural?

You are defending the argument of fundamental Islamists or fundamentalist secularists. There are fundamentalist secularists who think Islam is the problem, but I do not think so. There are also Islamic fundamentalists. Your opinion is valid and very popular in Turkey. But I disagree. Yes, Islam is a religion which does not stay in the private sphere. It is not only about personal beliefs, but also about how to run a country, about laws and governments. And the rules are in the traditions of Islam and Koran. But this is the argument of ultraradical secularists, which can only base its power on the force of the army. Many people like me think that most of the Turkish people believe at the same time both in a blend of secularism and a blend of Islam.

I believe in secularism. I believe that public life should not be ruled by the laws of the religion. But Islamic tradition is not like that. Up to now, public life in Turkey has not been ruled by the rules of traditions of Islam, but the rules of secularism. I am a secularist, but a liberal secularist. There should be a harmony between the people’s wishes and secularization energy. Turkey’s secularists should be also liberal. We have secularists who base their power only on the army. That damages Turkey’s democracy. Once in 10 years we have a military coup. In the last 10 years we have not had one, thank God. But every day, the army says don’t do this, don’t do that. I don’t like that. But it doesn’t mean you are an Islamic fundamentalist. I am also troubled by the raise of political Islam. So I am squeezed by two sides, but I don’t have to take a side.

Secularism is now combined with nationalism in Turkey. This combination has depressed ethnic minorities including Kurds, Armenians and Christians.

There is an obvious rise of nationalism in Turkey. There are many reasons for that. One is the anxiety of those ruling classes who think that if Turkey joined the EU, their interests will be damaged. Another is that, unfortunately, some part of the Turkish Army is upset about negotiations with the EU. Turkey’s improvement in democracy is developing in parallel with Turkey’s relationship with the EU. Some measures were taken by the previous and present governments, which I am happy about. More freedom of speech, more respect for minorities, more multiculturalism–unfortunately half of them are done just to enter the EU.

I made it clear for the last seven years that I am for Turkey’s joining of the EU. Some of my political problems that I suffer were due to that. But compared with the previous generations of Turkish writers, it is nothing.

I see the EU not as a cultural model, though I am more westernized than a regular Turk. I believe that Turkey should rely on its own traditional culture. In fact I wrote novels like “My Name Is Red” to highlight that culture. But I think politically and economically it would be good for Turkey. Politically, it will be good because there are some EU standards for democracy: free speech, respect for the human rights, minorities, et cetera. Secondly, I also believe that once you join the EU you are militarily under the umbrella of the EU. You don’t have to reserve so much money for military spending. Also, once you are in the EU, Kurdish separatists will be happier, too. Negotiations should go faster. But it is not going that way, unfortunately.

The EU is sometimes called a Christian club.

This is what conservatives in the EU say. Europe should decide whether EU is based on Christianity or based on “liberte, egalite, fraternite.” If Europe is based on Christianity, Turkey has no place in that. But if Europe is based on the secular ideals, Turkey, which has some land in Europe has a place.

It is not natural for Turkey to join the EU at all. But once it is achieved–I am now pessimistic, it does not seem to be [going to be] achieved soon–it will have a significant meaning. I know from the questions by Iranian and Arab journalists that the liberals and secular intellectuals of the Muslim countries are so much interested in and have so much hope because they also want to have secularism and liberal democracy in their countries. They also want to economically flourish and enjoy freedom and liberty, respect for private life and minorities in their countries. Turkey’s entry into the EU will have a strong impact on world politics, especially in the Middle East and Islamic regions.

Pamuk is a Turkish author and Nobel laureate whose representative works include “My Name Is Red” and “Snow.”

U.S. Financial Aid To Israel: Figures, Facts, and Impact Summary Benefits to Israel of U.S. Aid Since 1949 (As of November 1, 1997) Foreign Aid Grants and Loans $74,157,600,000 Other U.S. Aid (12.2% of Foreign Aid) $9,047,227,200 Interest to Israel from Advanced Payments $1,650,000,000 Grand Total $84,854,827,200 Total Benefits per Israeli $14,630 Cost to U.S. Taxpayers of U.S. Aid to Israel Grand Total $84,854,827,200 Interest Costs Borne by U.S. $49,936,680,000 Total Cost to U.S. Taxpayers $134,791,507,200 Total Taxpayer Cost per Israeli $23,240 Special Reports: Congress Watch: A Conservative Total for U.S. Aid to Israel: $91 Billion—and Counting Congressional Research Report on Israel: US Foreign Assistance by Clyde Mark (213K pdf file) U.S. Aid To Israel: The Strategic Functions U.S. Aid to Israel: What U.S. Taxpayer Should Know U.S. Aid to Israel: Interpreting the ‘Strategic Relationship’ The Cost of Israel to U.S. Taxpayers: True Lies About U.S. Aid to Israel THE STRATEGIC FUNCTIONS OF U.S. AID TO ISRAEL By Stephen Zunes Dr. Zunes is an assistant professor in the Department of Politics at the University of San Francisco Since 1992, the U.S. has offered Israel an additional $2 billion annually in loan guarantees. Congressional researchers have disclosed that between 1974 and 1989, $16.4 billion in U.S. military loans were converted to grants and that this was the understanding from the beginning. Indeed, all past U.S. loans to Israel have eventually been forgiven by Congress, which has undoubtedly helped Israel’s often-touted claim that they have never defaulted on a U.S. government loan. U.S. policy since 1984 has been that economic assistance to Israel must equal or exceed Israel’s annual debt repayment to the United States. Unlike other countries, which receive aid in quarterly installments, aid to Israel since 1982 has been given in a lump sum at the beginning of the fiscal year, leaving the U.S. government to borrow from future revenues. Israel even lends some of this money back through U.S. treasury bills and collects the additional interest. In addition, there is the more than $1.5 billion in private U.S. funds that go to Israel annually in the form of $1 billion in private tax-deductible donations and $500 million in Israeli bonds. The ability of Americans to make what amounts to tax-deductible contributions to a foreign government, made possible through a number of Jewish charities, does not exist with any other country. Nor do these figures include short- and long-term commercial loans from U.S. banks, which have been as high as $1 billion annually in recent years. Total U.S. aid to Israel is approximately one-third of the American foreign-aid budget, even though Israel comprises just .001 percent of the world’s population and already has one of the world’s higher per capita incomes. Indeed, Israel’s GNP is higher than the combined GNP of Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, the West Bank and Gaza. With a per capita income of about $14,000, Israel ranks as the sixteenth wealthiest country in the world; Israelis enjoy a higher per capita income than oil-rich Saudi Arabia and are only slightly less well-off than most Western European countries. AID does not term economic aid to Israel as development assistance, but instead uses the term “economic support funding.” Given Israel’s relative prosperity, U.S. aid to Israel is becoming increasingly controversial. In 1994, Yossi Beilen, deputy foreign minister of Israel and a Knesset member, told the Women’s International Zionist organization, “If our economic situation is better than in many of your countries, how can we go on asking for your charity?” U.S. Aid to Israel: What U.S. Taxpayer Should Know by Tom Malthaner This morning as I was walking down Shuhada Street in Hebron, I saw graffiti marking the newly painted storefronts and awnings. Although three months past schedule and 100 percent over budget, the renovation of Shuhada Street was finally completed this week. The project manager said the reason for the delay and cost overruns was the sabotage of the project by the Israeli settlers of the Beit Hadassah settlement complex in Hebron. They broke the street lights, stoned project workers, shot out the windows of bulldozers and other heavy equipment with pellet guns, broke paving stones before they were laid and now have defaced again the homes and shops of Palestinians with graffiti. The settlers did not want Shuhada St. opened to Palestinian traffic as was agreed to under Oslo 2. This renovation project is paid for by USAID funds and it makes me angry that my tax dollars have paid for improvements that have been destroyed by the settlers. Most Americans are not aware how much of their tax revenue our government sends to Israel. For the fiscal year ending in September 30, 1997, the U.S. has given Israel $6.72 billion: $6.194 billion falls under Israel’s foreign aid allotment and $526 million comes from agencies such as the Department of Commerce, the U.S. Information Agency and the Pentagon. The $6.72 billion figure does not include loan guarantees and annual compound interest totalling $3.122 billion the U.S. pays on money borrowed to give to Israel. It does not include the cost to U.S. taxpayers of IRS tax exemptions that donors can claim when they donate money to Israeli charities. (Donors claim approximately $1 billion in Federal tax deductions annually. This ultimately costs other U.S. tax payers $280 million to $390 million.) When grant, loans, interest and tax deductions are added together for the fiscal year ending in September 30, 1997, our special relationship with Israel cost U.S. taxpayers over $10 billion. Since 1949 the U.S. has given Israel a total of $83.205 billion. The interest costs borne by U.S. tax payers on behalf of Israel are $49.937 billion, thus making the total amount of aid given to Israel since 1949 $133.132 billion. This may mean that U.S. government has given more federal aid to the average Israeli citizen in a given year than it has given to the average American citizen. I am angry when I see Israeli settlers from Hebron destroy improvements made to Shuhada Street with my tax money. Also, it angers me that my government is giving over $10 billion to a country that is more prosperous than most of the other countries in the world and uses much of its money for strengthening its military and the oppression of the Palestinian people. “U.S. Aid to Israel: Interpreting the ‘Strategic Relationship”‘ by Stephen Zunes “The U.S. aid relationship with Israel is unlike any other in the world,” said Stephen Zunes during a January 26 CPAP presentation. “In sheer volume, the amount is the most generous foreign aid program ever between any two countries,” added Zunes, associate professor of Politics and chair of the Peace and Justice Studies Program at the University of San Francisco. He explored the strategic reasoning behind the aid, asserting that it parallels the “needs of American arms exporters” and the role “Israel could play in advancing U.S. strategic interests in the region.” Although Israel is an “advanced, industrialized, technologically sophisticated country,” it “receives more U.S. aid per capita annually than the total annual [Gross Domestic Product] per capita of several Arab states.” Approximately a third of the entire U.S. foreign aid budget goes to Israel, “even though Israel comprises just…one-thousandth of the world’s total population, and already has one of the world’s higher per capita incomes.” U.S. government officials argue that this money is necessary for “moral” reasons-some even say that Israel is a “democracy battling for its very survival.” If that were the real reason, however, aid should have been highest during Israel’s early years, and would have declined as Israel grew stronger. Yet “the pattern…has been just the opposite.” According to Zunes, “99 percent of all U.S. aid to Israel took place after the June 1967 war, when Israel found itself more powerful than any combination of Arab armies….” The U.S. supports Israel’s dominance so it can serve as “a
su
rrogate for American interests in this vital strategic region.” “Israel has helped defeat radical nationalist movements” and has been a “testing ground for U.S. made weaponry.” Moreover, the intelligence agencies of both countries have “collaborated,” and “Israel has funneled U.S. arms to third countries that the U.S. [could] not send arms to directly,…Iike South Africa, like the Contras, Guatemala under the military junta, [and] Iran.” Zunes cited an Israeli analyst who said: “‘It’s like Israel has just become another federal agency when it’s convenient to use and you want something done quietly.”‘ Although the strategic relationship between the United States and the Gulf Arab states in the region has been strengthening in recent years, these states “do not have the political stability, the technological sophistication, [or] the number of higher-trained armed forces personnel” as does Israel. Matti Peled, former Israeli major general and Knesset member, told Zunes that he and most Israeli generals believe this aid is “little more than an American subsidy to U.S. arms manufacturers,” considering that the majority of military aid to Israel is used to buy weapons from the U.S. Moreover, arms to Israel create more demand for weaponry in Arab states. According to Zunes, “the Israelis announced back in 1991 that they supported the idea of a freeze in Middle East arms transfers, yet it was the United States that rejected it.” In the fall of 1993-when many had high hopes for peace-78 senators wrote to former President Bill Clinton insisting that aid to Israel remain “at current levels.” Their “only reason” was the “massive procurement of sophisticated arms by Arab states.” The letter neglected to mention that 80 percent of those arms to Arab countries came from the U.S. “I’m not denying for a moment the power of AIPAC [the American Israel Public Affairs Committee], the pro-Israel lobby,” and other similar groups, Zunes said. Yet the “Aerospace Industry Association which promotes these massive arms shipments…is even more influential.” This association has given two times more money to campaigns than all of the pro-Israel groups combined. Its “force on Capitol Hill, in terms of lobbying, surpasses that of even AIPAC.” Zunes asserted that the “general thrust of U.S. policy would be pretty much the same even if AIPAC didn’t exist. We didn’t need a pro-Indonesia lobby to support Indonesia in its savage repression of East Timor all these years.” This is a complex issue, and Zunes said that he did not want to be “conspiratorial,” but he asked the audience to imagine what “Palestinian industriousness, Israeli technology, and Arabian oil money…would do to transform the Middle East…. [W]hat would that mean to American arms manufacturers? Oil companies? Pentagon planners?” “An increasing number of Israelis are pointing out” that these funds are not in Israel’s best interest. Quoting Peled, Zunes said, “this aid pushes Israel ‘toward a posture of callous intransigence’ in terms of the peace process.” Moreover, for every dollar the U.S. sends in arms aid, Israel must spend two to three dollars to train people to use the weaponry, to buy parts, and in other ways make use of the aid. Even “main-stream Israeli economists are saying [it] is very harmful to the country’s future.” The Israeli paper Yediot Aharonot described Israel as “‘the godfather’s messenger’ since [Israel] undertake[s] the ‘dirty work’ of a godfather who ‘always tries to appear to be the owner of some large, respectable business.”‘ Israeli satirist B. Michael refers to U.S. aid this way: “‘My master gives me food to eat and I bite those whom he tells me to bite. It’s called strategic cooperation.” ‘To challenge this strategic relationship, one cannot focus solely on the Israeli lobby but must also examine these “broader forces as well.” “Until we tackle this issue head-on,” it will be “very difficult to win” in other areas relating to Palestine. “The results” of the short-term thinking behind U.S. policy “are tragic,” not just for the “immediate victims” but “eventually [for] Israel itself” and “American interests in the region.” The U.S. is sending enormous amounts of aid to the Middle East, and yet “we are less secure than ever”-both in terms of U.S. interests abroad and for individual Americans. Zunes referred to a “growing and increasing hostility [of] the average Arab toward the United States.” In the long term, said Zunes, “peace and stability and cooperation with the vast Arab world is far more important for U.S. interests than this alliance with Israel.” This is not only an issue for those who are working for Palestinian rights, but it also “jeopardizes the entire agenda of those of us concerned about human rights, concerned about arms control, concerned about international law.” Zunes sees significant potential in “building a broad-based movement around it.” The above text is based on remarks, delivered on. 26 January, 2001 by Stephen Zunes – Associate Professor of Politics and Chair of the Peace and Justice Studies Program at San Francisco University. The Cost of Israel to U.S. Taxpayers: True Lies About U.S. Aid to Israel By Richard H. Curtiss For many years the American media said that “Israel receives $1.8 billion in military aid” or that “Israel receives $1.2 billion in economic aid.” Both statements were true, but since they were never combined to give us the complete total of annual U.S. aid to Israel, they also were lies—true lies. Recently Americans have begun to read and hear that “Israel receives $3 billion in annual U.S. foreign aid.” That’s true. But it’s still a lie. The problem is that in fiscal 1997 alone, Israel received from a variety of other U.S. federal budgets at least $525.8 million above and beyond its $3 billion from the foreign aid budget, and yet another $2 billion in federal loan guarantees. So the complete total of U.S. grants and loan guarantees to Israel for fiscal 1997 was $5,525,800,000. One can truthfully blame the mainstream media for never digging out these figures for themselves, because none ever have. They were compiled by the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. But the mainstream media certainly are not alone. Although Congress authorizes America’s foreign aid total, the fact that more than a third of it goes to a country smaller in both area and population than Hong Kong probably never has been mentioned on the floor of the Senate or House. Yet it’s been going on for more than a generation. Probably the only members of Congress who even suspect the full total of U.S. funds received by Israel each year are the privileged few committee members who actually mark it up. And almost all members of the concerned committees are Jewish, have taken huge campaign donations orchestrated by Israel’s Washington, DC lobby, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), or both. These congressional committee members are paid to act, not talk. So they do and they don’t. The same applies to the president, the secretary of state, and the foreign aid administrator. They all submit a budget that includes aid for Israel, which Congress approves, or increases, but never cuts. But no one in the executive branch mentions that of the few remaining U.S. aid recipients worldwide, all of the others are developing nations which either make their military bases available to the U.S., are key members of international alliances in which the U.S. participates, or have suffered some crippling blow of nature to their abilities to feed their people such as earthquakes, floods or droughts. Israel, whose troubles arise solely from its unwillingness to give back land it seized in the 1967 war in return for peace with its neighbors, does not fit those criteria. In fact, Israel’s 1995 per capita gross domestic product was $15,800. That put it below Britain at $19,500 and Italy at $18,700 and just above Ireland at $15,400 and Spain at $14,300. All four of those European countries have contributed a very large share of immigrants to the U.S., yet none has organized an ethnic group to lobby for U.S. foreign aid. Instead, all four send funds and vo

lunteers to do economic development and emergency relief work in other less fortunate parts of the world. The lobby that Israel and its supporters have built in the United States to make all this aid happen, and to ban discussion of it from the national dialogue, goes far beyond AIPAC, with its $15 million budget, its 150 employees, and its five or six registered lobbyists who manage to visit every member of Congress individually once or twice a year. AIPAC, in turn, can draw upon the resources of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, a roof group set up solely to coordinate the efforts of some 52 national Jewish organizations on behalf of Israel. Among them are Hadassah, the Zionist women’s organization, which organizes a steady stream of American Jewish visitors to Israel; the American Jewish Congress, which mobilizes support for Israel among members of the traditionally left-of-center Jewish mainstream; and the American Jewish Committee, which plays the same role within the growing middle-of-the-road and right-of-center Jewish community. The American Jewish Committee also publishes Commentary,one of the Israel lobby’s principal national publications. Perhaps the most controversial of these groups is B’nai B’rith’s Anti-Defamation League. Its original highly commendable purpose was to protect the civil rights of American Jews. Over the past generation, however, the ADL has regressed into a conspiratorial and, with a $45 million budget, extremely well-funded hate group. In the 1980s, during the tenure of chairman Seymour Reich, who went on to become chairman of the Conference of Presidents, ADL was found to have circulated two annual fund-raising letters warning Jewish parents against allegedly negative influences on their children arising from the increasing Arab presence on American university campuses. More recently, FBI raids on ADL’s Los Angeles and San Francisco offices revealed that an ADL operative had purchased files stolen from the San Francisco police department that a court had ordered destroyed because they violated the civil rights of the individuals on whom they had been compiled. ADL, it was shown, had added the illegally prepared and illegally obtained material to its own secret files, compiled by planting informants among Arab-American, African-American, anti-Apartheid and peace and justice groups. The ADL infiltrators took notes of the names and remarks of speakers and members of audiences at programs organized by such groups. ADL agents even recorded the license plates of persons attending such programs and then suborned corrupt motor vehicles department employees or renegade police officers to identify the owners. Although one of the principal offenders fled the United States to escape prosecution, no significant penalties were assessed. ADL’s Northern California office was ordered to comply with requests by persons upon whom dossiers had been prepared to see their own files, but no one went to jail and as yet no one has paid fines. Not surprisingly, a defecting employee revealed in an article he published in the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs that AIPAC, too, has such “enemies” files. They are compiled for use by pro-Israel journalists like Steven Emerson and other so-called “terrorism experts,” and also by professional, academic or journalistic rivals of the persons described for use in black-listing, defaming, or denouncing them. What is never revealed is that AIPAC’s “opposition research” department, under the supervision of Michael Lewis, son of famed Princeton University Orientalist Bernard Lewis, is the source of this defamatory material. But this is not AIPAC’s most controversial activity. In the 1970s, when Congress put a cap on the amount its members could earn from speakers’ fees and book royalties over and above their salaries, it halted AIPAC’s most effective ways of paying off members for voting according to AIPAC recommendations. Members of AIPAC’s national board of directors solved the problem by returning to their home states and creating political action committees (PACs). Most special interests have PACs, as do many major corporations, labor unions, trade associations and public-interest groups. But the pro-Israel groups went wild. To date some 126 pro-Israel PACs have been registered, and no fewer than 50 have been active in every national election over the past generation. An individual voter can give up to $2,000 to a candidate in an election cycle, and a PAC can give a candidate up to $10,000. However, a single special interest with 50 PACs can give a candidate who is facing a tough opponent, and who has voted according to its recommendations, up to half a million dollars. That’s enough to buy all the television time needed to get elected in most parts of the country. Even candidates who don’t need this kind of money certainly don’t want it to become available to a rival from their own party in a primary election, or to an opponent from the opposing party in a general election. As a result, all but a handful of the 535 members of the Senate and House vote as AIPAC instructs when it comes to aid to Israel, or other aspects of U.S. Middle East policy. There is something else very special about AIPAC’s network of political action committees. Nearly all have deceptive names. Who could possibly know that the Delaware Valley Good Government Association in Philadelphia, San Franciscans for Good Government in California, Cactus PAC in Arizona, Beaver PAC in Wisconsin, and even Icepac in New York are really pro-Israel PACs under deep cover? Hiding AIPAC’s Tracks In fact, the congressmembers know it when they list the contributions they receive on the campaign statements they have to prepare for the Federal Election Commission. But their constituents don’t know this when they read these statements. So just as no other special interest can put so much “hard money” into any candidate’s election campaign as can the Israel lobby, no other special interest has gone to such elaborate lengths to hide its tracks. Although AIPAC, Washington’s most feared special-interest lobby, can hide how it uses both carrots and sticks to bribe or intimidate members of Congress, it can’t hide all of the results. Anyone can ask one of their representatives in Congress for a chart prepared by the Congressional Research Service, a branch of the Library of Congress, that shows Israel received $62.5 billion in foreign aid from fiscal year 1949 through fiscal year 1996. People in the national capital area also can visit the library of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in Rosslyn, Virginia, and obtain the same information, plus charts showing how much foreign aid the U.S. has given other countries as well. Visitors will learn that in precisely the same 1949-1996 time frame, the total of U.S. foreign aid to all of the countries of sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean combined was $62,497,800,000–almost exactly the amount given to tiny Israel. According to the Population Reference Bureau of Washington, DC, in mid-1995 the sub-Saharan countries had a combined population of 568 million. The $24,415,700,000 in foreign aid they had received by then amounted to $42.99 per sub-Saharan African. Similarly, with a combined population of 486 million, all of the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean together had received $38,254,400,000. This amounted to $79 per person. The per capita U.S. foreign aid to Israel’s 5.8 million people during the same period was $10,775.48. This meant that for every dollar the U.S. spent on an African, it spent $250.65 on an Israeli, and for every dollar it spent on someone from the Western Hemisphere outside the United States, it spent $214 on an Israeli. Shocking Comparisons These comparisons already seem shocking, but they are far from the whole truth. Using reports compiled by Clyde Mark of the Congressional Research Service and other sources, freelance writer Frank Collins tallied for theWashington Report all of the extra items for Israel buried in the budgets of the Pentagon and other federal agencies
in fiscal year 1993.Washington Report news editor Shawn Twing did the same thing for fiscal years 1996 and 1997. They uncovered $1.271 billion in extras in FY 1993, $355.3 million in FY 1996 and $525.8 million in FY 1997. These represent an average increase of 12.2 percent over the officially recorded foreign aid totals for the same fiscal years, and they probably are not complete. It’s reasonable to assume, therefore, that a similar 12.2 percent hidden increase has prevailed over all of the years Israel has received aid. As of Oct. 31, 1997 Israel will have received $3.05 billion in U.S. foreign aid for fiscal year 1997 and $3.08 billion in foreign aid for fiscal year 1998. Adding the 1997 and 1998 totals to those of previous years since 1949 yields a total of $74,157,600,000 in foreign aid grants and loans. Assuming that the actual totals from other budgets average 12.2 percent of that amount, that brings the grand total to $83,204,827,200. But that’s not quite all. Receiving its annual foreign aid appropriation during the first month of the fiscal year, instead of in quarterly installments as do other recipients, is just another special privilege Congress has voted for Israel. It enables Israel to invest the money in U.S. Treasury notes. That means that the U.S., which has to borrow the money it gives to Israel, pays interest on the money it has granted to Israel in advance, while at the same time Israel is collecting interest on the money. That interest to Israel from advance payments adds another $1.650 billion to the total, making it $84,854,827,200.That’s the number you should write down for total aid to Israel. And that’s $14,346 each for each man, woman and child in Israel. It’s worth noting that that figure does not include U.S. government loan guarantees to Israel, of which Israel has drawn $9.8 billion to date. They greatly reduce the interest rate the Israeli government pays on commercial loans, and they place additional burdens on U.S. taxpayers, especially if the Israeli government should default on any of them. But since neither the savings to Israel nor the costs to U.S. taxpayers can be accurately quantified, they are excluded from consideration here. Further, friends of Israel never tire of saying that Israel has never defaulted on repayment of a U.S. government loan. It would be equally accurate to say Israel has never been required to repay a U.S. government loan. The truth of the matter is complex, and designed to be so by those who seek to conceal it from the U.S. taxpayer. Most U.S. loans to Israel are forgiven, and many were made with the explicit understanding that they would be forgiven before Israel was required to repay them. By disguising as loans what in fact were grants, cooperating members of Congress exempted Israel from the U.S. oversight that would have accompanied grants. On other loans, Israel was expected to pay the interest and eventually to begin repaying the principal. But the so-called Cranston Amendment, which has been attached by Congress to every foreign aid appropriation since 1983, provides that economic aid to Israel will never dip below the amount Israel is required to pay on its outstanding loans. In short, whether U.S. aid is extended as grants or loans to Israel, it never returns to the Treasury. Israel enjoys other privileges. While most countries receiving U.S. military aid funds are expected to use them for U.S. arms, ammunition and training, Israel can spend part of these funds on weapons made by Israeli manufacturers. Also, when it spends its U.S. military aid money on U.S. products, Israel frequently requires the U.S. vendor to buy components or materials from Israeli manufacturers. Thus, though Israeli politicians say that their own manufacturers and exporters are making them progressively less dependent upon U.S. aid, in fact those Israeli manufacturers and exporters are heavily subsidized by U.S. aid. Although it’s beyond the parameters of this study, it’s worth mentioning that Israel also receives foreign aid from some other countries. After the United States, the principal donor of both economic and military aid to Israel is Germany. By far the largest component of German aid has been in the form of restitution payments to victims of Nazi attrocities. But there also has been extensive German military assistance to Israel during and since the Gulf war, and a variety of German educational and research grants go to Israeli institutions. The total of German assistance in all of these categories to the Israeli government, Israeli individuals and Israeli private institutions has been some $31 billion or $5,345 per capita, bringing the per capita total of U.S. and German assistance combined to almost $20,000 per Israeli. Since very little public money is spent on the more than 20 percent of Israeli citizens who are Muslim or Christian, the actual per capita benefits received by Israel’s Jewish citizens would be considerably higher. True Cost to U.S. Taxpayers Generous as it is, what Israelis actually got in U.S. aid is considerably less than what it has cost U.S. taxpayers to provide it. The principal difference is that so long as the U.S. runs an annual budget deficit, every dollar of aid the U.S. gives Israel has to be raised through U.S. government borrowing. In an article in the Washington Report for December 1991/January 1992, Frank Collins estimated the costs of this interest, based upon prevailing interest rates for every year since 1949. I have updated this by applying a very conservative 5 percent interest rate for subsequent years, and confined the amount upon which the interest is calculated to grants, not loans or loan guarantees. On this basis the $84.8 billion in grants, loans and commodities Israel has received from the U.S. since 1949 cost the U.S. an additional $49,936,880,000 in interest. There are many other costs of Israel to U.S. taxpayers, such as most or all of the $45.6 billion in U.S. foreign aid to Egypt since Egypt made peace with Israel in 1979 (compared to $4.2 billion in U.S. aid to Egypt for the preceding 26 years). U.S. foreign aid to Egypt, which is pegged at two-thirds of U.S. foreign aid to Israel, averages $2.2 billion per year. There also have been immense political and military costs to the U.S. for its consistent support of Israel during Israel’s half-century of disputes with the Palestinians and all of its Arab neighbors. In addition, there have been the approximately $10 billion in U.S. loan guarantees and perhaps $20 billion in tax-exempt contributions made to Israel by American Jews in the nearly half-century since Israel was created. Even excluding all of these extra costs, America’s $84.8 billion in aid to Israel from fiscal years 1949 through 1998, and the interest the U.S. paid to borrow this money, has cost U.S. taxpayers $134.8 billion, not adjusted for inflation. Or, put another way, the nearly $14,630 every one of 5.8 million Israelis received from the U.S. government by Oct. 31, 1997 has cost American taxpayers $23,240 per Israeli. It would be interesting to know how many of those American taxpayers believe they and their families have received as much from the U.S. Treasury as has everyone who has chosen to become a citizen of Israel. But it’s a question that will never occur to the American public because, so long as America’s mainstream media, Congress and president maintain their pact of silence, few Americans will ever know the true cost of Israel to U.S. taxpayers. Richard Curtiss, a retired U.S. foreign service officer, is the executive editor of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.

VOICE OF THE DAY

A Muslim view

Islamic warfare protects noncombatants, and manipulating terrorists are violating its laws.

ANNANINA JOY GLOVER • JANUARY 16, 2009

Peace to you, dear readers. I was asked to write a reply to the letter written in the Dec. 19 Voices section (“Muslim reaction to killings sought,” by Bob W. Rush) asking for the Muslim community to respond to the terrorism/violence being perpetrated by so-called Muslim extremists.

I am an American who has embraced Islam post-Sept. 11, 2001. Islam does not teach hate, violence or exclusivity of salvation. In fact, there are rules to Islamic warfare that protect noncombatants, their property and also a cease-fire if the people pursue peaceful relations. It does not matter if the people are Muslim or non-Muslim. The point of Islamic warfare is to establish justice in a land where people are oppressed and corruption abounds or defend one’s life, home and right to practice his religion. These laws are being violated by the terrorists; their attacks harm men, women and children who offer no violence or opposition to justice. Property is stolen or destroyed, crops wiped out and no peace treaties are welcomed. So ultimately what we have are rampaging murderers and political extremists pulling the strings, manipulating the emotional state of people to convince them that they are acting to serve justice.

Killing Spawns Resentment

It is hard for most Americans to understand what it is that has spawned such a resentment in people, until they are offered insight into a different life that is reality on the other side of the world. To us it is articles in the newspaper, images on television and counts of how many of our people have given their lives in what we believe is a fight for freedom, justice and liberty for all. But to many ordinary people who consider themselves to be patriotic, honest, hard-working folk of Middle Eastern nations, American military action or support of certain governments results in the death of children, friends and family. We know from experience that anyone who loses a child or a beloved family member in a violent way generally becomes embittered and blames what they perceive to be the source of the problem, whether it be drunk drivers, gang-bangers or military skirmishes.

After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, our government ordered an investigation and the report concluded that the primary motivation was U.S. military aid to Israel. No matter how bitter people might be or what terrible things have been done to them or their loved ones, it does not justify the actions the terrorists took. It certainly did nothing to improve the conditions of the people trying to live alongside Israel.

No Room For Hate

When politically minded people gather emotionally wounded people together and focus those feelings into hate, they can manipulate them to do anything, and by perverting scripture they believe they serve justice. There is no room for hate in the heart of any true believer of God, be they Muslim, Christian or Jew. When there is arrogance (racial or social) or hate, love for God cannot be. I do understand that Israel is a very sensitive subject, but I ask you to think about the country not for religious affiliation or historical events. There are international laws that designate certain human rights, and if a country does not comply with them, we do not support their governments. Israel’s military actions violate human rights laws, and have continued to do so for more than 20 years. Yet the U.S. gives more aid to Israel (in weapons and so forth) than any other nation (to my understanding ).

The most horrifying to me, as a woman, is the checkpoint that refused to allow a woman in labor to cross to the waiting ambulance until after she and her twins had died. The most disturbing fact about the weaponry being used is the so-called “rubber bullets” that are metal rounds coated in plastic and end up killing many children, even entering their brains.

I am not calling an end to Israel or reviling the children of Israel. I am simply saying that there is another side to the story and that some of the bitterness and resentment is based in reality. I believe if we truly want peace, people (Muslim, Christian, Jew, or other) are going to have to recognize the humanity in the other and strive for a common goal: the right to live and believe free from persecution.

If you disagree, please feel free to contest my words with credible sources. If you want to know what all Muslims must abide by, try reading a translation of the meaning of the Quran. Look for a way to prove me wrong. I, as a Muslim – one who submits my whole self to God – believe in: God, the Messengers, the Angels, the Book, the Final Day, that Islam is my guide and inviolate law, that there is no compulsion in religion, other religions must be respectfully disagreed with but not reviled and to treat people gently. Most of all, I believe on living by example; clean and courteous. Religion must be lived in every breath, every word and every step – a way of life.

Annanina Joy Glover lives in Springfield.

DENNIS MYERS Against the Grain

It was 25 years ago that Congress and President Reagan created the King Day national holiday we mark this week. One hopes that in that quarter century our citizenry learned more about Martin Luther King’s message, which drew heavily on Gandhi’s nonviolent resistance techniques. The two men are now honored around the world. There is a third figure who deserves that kind of recognition.

In popular culture, Islam is a caricature. Journalism and politicians have learned the skill of pitting us against Muslims by emphasizing all the worst events and figures of Islamic history and by marginalizing the complexities of Islam from our knowledge, the admirable figures of the faith from our view. Imagine if Gandhi were unknown to us. Think how much his life and example have leavened our view of Hinduism. Imagine how distorted our view of that faith would be if we did not have him as a bridge to understanding.

The Taliban is mainly Pathan, meaning they are natives of the region along the Afghan/Pakistan border. So was Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan. The Pathans have for centuries been known as fierce warriors (Kipling wrote admiringly of their prowess).

When India was still intact, Ghaffar Khan led Pathans from militarism to nonviolent action. In 1930, after an Indian declaration of independence in defiance of British occupation, Ghaffar and his followers, the Servants of God, set the city of Peshawar on its ear with nonviolence. The British had never seen anything like it, least of all among the ferocious Pathans. When a group of resisters was fired on, according to one account, the wounded fell down and “those behind came forward and with their breasts bared, exposed themselves to the fire … so that some got as many as 21 bullet holes in their bodies, and all the people stood their ground without getting into a panic.”

Awed by the courage of the resisters, a renowned British regiment refused orders to participate further in the slaughter. (All the anger of the British empire in decline fell on those gallant, unfortunate soldiers — arrests, courts martial, long prison terms, and, in one case, exile to a penal colony.) The regiment had been inspired by the nonviolent example of the resisters.

Ghaffar Khan’s example went beyond nonviolence. In other fields, too, he represented Muslim views that the people of the United States do not today credit, given our ignorance of Islam. George Bush used the Taliban’s treatment of women to build support for a war, as though one group within Islam typified the entire faith (how many Christians would want Bush to typify Christianity?). Ghaffar Khan deplored purdah, the tradition of repression of women. Nor did he view religion as simplistically or restrictively as many Christians do.

As the British were being driven out of India by nonviolence in the 1940s, London (which had helped carve up Czechoslovakia for Hitler) wanted the nation slashed in two. For years, the Servants of God controlled the northwest region, defying and frustrating this western scheme to invent another nation. And they did it peacefully. Ghaffar’s followers swore an oath: “I shall never use violence. I shall not retaliate or take revenge, and shall forgive anyone who indulges in oppression and excesses against me.”

That the Pathans with their brutal culture and history could so easily adapt to nonviolence — and succeed at it! — mystified Ghaffar Khan himself. “I started teaching the Pathans nonviolence only a short time ago,” he told Gandhi. “Yet in comparison the Pathans seem to have learned this lesson and grasped the idea of nonviolence much quicker and much better than the Indians … How do you explain that?” Gandhi responded, “Nonviolence is not for cowards. It is for the brave, the courageous. And the Pathans are more brave and courageous than the Hindus. That is the reason why the Pathans were able to remain nonviolent.”

The Pathans’ territorial triumphs were lost in negotiation and the nation was carved up into India and Pakistan. The partition pitted Muslims (who dominated Pakistan) against Hindus and Sikhs (who dominated India) and triggered war in which hundreds of thousands of people died.

In the ensuing years, though he lived until 1988 (he died in Peshawar under house arrest), Ghaffar Khan vanished from view, expunged from the history he did so much to make. The obliteration of Ghaffar Khan from history has two consequences. First, those of us in the west are robbed of history that would contradict our stereotypical view of Islam. Second, the glittering example of Ghaffar Khan could have given Muslims an alternative to those leaders who appealed to their worst instincts. Imagine if George Wallace were remembered in U.S. history books while Martin King was obliterated.

The director of Jerusalem’s Palestinian Center for the Study of Nonviolence has written, “The life of Khan can change and will challenge many readers in the Middle East.”

It can do the same for those of us in the west — if it ever finds its way into our history books.

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he first step in ending the War on Terror is to stop calling it “the war on terror.”

Ever since 9/11, the Bush administration—supported by the news media—has endorsed the radical jihadi idea that the world is engaged in a great ideological struggle between two competing foes. But this has never been the case. The United States was attacked on 9/11, as it had been many times before and since, by a small band of extremists who cloaked their disdain for America’s global power in the language of religion and the images of cosmic war. They needed to be isolated and brought to justice for their misdeeds, not glorified as America’s global enemy.

 

The effect of thinking in terms of global war was to make enemies out of millions of Muslims who otherwise would have been our friends—or at least not our cosmic foes. Perhaps the greatest paradox is that the war rhetoric also made George W. Bush into a satanic figure in many parts of the Muslim world.

Shortly before the previous presidential election, I interviewed a Muslim activist in Iraq who supported the jihadi insurgency against the US occupation. I asked him who he wanted to win the US presidential race, and to my surprise, he supported the reelection of President George W. Bush.

“But you hate Bush,” I said in astonishment. “Why would you want him to win the election?”

“We want to defeat him,” he told me, saying that he didn’t want Bush to go quietly.

“We want to win the war and humiliate him,” he said, “the way he has tried to humiliate us.”

Now, over four years later, Bush is on his way out. Whatever symbolic significance he has had as an enemy of radical Islam is leaving the global political stage. The Obama administration has a golden opportunity to rethink the War on Terror.

It seems to me that there is a strategy for victory that does not require armed conquest. My suggestion is that the new administration can “win” the War on Terror in part by rethinking the nature of the conflict. Let me suggest five steps that the U.S. could take in a post-Bush era to bring the War on Terror to an end:

1. Recognize that we are not confronting war but a war mindset.

 

The radical Muslim war against the secular West has been a powerful idea, erupting from time to time in destructive acts of terrorism, but it is largely an idea. It has no organized army nor is it poised to take political control over any country, especially not the United States. It is an imagined war between what are thought to be the forces of good against the forces of evil—incarnate in the likes of George Bush and his colleagues.

To some extent the Bush administration’s “war on terror” is an imagined war as well. It has placed Osama bin Laden and his cadre on a symbolic pedestal in what has been characterized as a struggle between good and evil. President Bush’s exhortation to be either “with us or against us” might well have compelled a good number of people who were otherwise on the fence to take sides against America. The young Muslims who were involved in the bombings in London’s subway said that they chose to take a stand, and thought of themselves as soldiers in a great moral war. If that image of war disappeared, young men like them would not be enticed into imaginary roles as soldiers for truth.

Obama’s pledge to hunt down bin Laden and exterminate him might have sounded good in tough campaign rhetoric, but it is not a platform for building a foreign policy in South Asia and the Middle East. Anti-Americanism is at an all-time high in Pakistan, and Obama has a fresh opportunity to rebuild the terms and image of US military presence in the region. The Muslim world is waiting for a US president who can stop treating them like enemies to be invaded but as potential friends.

2. Accept that America is the enemy because of what it does, not what it is.

 

America and other Western powers are thought to be evil because of their actions, such as supporting the invasion and occupation of Iraq. The United States is imagined to be an evil enemy by jihadi activists not because of its freedom or anything else that is inherent in American society, but because of its policies and actions, particularly in the Middle East. Specifically, the U.S. is regarded as the enemy of Islam because of its support of undemocratic dictators like Egypt’s Mubarak and the Saud family monarchy in Saudi Arabia, its invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq, and for its one-sided support for Israel without equal concern for the rights of Palestine.

When I interviewed one of the Muslim activists involved in bombing the World Trade Center in 1993, he told me that he liked America. It was easy for him to be a Muslim in the United States, he said, and he respected our freedom of religion. Though he and other Muslim activists, such as Sayyid Qutb, disliked what they regarded as America’s lax moral standards, they were angered only when they thought that we were trying to force our way of living onto them, or to control or exploit Muslim countries. They did not hate America’s freedom—they hated what they regarded as America’s attempts to control others and deprive them of what they regarded as their freedom from the West.

In the same way, most Americans do not despise Muslim activists because of who they are—Muslims—but because of what they do. Bin Laden and his forces are thought to be evil because of their horrible acts of terrorism, not because we think that there is anything inherently evil about Islam. This means that the differences between the two positions are not insurmountable, and the imagined war will end when each side stops doing things that the other side regards as acts of evil.

This means that the Obama administration should not waste its energy in trying to shore up America’s public relations image. That will improve instantly once US military forces are out of Iraq and Afghanistan, and the U.S. has brokered an enduring peace between Israel and Palestine.

3. Stop acting like an enemy.

The great terror war would come shuddering to a halt if the United States was no longer perceived as doing evil things in the eyes of its Muslim activist opponents. Many of these allegedly “evil things” involve the US military. The jihadi recruiting videos that are posted on the internet always begin in the same way—showing American military actions that kill and oppress Muslims. An end to those military actions will immediately undercut the support for the anti-American jihadi ideology.

One proof of the effectiveness of a non-military response is the Awakening movement in al Anbar province of Iraq, a movement that arose in 2005 and then became associated with the so-called “surge” strategy of General David Petraeus. As Obama correctly pointed out in the 2008 campaign debates, the success of Petraeus’ strategy was only partially related to a surge in troop strength. In fact the strategy actually involved a reduction of troops in the Sunni territory of al Anbar province. Though these troops were re-deployed to Baghdad—where they joined a surge of new American forces dispatched to patrol neighborhoods and make them more secure—they were not replaced in the al Anbar countryside.

With no US military around to hate—and with American financial support for their new security operations—local militias turned their attention away from America and toward another enemy, the al Qaeda forces that had infiltrated the resistance movement. In this case the US military quickly changed from an enemy to an ally.

When the United States withdraws from Iraq, a major symbol of America’s imagined evil will disappear. During the campaign, Obama consistently supported a pull-out of US troops, and Iraqis will be watching to see how completely this promise is kept. If the withdrawal is slow, if large numbers of combat forces remain in a new name, such as “military advisors,” if the huge US military bases that have been constructed in the Iraqi desert are allowed to remain under US control, Obama’s words about withdrawal from Iraq might be seen as an empty promise.

Of even more concern is Obama’s stance on Afghanistan. During the campaign, he has called for an increase of a hundred thousand troops, which would double the number presently there. Yet it will still be half of the numbers of Russian troops that the former Soviet Union had deployed in Afghanistan—and it lost the war, dragging much of the Soviet economy down with it.

A similarly dismal prognosis is in store for America’s continuing presence in Afghanistan. Moreover, the persistence of US troops in the region will continue to provide an irritant that will bolster anti-American forces not only in Afghanistan but in neighboring Pakistan. There, this presence is a major catalyst, supporting the kind of radical jihadi ideology that has led to acts of terrorism both within Pakistan and in adjacent India, including the recent attacks in Mumbai. For this reason, a strategy for withdrawal from Afghanistan, and from Iraq, should be a high on the list of objectives for the Obama administration.

4. Become a problem solver not a problem maker.

Aside from what is regarded as its military meddling, the other thing that makes the United States appear as an enemy to many Muslim activists is its influence on Middle Eastern politics. As I mentioned, this includes US financial and political support for regimes that are regarded as dictatorial, and its seemingly uncritical stance toward Israel.

Though the U.S. will not retreat from its political support for Israel—for it has moral and historical reasons for assuring Israel’s security—this stance need not appear completely one-sided. It is important that America be seen as championing the just cause of Palestinian freedom. The Baker-Hamilton Commission report correctly concluded that peace between Israelis and Palestinians would affect the way that the U.S. is perceived in the Middle East, and that a positive outcome to the peace process would undermine the militant anti-American jihadi cause.

The perception that the U.S. is tied to Israel affects everything else that the U.S. does in the Middle East. In Iraq, for example, when citizens in Fallujah demonstrated against the killing of Hamas leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin by an Israeli military strike in 2004, the protesters linked the Israeli actions toward Palestine with the US military occupation in Iraq. The mob then turned on American contract workers who happened to be driving down Fallujah’s main street (which had just been renamed “Sheik Yassin Street” in honor of the fallen Palestinian leader), killing them and stringing up their charred corpses from the girders of a bridge. It was an image that hardened the resolve of US officials to punish and control Fallujah, which led to the invasion and decimation of the city later that year—actions that in turn increased the level of anti-Americanism among Iraqi insurgents.

So the support for Israel has had a direct effect in increasing the anti-American sentiment in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East. Conversely, American support for Palestinian autonomy and a renewed effort by the U.S. to become engaged in the peace process would be seen as an attempt by America to be a problem solver rather than a problem maker in the region. It is disconcerting that during the recent Israeli attacks on Hamas in Gaza there has not been a more vocal expression of concern from the Obama camp. Though his administration will not be in a position to affect US policy until after the inauguration, they should appear poised to enter into the negotiations in a positive and fair-minded way, concerned not only about Israel’s security—which it should be—but about the security and autonomy of the Palestinian people as well.

5. Take the moral high road and adhere to international standards of justice.

Perhaps the most enduring position the new administration can take to end the War on Terror is to elevate the discourse of international politics. This means in large part restoring America’s image as a protector of human rights and international law. Both have been tarnished in the zealous antiterrorism tactics of the neo-con years of Bush foreign policy, and this has deeply damaged America’s image throughout the world.

Soon after the revelations of prisoner abuse in Abu Ghraib, a well-educated woman who taught at Baghdad University asked me, “How can the U.S. expect Iraq to adhere to human rights when it doesn’t do so itself?” Though she had hated Saddam, she told me, she was disheartened to see the U.S. stoop to some of his standards.

The Iraqi woman had a good point, and illustrated the fact that by relaxing our standards of justice and human rights we helped to make enemies out of those who might otherwise have been our friends. Rather than diminishing the threat of terror, it was one of the factors that promoted anti-Americanism and made terrorism possible. Practices of torture and imprisonment without trial have helped to enlarge the image of America as an evil enemy.

The Obama administration would be well counseled to restore the standards of international justice and human rights that were reduced in the name of the War on Terror. For one thing the most pernicious aspects of the anti-terrorism legislation should be repealed. Torture in any form should never be acceptable, and the incarceration facilities at Guantanamo Bay should be closed. Persons accused of abetting in terrorist acts need to be held accountable for their actions, of course, but in the same way that any person involved in a criminal act is held accountable and brought to justice.

These five courses of action will help to diminish the spiral of violence associated with the War on Terror. They will not obliterate all acts of terrorism, however, since there will always be lone acts of extremists who will try to goad us into responses that will magnify their importance and spread their view of the world. Terrorism has become a tool of those disaffected with authority, and it would be as difficult to eradicate all forms of terrorism as to do away with all forms of handguns.

It would be prudent not to overreact to incidents of terrorism when they occur in the future, however. Following the Good Friday Agreement that ended the troubles in Northern Ireland, a rogue band of IRA extremists who were unhappy with what they thought was a sell-out by their own leader instigated a bloody act of terror in the town of Omagh. To the credit of the British and Northern Irish authorities, however, they did not let this incident affect the agreement that they had signed, and they treated the incident as a criminal act undertaken by a few extremists rather than the expression of a mass movement.

The War on Terror will come to a close when America takes the high road in international affairs, and does not exaggerate its response to the provocation of a few. Some aspects of the strategy to end the War on Terror will be difficult. Removing US troops from Iraq and Afghanistan will take time and effort, and engaging in the peace process between Israel and Palestine will involve a great deal of diplomatic maneuvering.

Other aspects of the end to the War on Terror will be more easy to accomplish, and can be done as soon as the new Obama administration is installed. Among them will be an end to the phrase “war on terror,” words that indicate a long-term engagement with ideological positions that are not easily changed. That’s the kind of stagnant thinking that Obama has pledged to overcome. It is time to stop thinking and acting as if the world was at war.

Mark Juergensmeyer is director of the Orfalea Center for Global and International Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and author of Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence, and Global Rebellion: Religious Challenges to the Secular State.

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