Donors Fall Short on Afghan Aid Pledges Amid Widening International Rifts

Divergences in approaches to Afghanistan map onto wider divergences between the United States and its allies and China, Russia, and their partners.

By Catherine Putz
April 05, 2022

Last week, a virtual donor conference convened by the United Nations accrued pledges of $2.44 billion for Afghanistan from 41 nations, falling short of the $4.4 billion target (itself down from the more than $5 billion the U.N. said it would seek back in January but still “the world’s largest appeal for a single country.”)

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres delivered remarks at the opening of the conference, hosted jointly by the governments of the United Kingdom, Germany, and Qatar, calling attention to the dire situation in Afghanistan.

“Some 95 percent of people do not have enough to eat. Nine million people are at risk of famine. UNICEF [United Nations Children’s Fund] estimates that a million severely malnourished children are on the verge of death, without immediate action,” he said, adding a looming economic collapse, an employment crisis, a drought, and skyrocketing food prices to the misery heaped upon Afghanistan.

“Wealthy, powerful countries cannot ignore the consequences of their decisions on the most vulnerable,” Guterres said, asking for “unconditional and flexible funding as soon as possible” so the U.N. could “reach 22 million people with food, water, health care, protection, shelter, education and other forms of life-saving aid.”

Guterres went on to stress the importance of access for aid workers — male and female — and for girls to be allowed access to not just education but the totality of modern life: “The inclusion of women and girls in all sectors of society and the economy is essential to overcoming Afghanistan’s intersecting economic, humanitarian and human rights crises.” But, he added, aid must not be withheld. “[W]e cannot use their education as a bargaining tool,” Guterres said, a comment arguably aimed at the World Bank and donors, such as the U.K., EU, U.S., and Turkey, which raised concerns about the Taliban’s treatment of women.

On March 30, days after the Taliban suddenly reversed a decision to allow girls to attend school past the sixth grade, the World Bank suspended four projects worth $600 million, which it had announced earlier in the month, over concerns about the continued banning of secondary education for women. The projects, as the BBC reported, would be restarted “only when the bank is confident that its goals can be met.”

At the pledging conference, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield delivered remarks in which she pledged an additional $204 million in new humanitarian assistance but also stated that “The Taliban will not control our humanitarian funding.” Thomas-Greenfield went on to say, “The people of Afghanistan have our unequivocal support. But the Taliban’s ambition to improve its own relations with the international community depends on its conduct.”

As desperate as the Afghan people are for assistance, the Taliban government does not appear ready to compromise on ideological issues and neither are international financial institutions, aid organizations, and donors. Among the most generous in pledging donations were the U.K. ($375 million), Germany ($221.46 million), and the United States ($204 million). The conference’s other host, Qatar, pledged $25 million. Absent from headlines was any news of pledges made by Russia or China.

On the same day as the U.N. pledging conference, China hosted the third “Meeting of Foreign Ministers of the Neighboring Countries of Afghanistan” in Tunxi, Anhui. The in-person meeting was attended by the foreign ministers of Iran, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan as well as the Taliban’s Acting Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi.

In a joint statement, the group called “for further measures to improve people’s livelihood and guarantee the basic rights of all Afghan people, including all ethnic groups, women and children” and urged the Taliban to “to take more visible measures” to demonstrate its distance from terrorist groups. In the joint statement the seven nations pledged “to provide humanitarian assistance for the Afghan people, support Afghanistan’s economic reconstruction and self-reliant development, and strengthen regional connectivity,” but did so without specific pledges.

In a routine press conference on March 31, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wang Wenbin said, while outlining the results of the meeting, that “China respects the leading role of the Afghan interim government in receiving foreign aid and opposes the politicization of humanitarian aid. We urge the US to take primary responsibility as the culprit of the predicament in Afghanistan, stop unilateral sanctions and unconditionally return Afghanistan’s national assets.”

These divergences in policy approaches to Afghanistan map onto existing divergences in the international community, particularly the widening rift between the United States and its allies, and China, Russia and their partners, as can also be seen in responses to the crisis in Ukraine.

STAFF AUTHOR
Catherine Putz is managing editor of The Diplomat. She tweets @LadyPutz.

ANALYSIS

COVID19 AND FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS

The legitimacy of lockdown, according to Jürgen Habermas

Jürgen Habermas recently argued that the pandemic measures of the German government hadn’t gone far enough. To weigh the state’s duty to protect life against other rights and freedoms was unconstitutional, he warned. In the ensuing controversy, critics accused him of authoritarianism. Were they right?

Published on 26 March 2022 
Peter J. Verovšek - Eurozine (Vienna)
 

Hajo | Cartoon Movement

LONG READ

Jürgen Habermas’s article in the September 2021 issue of German political monthly Blätter für deutsche und internationale Politik is the latest example of what his first editor described as the philosopher’s ability to create "a huge brouhaha" (einen gewaltigen Wirbel) in the German public sphere. (1)

In the piece, Covid-19 and the protection of life, Habermas not only defended the legitimacy of restrictions on civil rights – including free movement and assembly – designed to reduce infections by SARS-CoV-2, but also argued that the German government was not going far enough to protect the population. By taking as its baseline the availability of intensive care beds, rather than the risk of infection per se, the government was, he argued, failing to observe its constitutional duty to "exclude all courses of action that risk the probable endangerment of the life and physical integrity of a foreseeable number of innocent citizens."

On Habermas’s reading, the prohibition on the subordination of individual human life to any other goal is the supreme value not only of Germany’s post-war democratic political culture, but of the Basic Law itself. To argue – as some German jurists recently have – that risk to human life could be weighed against other basic rights was therefore not merely unethical, it was also legally false.

Although Habermas initially frames his argument broadly in terms of the democratic constitutional state, his citations and later discussion reveals that it is primarily addressed to the legal-ethical discourse in Germany (as so many of his public interventions are).
More : Instrumentalising the health crisis. On herd democracy and human dignity

Even in Germany, the reaction was somewhat muted compared to previous occasions. This probably says something about not only the public appetite – or lack thereof – for serious discussion about the measures to fight the pandemic, but also the polarisation of these debates when they do occur. Rather than engaging objectively with Habermas’s arguments, the response descended into the kind of polemic with which, after two years of pandemic, we are all-too familiar.

In a response entitled The Habermas dictatorship, published in the conservative German daily Die Welt on 11 October, features editor Andreas Rosenfelder accused him of creating a 'biopolitical Leviathan that can restrict any freedom for the purpose of infection control, always and everywhere, without condition and without measure'. Rosenfelder objected to Habermas’s framing of the critics of the lockdown policy as 'libertarians' opposed to state authority by definition. This, he argued, implied that the government and those who supported its 'strict' lockdown policy were simply 'defending' a legal norm, rather than 'a practice hastily borrowed from China'.

Rosenfelder’s diatribe – and the resonance it received on social media – reflect the discontent within parts of German society with what is seen as the 'media technocracy' over the course of the pandemic. Wild assertions such as that lockdowns are 'borrowed from China' (if anything they are rooted in the development of quarantines and cordons sanitaires to restrict the freedom of movement during the bubonic plagues) are par for the course in this discourse. Hyperbole aside, however, Rosenfelder was right that Habermas allows the government significant authority to restrict fundamental rights.

But while Habermas’s prioritisation of the protection of life might be extreme in certain respects, his proposals were neither particularly radical nor potentially authoritarian. Moreover, despite championing 'the unforced force of the better argument', Habermas is aware that philosophy does not have a privileged position in modern life.(2) Whereas professional thinkers may highlight certain problems, it is the public that serves as the ultimate arbiter.

As I shall argue, this fallibilistic commitment to the public sphere as the essence of modern democratic life has important implications both for Habermas’s argument itself, and for the power of governments to restrict the fundamental rights of their citizens in the face of SARS-CoV-2 while respecting the strictures of democratic legitimacy.

Origins

Starting with his attack on Martin Heidegger in 1953 for failing to apologize for his collaboration with the Nazis, to his role in the Historians’ Debate in the mid-1980s and his interventions in the aftermath of the financial crisis of 2008, Habermas has intervened in almost every important controversy in post-war Germany. More recently, he has expanded his focus to debates on the future of the EU and the emerging European public sphere.

While Habermas argues that the public intellectual plays a crucial role in a liberal political culture as a 'guardian of rationality', he does not consider them to be neutral figures.(3) On the contrary, while public intellectuals help to ensure that the public exchange of ideas proceeds thoughtfully and on the basis of good information, they can take strong positions and make ‘arguments sharpened by rhetoric’.(4) Habermas has therefore never shied from controversy in his quest to improve the quality of public debate about the key issues of the day.
More : The virus as metaphor

In this case, Habermas’s argument had been rehearsed in a number of shorter public comments, both in Germany and abroad. In an interview in Le Monde in April 2020, Habermas noted that while emergency measures posed a number of problems for democratic legitimacy, pandemic states of exception were required in order to protect ‘the fundamental right to life and to physical integrity’. Despite the understandable pull of the ‘utilitarian temptation’, politicians must not, he argued, trade lives against economic considerations.

This is not to say that Habermas disregards such considerations entirely. On the contrary: in a plea published in both Die Zeit and Le Monde two weeks earlier, he and his co-signatories – including German former Foreign minister Joschka Fisher, French-German former Green MEP Daniel Cohn-Bendit and German academic Axel Honneth – called on the European Commission to set up an EU-based 'corona fund' by borrowing on international financial markets at low interest rates. This, they argued, would enable the EU’s members to 'shoulder the huge financial burdens of the crisis together'. Such a step would not only allow poorer states to care for the economic wellbeing of their citizens without having to lift lockdowns prematurely; it would also take advantage of a new social atmosphere in which it was 'popular to show helpfulness, empathy and hope'.

While the pandemic created a tension in the generally “complementary relationship” between democratic self-empowerment of citizens to act collectively and the individual rights protected by the constitution, states of exception demanded that such conflicts be resolved in favour of the former

These earlier interventions highlight two aspects of Habermas’s thought that his critics overlooked. The first regards the role of solidarity in democratic politics, especially within a state of emergency. In his Blätter article, Habermas argued that democracy was incompatible with an individualistic conception of citizenship and instead required citizens to conceive of themselves as part of a collective able to act for the common good. Especially under crisis conditions – such as those brought about by Covid-19 – 'the state is dependent on unusually high cooperation from the population'. While the pandemic created a tension in the generally 'complementary relationship' between democratic self-empowerment of citizens to act collectively and the individual rights protected by the constitution, states of exception demanded that such conflicts be resolved in favour of the former.

In contrast to proponents of a looser approach, Habermas rejected the idea of a 'trade-off between the right to life and those competing basic rights that public health measures do indeed seriously impinge upon'. In situations such as the Coronavirus pandemic, precedence had to be given to the protection of life as the prerequisite for all other rights. The state could still 'offset' the priority given to the protection of life 'against secondary effects that threaten lives elsewhere and in other ways, but not against claims from competing basic rights'.

This conclusion follows from Habermas’s philosophical thought. His social and political theory is rooted in the fact that human interactions can be interpreted from two different and incompatible viewpoints: the internal perspective of a participant in a 'lifeworld' and the external, 'system'-based perspective of an observer. While the latter has certain advantages, most notably in governing efficient and materially productive market relations, Habermas worries about the ability of such functional, system-thinking to 'colonize' the lifeworlds of individuals by encroaching too far onto their daily lives and everyday interactions with others.(5)

For Habermas, prioritizing economic considerations (by privileging individual private rights) over the protection of life is precisely such a form of colonisation. In his interview with Le Monde, he noted that the 'language of “value”, borrowed from the sphere of economics, encourages quantification. But a person’s autonomy cannot be treated in this way … there is no “choosing” one human life over another.’ During short states of exception, therefore, politics 'as the means to achieve collective goals” demands priority over the law as ‘medium for guaranteeing subjective freedoms'.
Implications

A powerful statement of the danger of creeping authoritarianism has come from another public intellectual and philosopher, Giorgio Agamben. At the beginning of the pandemic, Agamben noted 'the increasing tendency to use the state of exception as the normal paradigm of government'. Habermas’s Italian counterpart therefore warned of the deleterious consequences of normalizing the kind of public monitoring, surveillance and restrictions on movement deemed necessary to fight the Coronavirus.Habermas is sensitive to concerns about the overuse of emergency politics. However, he noted that 'only Covid deniers could vilify measures justified solely for the duration of the pandemic as an excrescence of biopolitics'. In his public comments, Habermas has repeatedly emphasized that exceptional measures to protect life can be democratically legitimate only when supported by a majority of the population. He therefore stressed that when the political perspective of the participant is allowed to infringe upon basic rights, citizens must be able to trust ‘that the government will not allow the regime of legally mandated common-interest behaviours introduced on health-policy grounds to persist beyond the current hazardous situation’.

Understanding the basis for such trust and what prevents democratic states from imposing or extending states of exception indefinitely requires a deeper dive into Habermas’s philosophical system. Habermas defines democracy not in terms of majorities – as with republican supporters of popular sovereignty – nor in terms of unfettered respect for individual rights – as with liberals. Rather, democracy requires that ‘all decisions of consequence will depend on the practical discourse of the participants’.(6)

This does not mean that all such decisions must be made by referendum or that citizens have to actively consent to every government policy. Instead, the democratic process is legitimized by the ability of citizens to voice their disapproval through opposition, protest and debate. Not only that: the government must remain sensitive to the public’s discursive veto power by changing course in response to mass repudiations of government policy.(7)

As the foundation of modern democratic life, what Habermas refers to as the ‘anarchic, unfettered communicative freedom’ of public debate must be open to all topics and to everyone affected. This ‘wild’ process of opinion-formation, ‘in which equal rights of citizenship become socially effective’, must be matched by the sensitivity of the government and the institutions of law to public opinion.(8) Such an approach ensures the defence of civil liberties – both through the legal system and the prerequisites of the public sphere itself – and allows citizens to see themselves as co-authors of the laws that bind them. Even the compulsory restrictions imposed by state during the pandemic retain their ‘unique character as a voluntary contribution of the individual towards the collective accomplishment of a universally approved political task’.

If an open, functional and politically influential public sphere is the prerequisite for democratic legitimacy, then the presence of such an institution is the origin of citizens’ trust that the state will not abuse its powers. Even if governments were to overstep these boundaries, Habermas believes that the public could make use of vibrant national political spheres and the sensitivity of political institutions to public opinion to force a change. Because the modern, digitized public sphere enables both opinion-formation and the mobilisation of the people without physical contact, restrictions on mobility and measures to ensure physical distancing no longer impede its functioning.(9)
Even the compulsory restrictions imposed by state during the pandemic retain their "unique character as a voluntary contribution of the individual towards the collective accomplishment of a universally approved political task"

The situation is very different in illiberal or authoritarian regimes, where the ability of citizens to express themselves is restricted by surveillance, media concentration and other measures designed to tame the ‘wildness’ of the public sphere. ‘Illiberal democracies’ like Poland and Hungary still hold elections and protect constitutional rights at a theoretical level; however, since citizens are no longer empowered to act in a politically autonomous way that would allow them to see themselves as co-authors of the law, these regimes can no longer claim democratic legitimacy. In this regard measures to fight the pandemic are no different than any other political decision.
Conclusions

In appealing for the legitimacy of public health measures designed to prevent predictable and avoidable increase in infections and deaths, Habermas is fulfilling his role as a public intellectual ‘who seeks out on important issues, proposes fruitful hypotheses, and broadens the spectrum of relevant arguments in an attempt to improve the lamentable level of public debates’.(10) He is speaking in response to the growth in Corona-denialism in Germany and around the world, which is not just disrupting civil order, but also prolonging the pandemic and facilitating the mutation of the virus and the potential creation of vaccine-resistant variants of SARS-CoV-2.

This task is very different from that of epidemiologists who advise governments. Habermas argues that it is not the place of philosophers to give their opinions on the gravity of the threat of the virus itself, as Agamben did in calling Covid-19 ‘a normal influenza’. Instead of undermining public faith in medicine, intellectuals can help to ensure that societies engage in processes of opinion-formation to ensure that both expert advice and the will of the people are taken into account and balanced in a politically acceptable manner.

In this way, public intellectuals help to create and maintain the democratic solidarity necessary for individuals to act collectively as citizens. This is necessary, because – as Habermas noted in his Blätter article – ‘without civic common interest to back up mandatory law, the democratic state under the rule of law cannot have a political existence’. Aiding in the creation of such a collective ‘we-perspective’ is a crucial contribution, especially during crises such as the present, which demand sacrifices from everyone and can only be overcome concertedly. The pandemic should be seen as a chance to show solidarity and the ability to act collectively, not an opportunity to stubbornly assert one’s individual rights in a way that endangers others and further prolongs a pandemic that everyone wishes was already over.


👉 Original article on Eurozine. 

References

(1) Karl Korn quoted in Lorenz Jäger, ‘Heimsuchung von Heidegger’, Zeitschrift Für Ideengeschichte 15, no. 3 (2021), 12.

(2) Peter J. Verovšek, ‘The Philosopher as Engaged Citizen: Habermas on the Role of the Public Intellectual in the Modern Democratic Public Sphere’, European Journal of Social Theory 24, no. 4 (2021).

(3) Jürgen Habermas, Philosophical Introductions: Five Approaches to Communicative Reason, Cambridge: Polity 2018, 152.

(4) Jürgen Habermas, ‘Heinrich Heine and the Role of the Intellectual in Germany’, in The New Conservatism: Cultural Criticism and the Historians’ Debate, Cambridge: MIT Press 1989, 73.

(5) See Peter J. Verovšek, ‘Taking Back Control Over Markets: Jürgen Habermas on the Colonization of Politics by Economics’, Political Studies (2021).

(6) Jürgen Habermas, Theory and Practice, Boston: Beacon Press 1974, 34.

(7) Stephen K. White and Evan Robert Farr, ‘“No-Saying” in Habermas’, Political Theory 40, no. 1 (2012).

(8) Jürgen Habermas, Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy, Cambridge: MIT Press 1996, 186, 307–8.

(9) Katharine Dommett and Peter J. Verovšek, ‘Promoting Democracy in the Digital Public Sphere: Applying Theoretical Ideals to Online Political Communication’, Javnost – the Public 28, 4 (2021).

(10) Jürgen Habermas, Europe: The Faltering Project, Cambridge: Polity Press 2009, 52, 55.

US denies pressuring Spain to support Morocco's autonomy plan for Western Sahara

The US ambassador's statements came after Russia’s envoy in Algeria claimed that Spain’s "turnaround" on the dispute was due to "pressure exerted by certain parties".

Basma El Atti
Rabat
05 April, 2022

"We didn't push Spain to change their position on Morocco. Spain made its own decision," said US envoy to Spain. [Getty]

The US ambassador to Spain has denied claims that Biden's administration put pressure on Madrid to change its position on the Western Sahara dispute in support of Morocco's autonomy plan.

"We didn't push Spain to change its position on Morocco. Spain made its own decision," said Julissa Reynoson Pantaleón, the newly-appointed US ambassador in Madrid, during an interview with the Spanish daily La Vanguardia published on Monday.

Spain, which held a neutral stance on the issue since decolonising the territory in 1975, said last month that Rabat's 2007 proposal to offer Western Sahara autonomy within the kingdom is the "most serious, realistic and credible" solution to solve the four-decade-long conflict.

RELATED

Israel backs Morocco's autonomy plan in Western Sahara

Basma El Atti

In 2006, Morocco presented its autonomy plan for the territory, which is supposed to allow Sahrawis to run their affairs "democratically", through legislative, executive, and judicial bodies, while Morocco retains control over the defence and foreign relations.

For its part, the UN has backed the plan but the Algeria-backed Polisario Front, which continues to call for an independent state for Sahrawis, rejected Rabat's proposal to date.

The US ambassador's statements came after Russia's envoy in Algeria claimed that Spain's "turnaround" on the conflict was a result of "pressure exerted by certain parties", but without quoting them by name.

By lending its support to the plan, Madrid reconciled with Rabat but opened a new rift with Algiers. Algeria, which backs the Polisario separatist movement, considered Spain's sudden change of policy a "betrayal" and recalled its ambassador to Madrid.

Spain's new Western Sahara position 'shameful': Polisario

MENA

Basma El Atti

In April 2021, ties between Madrid and Rabat hit a low when Spain allowed Polisario leader Brahim Ghali into Spanish soil for medical treatment. Rabat reacted furiously, recalling its ambassador from Madrid.

The following month, Spain was caught off guard when more than 8,000 stormed its borders in Ceuta. Spain accused Morocco of deliberately putting thousands of lives at risk to "blackmail" Madrid during the diplomatic dispute between the two countries.

Meanwhile, the US ambassador renewed her country's support for Morocco’s autonomy plan. "We believe that Morocco's plan is reasonable, viable and we also support the process that the United Nations," she said.

However, Reynoson made no mention of the US recognition of Morocco’s sovereignty over the territory in 2020. The recognition was signed under Trump's administration as a part of the Abrahams Accord that persuaded Rabat to normalise ties with Israel.

Since its inauguration in January 2021, Biden's administration has yet to formally voice its recognition of Rabat's sovereignty over Western Sahara.

WE CALL IT FASCISM WHEN ORBAN, PUTIN, DUDA, DO IT

Israel renews closure of 28 Palestinian NGOs in occupied East Jerusalem

Israel maintains its crackdown on institutions in the city in a policy believed to aim at curbing the Palestinian Authority's influence

Israeli security forces gather outside the Damascus Gate in Jerusalem's Old City

 during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, 4 April 2022 (AFP)

By MEE staff
Published date: 5 April 2022

Israel has renewed the closure of 28 Palestinian civil society groups in occupied East Jerusalem, including the Orient House and the Prisoners' Club offices, local media reported.

On Monday, the representatives of the Jerusalem municipality, the Shin Bet, the Ministry of Internal Security, and the army's Home Front Command arranged to extend the closure of offices of Palestinian civil society in the city during a meeting.

It is widely believed that Israel has pursued a crackdown on Palestinian institutions in the city, including schools and NGO groups, to block the Palestinian Authority (PA) from getting a foothold in East Jerusalem.

The Orient House, an iconic building in the city that once hosted the kaiser of Germany in the late 1890s, was shut down during the Second Intifada in 2001.

Israel had attempted to close the building several times since its occupation of the city in 1967, saying that it was used as the headquarters for the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO).

Israel had increased the presence of its military police in East Jerusalem as it expects tensions to rise in the city during the month of Ramadan and the Easter and Passover holidays in April.

On Tuesday, Israel released the PA's governor of Jerusalem, Adnan Gheith, after he was summoned for questioning in the morning.

Gheith is a resident of the Silwan neighbourhood. Though his role as the mayor of Jerusalem is symbolic, Israel has arrested him over 28 times and banned him since 2018 from leaving the city and meeting officials from the PA.

He told Wafa news agency that "my arrest comes as part of the criminal series that the occupation is carrying out against our people.... we will remain on our land embodying our sovereignty despite all these measures and these dark forces."

Israel occupied East Jerusalem during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. It annexed the entire city in 1980, in a move unrecognised by the majority of the international community.

Geico drops Linda Sarsour as a diversity speaker after FAUX outrage from pro-Israel groups

More than 60 groups demand Geico apologise to Sarsour for 'defamatory public attack'

Linda Sarsour speaks during a press conference on 11 March, 2021, in Louisville, Kentucky, ahead of the one-year anniversary of Breonna Taylor's killing during a no-knock police raid (AFP)
By MEE staff in Washington

Published date: 8 April 2022 

The US-based insurance company Geico has cancelled a scheduled speech by Palestinian-American activist Linda Sarsour at their offices, following a backlash from pro-Israel and Jewish groups who decried her criticism of Israel as antisemitic.

Geico had scheduled Sarsour to speak on 5 April at an internal event celebrating Middle East and North African Heritage Month - the official celebration recognised by the US government is Arab American Heritage Month, which occurs every April.

However, the insurance giant reversed course on Thursday, saying on Twitter that "we apologize to our employees, customers, and others for our initial plan to invite Linda Sarsour to speak."

"GEICO does not condone hatred of any kind, and we do not stand with anyone who does. We are not aligned with any form of exclusion," the company's statement said.

In response to the cancellation, more than 60 groups, including the Council on American-Islamic Relations (Cair), Jewish Voice for Peace, and the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, came together on Friday to demand Geico apologise to Sarsour, saying their statement was an attack on the activist's character.

'Geico's defamatory attack on Linda Sarsour is an attack on all Americans who dare to criticize the Israeli government and other human rights violators'

- Statement from groups demanding apology from Geico

"GEICO must immediately delete its false, defamatory and unacceptable attack on Linda Sarsour, who has vocally advocated for justice for all people and repeatedly fought against Islamophobia, antisemitism, xenophobia, and all other forms of hatred," the groups said in a joint statement.

"GEICO's defamatory attack on Linda Sarsour is an attack on all Americans who dare to criticize the Israeli government and other human rights violators."

Cair also sent a letter addressed to Geico's CEO Todd Combs demanding both an apology as well as a meeting with Arab and Muslim community leaders.

The progressive advocacy group Jewish Voice for Peace separately came to Sarsour's defence, saying that Geico should "retract their defamation and apologize to Linda Sarsour immediately". They called the company statement "an insulting, libelous public tweet".

Sarsour "is a beloved, principled organizer who fights for our collective liberation and has made invaluable contributions to movements for racial and economic justice", the group said on Twitter.

"Is that not aligned with your values, @GEICO?"

MPower Change, a Muslim-led social and racial justice organisation in the US, created a petition online further calling on Geico to apologise to Sarsour.

"GEICO decided they were more comfortable publicly vilifying and dehumanizing a prominent advocate for Arab Americans, U.S. Muslims, Palestinians and other marginalized communities, than simply having a conversation," the petition reads.
Conflating Israel criticism with antisemitism

Several Jewish organisations condemned Geico's initial plan to host Sarsour, with the Anti-Defamation League saying it was "shocked" the company was partnering with a person involved in "delegitimizing Israel".

Stopantisemitism.org, a group that has labelled several Palestinian activists as antisemitic, and the American Jewish Committee also joined in the criticism, condemning Geico over the invitation.

Sarsour is a leading activist in the US who has advocated for a number of causes including the rights of Palestinians living in the occupied territories, as well as women's issues, and Muslim American rights. She was also an organiser of the 2016 Women's March.

She is a well-received figure among Arab and Muslim progressive circles, however, her staunch support for Palestinian rights, her criticism of Israel, and support for the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement has often drawn the ire of pro-Israel organisations, as well as conservative and right-wing commentators.

In the run-up to the 2020 presidential election, the campaign of then-presidential candidate Joe Biden attacked Sarsour after her appearance at a panel at the Democratic National Convention.

The campaign later apologised to Sarsour in a private phone call, but subsequently told CNN that it did not support the activist's views.

Sarsour has not publicly commented on Geico's decision, and Geico did not respond to MEE's request for comment.

Amnesty criticises Republican efforts to block funding following Israel report

Rights group says proposed legislation is an 'authoritarian' attempt to distract and discredit research

A 2021 poll from the Jewish Electorate Institute found 25 percent of US Jewish voters agreed "Israel is an apartheid state" (AFP/File photo)

By MEE staff
Published date: 8 April 2022 

Amnesty International has criticised efforts by two Republican lawmakers to deny the rights group federal funding following its landmark report which labelled Israel an apartheid state.

Senators Rick Scott and Mike Braun introduced the bill on Thursday, claiming the rights group had an "anti-Israel agenda".

"This legislation follows reports that Amnesty International, which has received more than $2.5 million in federal funds over the past two decades, is utilizing its platform as an International Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) to foster and disseminate false, anti-Semitic reports attacking Israel, America's strongest ally in the Middle East," the politicians said in a statement.

The bill follows Amnesty's landmark report in February, in which Israel's practices, policies, and treatment of Palestinians were identified as a system of apartheid. It was the latest organisation in a cadre of human rights groups to use the term to describe Israel's discriminatory treatment of Palestinians.

House Democrats condemn Amnesty director's comments about Israel

Read More »

In response to the senators' proposed legislation, the rights group said on Friday that it was "no stranger to being targeted for its work", citing the closure of its offices in India, Hong Kong and Russia.

"If Senator Scott had spoken with some of our 10 million supporters in the US and around the world, he would know that we will not be intimidated by authoritarian tactics," the group said in a statement.

"Our findings are based on evidence and solid research, and the US government has relied on and lifted up our research for decades."

It added that the measure introduced by the two lawmakers represented "an attempt to distract from and discredit Amnesty's research upon which we base our calls to action".

Rejecting Scott and Braun's allegation that Amnesty is antisemitic, the group said it condemned all forms of hate "in the strongest possible terms".

Last month, a group of House Democrats attacked Amnesty International's USA executive director after he said the majority of American Jews did not want Israel to be a Jewish state - rather they want it to be "a safe Jewish space".

A 2021 poll from the Jewish Electorate Institute found 25 percent of US Jewish voters agreed with the statement "Israel is an apartheid state", while 28 percent said they did not find such a statement to be antisemitic.

Stifling criticism of Israel

The legislation is the latest in a series of attempts by US politicians to penalise any attempt by individuals or groups to criticise Israel over its policies towards Palestinians.

Dozens of states across the US have enacted legislation targeting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, a nonviolent, peaceful, and Palestinian-led initiative that encourages individuals, nations and organisations to censure Israel's consistent violations of international law and human rights standards through various boycotts.

Free speech and Palestinian advocacy groups have slammed the growing number of anti-BDS bills in state legislatures, accusing sponsors of legislation of trying to muzzle criticism of Israel at the expense of the US constitution.

Last month, Congressman Lee Zeldin introduced a controversial bill in the House of Representatives that would effectively bar US citizens and companies from providing information to foreign countries and international organisations that "have the effect of furthering" the boycott of Israel.

Several courts have in recent years, however, ruled that such laws are in violation of the Constitution, and the free speech protections it provides under the First Amendment.

France: NSO Group sued over hacking Palestinian activist's phone
Rights organisations claim that use of Israeli spyware in France as well as in Palestine is a violation of French law

Salah Hammouri at the offices of the al-Haq Centre for Applied International Law in Ramallah, West Bank on 8 November 2021 (AFP)

By Edna Mohamed
Published date: 5 April 2022 

A new lawsuit was filed on Tuesday in France against the Israeli spyware company, NSO Group, over its alleged surveillance of the French-Palestinian human rights activist and political prisoner Salah Hammouri.

In October 2021, the Dublin-based NGO Front Line Defenders uncovered the hacking of six Palestinian activists, including Salah, using the Pegasus software, which was later confirmed by both Amnesty International and the Canadian think-tank Citizen Lab.

The investigation into the human rights defenders confirmed that Hammouri’s phone had been hacked using the software in April 2021.

In December, Salah reached out to the International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH) to represent him in filing a legal complaint against the NSO Group because their spyware’s infiltration had deprived him of his right to privacy.

Legal action was submitted jointly by FIDH, the Human Rights League (LDH), and Salah Hammouri.

Jordan: Activists' phones hacked with Israeli spyware Pegasus, say privacy groups

Read More »

The NSO Group has been facing several lawsuits worldwide over the illegal use of its surveillance software, Pegasus.

A press release by FIDH said that due to the illegal surveillance occurring on French soil after first beginning in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, the acts of the NSO Group constitute "a violation of the right to privacy under French law".

Clémence Bectarte, Coordinator of FIDH's Litigation Action Group, told Middle East Eye that it was the willingness from Salah to share the discovery of the investigation that allowed them to take the complaint to the Paris courts, especially as Salah holds a dual citizenship with France and some moments when he was hacked happened on French soil.

But Bectarte explained that for her organisation, "it's really important that the judiciary, independent judges are able to investigate the case, and to establish factually and legally the intrusion through the Pegasus spyware into Salah's phone".

"We also want them to establish precisely the moments where he was subjected to this infiltration, and, of course, to establish the consequences," she added.

However, since Salah's administrative detention by Israeli forces, Bectarte explains that they have not been able to contact him.
Detention without charge

On 7 March, Salah's house in Kufr Aqab was stormed by Israeli forces, and he was arrested and transferred to Ofer Israeli Military Prison.

According to Addameer, Salah has been targeted by Israeli occupation authorities over the years, made subject to arbitrary arrests, administrative detention without charge, and travel bans against him and his family.

The administrative detention lasts a period of three months and is subject to indefinite renewals, according to the emergency regulations applied by the Israeli military commander in the West Bank.

In October 2021, Israel’s Minister of Interior issued a decision to revoke Salah's permanent Jerusalem residence card based on an alleged “breach of allegiance to the State of Israel” and allegations of affiliation with “terrorist entities”.

The move to revoke his residence card would mean that Salah, born in 1985 in Jerusalem, would be expelled. It also set a dangerous precedent for Israeli authorities to withdraw the residencies of Palestinian Jerusalemites.

Salah, 36, has become one of the more critical cases of the Israeli occupations, harassment and persecution of Palestinian human rights defenders.

In Amnesty International’s report on Israel’s crimes of apartheid, Salah’s case was referenced in the illegal practice by authorities of forcible population transfer, deportation, and demographic engineering.

Number of Birds Living in Tropical Forests 'Has Plummeted by up to 90 Percent in just 40 Years'

BY ANAMARIJA BRNJARCHEVSKA, 

ZENGER NEWS ON 4/5/22 

Conservationists described the decline as "concerning" after finding that the vast majority of species studied in a Panamanian rain forest had seen declines in numbers of at least 50 percent between 1977 and 2020.

Study lead author Dr. Henry Pollock, of the University of Illinois in the United States, said: "Many of these are species you would expect to be doing fine in a 22,000-hectare national park that has experienced no major land use change for at least 50 years.

"It was very surprising."

Co-author Professor Jeff Brawn, also of the University of Illinois, said: "This is one of the longest, if not the longest, study of its kind in the Neotropics.

"Of course, it's only one park. We can't necessarily generalize to the whole region and say the sky is falling, but it's quite concerning."

Loss of birds from any habitat can threaten the integrity of the entire ecosystem, say the researchers.

In the Neotropics, the birds are key seed dispersers, pollinators, and insect eaters. Fewer birds could threaten tree reproduction and regeneration, impacting the entire structure of the forest, a pattern shown elsewhere after major bird declines.

But the research team haven't looked at the impacts or the underlying causes yet, focusing instead on documenting the numbers.

University of Illinois scientists initiated a twice-yearly bird sampling effort in 1977. Each year, members of the team set up mist nets in the rainy and dry seasons to capture birds moving through the study site.

Mist nets gently entangle birds, allowing researchers to carefully pluck them out. They then identify, measure, and band the birds before releasing them, unharmed, back into the forest.

A kingfisher sits on a branch over the river Wandle in Wandsworth on August 26, 2020 in London, England.

DAN KITWOOD/GETTY IMAGES

Over 43 years and more than 84,000 sampling hours, the researchers captured more than 15,000 unique birds representing nearly 150 species and gathered sufficient data to track 57 of those.

The researchers noted declines in 40 species (70 percent), and 35 species lost at least half of their initial numbers. Only two species – a hummingbird and a puffbird – increased.

Dr Pollock said: "At the beginning of the study in 1977, we'd catch 10 or 15 of many species.

"And then by 2020, for a lot of species, that would be down to five or six individuals."

Although the birds represented a wide variety of guilds — groups that specialize on the same food resources — the researchers noted declines across three broader categories: common forest birds; species that migrate seasonally across elevations; and "edge" species that specialize in transition zones between open and closed-canopy forest.

Professor Brawn says the decline among common species is most alarming.

He said: "The bottom line is these are birds that should be doing well in that forest. And for whatever reason, they aren't. We were very surprised."

Edge species were hardest hit, most declining by 90 percent or more.

But the researchers weren't surprised. In fact, the disappearance of edge species boosted their confidence in their results.

Forty years ago, a paved access road cut through the site. It created the ideal edge habitat for birds that like openings in the forest canopy.


But over time, the road stopped being maintained and has since turned into a small gravel road and the forest canopy filled in overhead.

Dr Pollock said: "The fact that edge species went away when the road did is not concerning.

"It shows what we would expect with forest maturation and the loss of those successional habitats."

The researchers are reluctant to generalize their results beyond their study site, pointing out the scarcity of similar sampling efforts throughout the tropics.

Dr Pollock said: "Right now, this is really the only window we have into what's going on in tropical bird populations.

"Our results beg the question of whether this is happening across the region, but unfortunately we can't answer that. Instead, our study highlights the lack of data in the tropics and how important these long-term studies are."

The study wasn't designed to explain why birds are declining in the forest, but the researchers have some ideas they want to follow up on including changing rainfall levels, food resources, and reproductive rates, many of which may be tied to climate change.

Professor Brawn added: "Almost half the world's birds are in the Neotropics, but we really don't have a good handle on the trajectories of their populations."

He added: "I think it's very important more ecological studies be done where we can establish trends and mechanisms of decline in these populations.

"And we need to do it damn quick."

The findings were published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

ECOCIDE
UN seeks $80 million to prevent tanker disaster in Red Sea

The New Arab Staff & Agencies
09 April, 2022

Gressly, who signed the MOU on behalf of the United Nations, said the emergency oil transfer from the Safer needs to start in early June and finish by the end of September to avoid turbulent winds and currents that start in October


David Gressly, the U.N. resident and humanitarian coordinator for Yemen, called the FSO Safer tanker “a time bomb” [Getty]

The United Nations urged donor nations on Friday to provide $80 million for an emergency operation to remove a million barrels of crude oil from a tanker moored off the coast of war-torn Yemen since 1988 that could explode or leak causing a major environmental disaster in the Red Sea and beyond.

David Gressly, the U.N. resident and humanitarian coordinator for Yemen, made the appeal saying the FSO Safer tanker is “a time bomb” because a major oil spill from it “would unleash a massive ecological and humanitarian catastrophe centred on a country already decimated by more than seven years of war.”

“Without funding over the next six weeks or so the project will not begin on time, and this time bomb will continue to tick,” he said.

In early March, the United Nations and Yemen’s Houthi rebels signed a memorandum of understanding after years of talks authorising a four-month emergency operation to eliminate the immediate threat by transferring oil on the Safer tanker to another vessel. In the longer term, the MOU calls for replacing the Safer tanker with another vessel capable of holding a similar quantity of oil within 18 months.

Gressly, who signed the MOU on behalf of the United Nations, said the emergency oil transfer from the Safer needs to start in early June and finish by the end of September to avoid turbulent winds and currents that start in October and continue in the last months of the year which increase the risk of the tanker breaking up and for the transfer operation.

“Waiting beyond then could mean delaying the start of the project by several months, leaving the time bomb ticking,” he said.

The Houthis control Yemen’s western Red Sea ports, including Ras Issa, just 6 kilometres (about 4 miles) from where the Safer is moored, and the U.N. has been negotiating with the rebel group for years to try to get experts on the tanker to examine it.

Gressly said a U.N.-led mission in March to the Ras Issa peninsula near where the Safer tanker is anchored confirmed that it is rapidly decaying and beyond repair, and “is at imminent risk of spilling a massive amount of oil due to leakages or an explosion.” As an example, he said, “the inert air that is used to inhibit explosions has long disappeared.”

A skeleton crew of about a half dozen remain on the Safer tanker and have done “heroic work over the years to keep this thing from falling apart,” but he said but there’s a limit of what they can do “with hardly any resources.”

The Safer tanker is a Japanese-made vessel built in the 1970s and sold to the Yemeni government in the 1980s to store up to 3 million barrels of export oil pumped from fields in Marib, a province in eastern Yemen that is currently a battlefield. The ship is 360 meters (1,181 feet) long with 34 storage tanks.

Gressly said the U.N. estimated the $80 million cost for the emergency operation which includes the salvage operation, leasing a very large vessel to transfer the 1 million barrels of crude oil, and payments for the crew and maintenance for the Safer for 18 months.

The Netherlands, which has been a major player supporting the U.N.’s efforts, will host a pledging conference in the first half of May, he said.

Gressly said he will lead a mission next week to discuss the plan and seek support in Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Qatar and Kuwait.

He said raising funds for a replacement for the Safer tanker must also start now.

While a final cost hasn’t been set, Gressly said it will probably be “an order of magnitude of let’s say $25 million” for a used vessel that’s probably no longer appropriate for transporting crude oil but is still suitable for storing oil. He explained that any vessel will have to be modified because it needs a large piece of equipment that’s attached to the bow of the ship that attaches it to the oil pipeline.

GLOBAL SOCIAL THEORY
Concepts | Thinkers 

ÖCALAN, Abdullah

Abdullah Öcalan, also known as “Apo,” is a person whose name is at the heart of a controversy, globally, and particularly in Turkey about what he is – a thinker, a philosopher, a freedom fighter, a civil rights activist or a “terrorist.” Born on April 4, 1948, in Mardin Province of Southeast Turkey/North Kurdistan, Öcalan as a person either triggers emotions of nostalgia or deep hatred. Yet, Öcalan’s importance and significance cannot be ignored – both as the symbolic leader of the Kurds, but also as a decolonial thinker who, during the last 20 years whilst imprisoned on Imrali island in Turkey, has developed a unique social and political theory of colonialism and radical democracy.

Öcalan’s writings appear all the more remarkable for their composition as legal statements to be read by his lawyers in Turkish courtrooms. Written whilst in solitary confinement with no access to a library, Öcalan’s writings often stretch to book length studies of praxis, the subject/object dualism, the capitalist regime of truth, and how this is tied to a history of slavery, as well as a wide ranging critique of Western metaphysics and colonialism. Öcalan’s political thought is influenced by Murray Bookchin, Michel Foucault, Hannah Arendt, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels as well as feminist political theory and the myths of Ancient Mesopotamia.

Öcalan’s is the symbolic leader of the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK), a militant left-wing nationalist movement, managing to maintain this role whilst in prison. He is the empty signifier of freedom, liberation and decolonization for Kurds, and his political project is one that can be classified as decolonial and as having a radical democratic aim. Crucial to Öcalan’s thought is a feminist politics in which he figures Women at the centre of his theory of democratic civilisation or freedom.

Central to the positive vision for the Kurds, the Middle East and the world is the separation of the concepts of nation and state, arguing for a democratic confederalism that presupposes a politics of dis-identifying with the state, with capitalism, and with patriarchy. Through these prison writings, “Apo” offers something of a “post-humanist” or ecological ontology, arguing that a democratic future requires an ongoing renegotiation with the colonial present and the possibility of politics without subjectivation.

Öcalan’s work has undergone major transformation following his arrest in 1999. From his prison cell, Öcalan’s defence texts and ‘prison notes’ have illustrated his reshaped ideology as well as the PKK discourse, as these are seen as synonymous (Günes, 2011). Under Öcalan’s leadership the politics of the PKK has transitioned from what was in essence ‘a civil rights war fought in national liberation terms’ moving ‘to a national liberation war fought in civil rights terms’ premised largely upon a Marxist-Leninist ideology (Cavanaugh and Hughes, 2015).

Öcalan’s work from 2000 onwards illustrates, however, a new political project in which he develops his own version of socialism, which is centred around democratic confederalism and democratic autonomy, presenting what is essentially a radical rethinking of democracy in its current form. Öcalan’s work has therefore changed importantly insofar as he has replaced state-building with society-building, and replaced the nation-state with confederalism premised upon radical democracy outside of the nation-state paradigm.

Consequently, democratic confederalism is a means through which ‘democratic self-government’ can function (Öcalan, 2008), and in practice this implies, according to Öcalan that it ‘builds on the self-government of local communities and is organized in the form of open councils, town councils, local parliaments and larger congresses. The citizens themselves are agents of this kind of self-government, not state-based authorities (Öcalan, 2008).’ This bottom-up system developed by Öcalan illustrates how we can do politics and how an alternative model of democracy that allows the power of people, rather than the state as capitalism and patriarchy, can enable a democracy which is radical and participatory within ‘boundaries of existing nation-states through federation and self-organisation’ (Öcalan, 2017a).

In a short essay called ‘Liberating Life: Women’s Revolution’, Öcalan (2013) outlines the core tenets of his sociological/historico-philosophical writings. Öcalan’s fundamental claim is that ‘mainstream civilisation’, commences with the enslavement of ‘Woman’, through what he calls ‘Housewifisation’ (2013). As such, it is only through a ‘struggle against the foundations of this ruling system’ (2013), that not only women, but also men can achieve freedom, and slavery can be destroyed. Any liberation of life, for Öcalan, can only be achieved through a Woman’s revolution. In his own words: ‘If I am to be a freedom fighter, I cannot just ignore this: woman’s revolution is a revolution within a revolution’ (2013).

For Öcalan, the Neolithic era is crucial, as the heyday of the matricentric social order. The figure of the Woman is quite interesting, and is not just female gender, but rather a condensation of all that is ‘equal’ and ‘natural’ and ‘social’, and its true significance is seen as a mode of social governance, which is non-hierarchical, non-statist, and not premised upon accumulation (2013). This can only be fully seen, through the critique of ‘civilisation’ which is equally gendered and equated with the rise of what he calls the ‘dominant male’ and hegemonic sexuality. These forms of power as coercive are embodied in the institution of masculine civilisation. And power in the matriarchal structures are understood more as authority, they are natural/organic. What further characterised the Neolithic era is the ways through which society was based upon solidarity and sharing – no surplus in production, and a respect for nature. In such a social order, Öcalan finds through his archaeology of ‘sociality’ the traces of an ecological ontology, in which nature is ‘alive and animated’, and thus no different from the people themselves.

The ways in which Öcalan figures ‘Woman’, serves as metaphor for the Kurdish nation-as-people (not nation-state). In short, if one manages to liberate woman, from the hegemonic ‘civilisation’ of ‘the dominant male’, one manages to liberate, not only the Kurds, but the world. It is only on this basis that the conditions of possibility for a genuine global democratic confederalism, and a solution to the conflicts of the Middle East can be thinkable. Once it is thinkable, then we can imagine a freedom to organise, to be free from any conception of ownership (of property, persons, or the self), a freedom to show solidarity, to restore balance to life, nature, and other humans through ‘love’, not power.

In Rojava, The Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, Öcalan’s political thoughts are being implemented, negotiated and practised. Such a radical experiment, which connects theory with practice has not been seen on this scale, ever before, and although the Rojava administration, the Democratic Union Party, is different from the PKK, they share the same political leader, Öcalan. Central to this experiment are commitments to feminism, ecology and justice.

Essential readings:
D’Souza, Radha (2017) Preface. In: Öcalan, Abdullah, Manifesto for a Democratic Civilization, Volume II: Capitalism, The Age of Unmasked Gods and Naked Kings. Porsgrunn: New Compass Press. pp. 11 – 24).
Öcalan, Abdullah (2013) Liberating Life: Woman’s Revolution.
Öcalan, Abdullah (2017a) The Political Thought of Abdullah Öcalan: Kurdistan, Woman’s Revolution and Democratic Confederalism. London: Pluto Press.
Overview of Abdullah Öcalan’s books can be found here


Further readings:
Akkaya, Ahmet Hamdi and Jongerden, Joost (2012) ‘Reassembling the Political: The PKK and the project of Radical Democracy,’ European Journal of Turkish Studies
Gunes, Cengiz. (2012). The Kurdish National Movement in Turkey. London: Routledge,
Hughes, Edel & Cavanaugh, Kathleen (2015). ‘A Democratic Opening? The AKP and the Kurdish Left.’ Muslim World Journal of Human Rights12 (1): 53 – 74.
Öcalan, Abdullah (2015) Manifesto for a Democratic Civilization, Volume I: Civilization, The Age of Masked Gods and Disguised Kings. Porsgrunn: New Compass Press.
Öcalan, Abdullah (2017b) Manifesto for a Democratic Civilization, Volume II: Capitalism, The Age of Unmasked Gods and Naked Kings. Porsgrunn: New Compass Press.

Freedom for Ocalan

by Freedom for Ocalan