UN Security Council Extends Talks on Cross-border Aid to Syria

Friday, 8 July, 2022 - 

The UN Security Council meets in New York, in January 2020 - AFP
Asharq Al-Awsat

The United Nations Security Council will continue negotiating Friday on extending authorization of aid transfers across Syria's border, one day after a scheduled vote was scrapped following disagreement between Russia and the West.

Moscow is seeking a six-month extension, with the possibility to renew, while Western nations want a full year for the transfers, which are being conducted without approval from Damascus.

According to AFP, a vote had been set for Thursday to extend approval of the aid deliveries across the Syrian-Turkish border at Bab al-Hawa, the authorization for which has been in effect since 2014 and is set to expire Sunday.

Norway and Ireland, two non-permanent members of the 15-country Council, produced a new text Thursday evening, which would provide for a six-month extension until mid-January 2023, and then an additional six-month extension "unless the Council decides otherwise."

The extension would also be conditional on a "substantive report" by the secretary-general, including on the operation's transparency, progress on channeling aid across the front line, and progress on meeting humanitarian needs.

Uncertainty remained as to whether the proposal would suit Russia and whether a vote would be possible on Friday.

Nearly 10,000 trucks loaded with humanitarian aid passed through Bab al-Hawa last year, bound for the opposition-held Idlib region in northwestern Syria. It is the only crossing through which aid can be brought into Idlib without navigating areas controlled by Syrian government forces.

Moscow, which holds veto power on the Security Council and is an ally of Damascus, has curtailed a number of Western-backed measures in recent years.

It views the authorization as a violation of Syria's sovereignty, and believes the delivery of aid to the northwest region should only be carried out from Damascus across the front line.

Russia had hinted in recent months that it would oppose an extension, having already forced a reduction in the number of allowed border crossings.

However its latest draft proposal submitted Thursday, which competes with that of Norway and Ireland, proposes extending the aid by six months, with the potential for the Council to decide in January upon another six months.

Western nations have deemed the text unacceptable, as there is no guarantee of an extension at the start of the new year.

The latest competing texts do however call for "further initiatives to broaden the humanitarian activities in Syria," including in water, sanitation, health, education and shelter.

In recent weeks, dozens of NGOs and several senior UN officials have lobbied Security Council members for the yearlong cross-border aid clearance.

U.N. Security Council feuds over how long to extend Syria aid from Turkey


Men ride a motorbike past damaged buildings in the rebel-held town of Nairab

Thu, July 7, 2022 
By Michelle Nichols

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United Nations Security Council appeared headed toward a showdown on Friday over whether to allow U.N. aid deliveries from Turkey to some 4 million people in opposition-controlled northwest Syria to continue for six months or one year.

The U.N. mandate for the eight-year-long aid operation expires on Sunday. After negotiations on Thursday evening that pitted Russia against the United States and Britain, the 15-member council agreed to return on Friday for further talks.

Russia only wants to renew the aid operation for six months and require the council to then adopt a new resolution to extend it for another six months, said Russia's Deputy U.N. Ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy.

"Six months ends in January, in the middle of winter, the worst time possible," U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, told reporters.

"A six month resolution does not provide the certainty and the confidence that the Syrian refugees require and the NGOs (aid groups) require in order to continue to plan for and provide for support," said Thomas-Greenfield, who visited the Turkish border crossing last month to assess the aid operation.

An attempted compromise text, drafted by Ireland and Norway and circulated late on Thursday, would renew the aid operation for one year and require the council to adopt a new resolution if the mandate is to be ended after six months.

Ireland's U.N. Ambassador Geraldine Byrne Nason told reporters she would continue working overnight and "hopefully be back in the morning with a solution."

The Security Council vote on the cross-border aid operation has been a contentious issue for several years.

In 2014 the Security Council authorized humanitarian aid deliveries into opposition-held areas of Syria from Iraq, Jordan and two points in Turkey. But veto powers Russia and China have whittled that down that down to just one Turkish border point.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres appealed to the council last month to extend its approval of the aid deliveries from Turkey into northwest Syria, telling the body: "We cannot give up on the people of Syria."

Sudan Activists to Unite under 'Revolutionary Council'

Thursday, 7 July, 2022 - 

A Sudanese woman raises a flag during a rally in the capital Khartoum, as a group of women join the ongoing protests against military rule, on July 6, 2022. 

(AFP)
Asharq Al-Awsat

Pro-democracy groups in Sudan announced a "revolutionary council" Thursday to close ranks against coup leader General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, rejecting his offer of a civilian government, as protesters keep pressing for his resignation.

Burhan led a coup in October last year that derailed a transition to civilian rule, unleashing near-weekly protests and prompting key donors to freeze much-needed funding.

The transitional government he uprooted was forged between the military and civilian factions in 2019, following mass protests and a sit-in outside army headquarters that prompted the military to oust long-time ruler Omar al-Bashir.

But in a surprise move on Monday, Burhan vowed to make way for a civilian government -- an offer quickly rejected by the country's main civilian umbrella group as a "ruse".

On Thursday, pro-democracy groups, including local resistance committees, announced their plans to establish a revolutionary council in opposition to Burhan.

This "revolutionary council will make it possible to regroup revolutionary forces under the orders of a unified leadership", Manal Siam, a pro-democracy coordinator, told reporters.

The council will consist of "100 members, half of whom will be activists from resistance committees", according to another coordinator, Mohammed al-Jili.

The rest of the new organization will come from political parties, unions, rebel movements opposed to the military and relatives of those killed in the repression of protests, Jili added.

A total of 114 people have been killed in a crackdown against protesters since the October coup, according to pro-democracy medics.

Activists are deeply skeptical of Burhan's promise to make way for a civilian government, not least because he pledged at the same time to establish a new "Supreme Council of the Armed Forces".

Opponents and experts foresee this new body being used to side-line any new government and maintain the military's wide-reaching economic interests, under the pretext of "defense and security" imperatives.

Burhan has also said he will disband the country's ruling Sovereign Council -- established as the leading institution of the post-Bashir transition -- and on Wednesday he fired civilian personnel serving on that body.

The protests against Burhan received a new lease of life last Thursday, when tens of thousands gathered, and they have evolved into new sit-ins in some areas.

Young protesters on Thursday sat on stone barricades and on felled pylons in the capital Khartoum, while also maintaining sit-ins in the suburbs and in Jazeera, an agricultural province to the south of the capital.

Vladmir Putin’s war in Ukraine

Why the public support in the Arab world?

Although many Arabs express sympathy for the Ukrainian people, social media reveals a current of support for Russian President Vladimir Putin that is rooted in polarisation, writes Amr SalahTooltip

The Russian war in Ukraine has provoked a debate among Arab populations. Although many Arabs intuitively empathise with the Ukrainian people, social media reveals significant support for Russian president Vladimir Putin. This support comes despite the daily scenes of killing and displacement in Ukraine, in addition to the detrimental impact of the war on the economies of the Arab region. In this context, the question that deserves our attention is: why is there support for Putin in the Arab world?

Since 2011, polarisation in the Middle East has shaped the Arab public’s reactions to politics. While secular-religious polarisation influences responses to domestic and regional issues, polarisation over the model of governance (namely democracy versus the authoritarian strongman model) shapes reactions to many global issues, including the recent Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Two conflicting narratives

Part of this polarisation is the ongoing struggle between two narratives on the causes of Arab conflicts and the deterioration of many Arab countries since 2011. Whereas the democracy-supporting narrative considers that deterioration as an inevitable outcome of tyrannies ruling the region for decades, the counternarrative places the blame on Arab revolutions, democracy advocates, and the West.

A narrative defaming democracy and presenting the West as a homogeneous entity: Arab media are adopting an anti-Western narrative of colonialist, conspiratorial, double standards. The West is lumped together, without differences between communities, governments,public opinion, and civil society, or between the right, the left, the progressive or the conservative.Putin’s invasion is justified as Russia’s right to defend its national security, while Ukraineis framed as a Western puppet that initiated hostilities.

The latter narrative, which finds support in a populist mood, claims that the strongman model (exemplified by Putin) should inspire the Arab people as a path to development and influence over the global order. Supporters of this model contend that, through an iron fist, it has the potential to control contradictions, prioritise national security, and ensure the rapid modernisation of societies from above without the disruption of democratic contestation.

That rationale was behind public support for military officers, such as President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi in Egypt and Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar in Eastern Libya. It has also animated President Kais Saied’s decision to suspend the democratic trajectory in Tunisia after sensing a domestic mood that might support – or at least not oppose – an authoritarian return. 

The same narrative makes constant reference to two Eastern models – those of China and Russia – as examples of strongman rule, affording significant attention to the case of Vladimir Putin. According to this narrative, Putin is the man who extricated his country from the chaos of the perestroika orchestrated by Western leaders, who conspired to break up the Soviet Union just as they attempted to fragment the Arab region through the 2011 uprisings.

Furthermore, he is the leader who challenged the Western conspiracy of democratisation in Eastern Europe, created Western dependency on Russian energy, interfered in the U.S. presidential election, successfully stabilised the Syrian regime in the face of opposition from the West and Islamic groups, and approached Arab governments as their differences with the West intensified.

According to this narrative, Putin is not only a "friend" – the enemy of an enemy – but his rule is also a proven model for turning a state’s weakness into strength. Thus, if Arabs seek a different future, they should follow Putin’s model, according to this narrative.

The West’s double standards

In parallel, official Western responses to the Russian invasion of Ukraine represent another element in building support for Putin among Arab populations. For Putin’s supporters, Western responses to the Ukrainian crisis reveal double standards and contradict the prevailing Western discourse on the Arab crises.

In the case of Ukraine, the leading Western countries have described the Russian war as an invasion that violated international law, considered Russia’s annexation of Ukrainian territory to be illegal, escalated, and quickly mobilised global potential against Russia. That included arming the Ukrainian resistance, supporting its right to use force against the occupation, holding Russia accountable in the International Criminal Court (ICC) for committing war crimes, and boycotting Russia by isolating it from the global financial and banking system.

The West’s double standards towards Arab issues: Western countries have mobilised

 the world to arm and support the right of the Ukrainians to repel the Russian aggressor.

 Yet the same countries either participated in or overlooked the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. 

That invasion, considered to violate international law, was framed as an act of "liberation". 

The West has persisted in overlooking the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories and

 its de facto annexation of Palestinian land. In a polarised Arab world, where dualities prevail, 

doubt surrounding the credibility of the Western pro-Ukraine narrative is serving Putin, who 

relies on highlighting such contradictions at the UN Security Council and elsewhere.

Conversely, in the case of the Arab region, the same Western countries either participated in or overlooked the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. The invasion, which was considered to violate international law, was framed as an act of "liberation". Moreover, over decades, Western countries overlooked the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories, ignored the Israeli government’s de facto annexation of Palestinian land, considered the Palestinian and Iraqi resistance as terrorism, and sought to disrupt the prosecution of Israel at the ICC for alleged war crimes in the Palestinian territories. Officials in the same countries also described the campaigns to boycott Israeli as anti-Semitism. In a polarised Arab world, where dualities prevail, doubt surrounding the credibility of the Western pro-Ukraine narrative appears to serve the Russian narrative that often emphasises these contradictions.

Defaming the notion of democracy

Another critical element shaping Arab attitudes toward the war is the posture of Arabic media. Largely directed by regional autocracies, many Arabic media platforms still focus on producing domestic propaganda to serve the stability of their respective ruling regimes. That task, of course, comes at the expense of conveying the truth and revealing different aspects of events and variations in actors’ positions. It also provokes dualities and the categorisation of the world into an East versus the hegemonic West dichotomy.

It ultimately led to – whether fully or partially – adopting an anti-Western/Ukrainian narrative, which converges with rhetoric that defames the very notion of democracy, linking it with a global conspiracy and Western double standards. In this narrative, the West is usually presented as a homogeneous group without differences between communities, governments, public opinion, and civil society, or between the right, the left, the progressive, and the conservative.

Today, many Arabic media platforms (including but not limited to Sky News Arabia, Alikhbaria Syria, Al Mayadeen, and the Tunisian Alchourouk) adopt a narrative that justifies the Russian invasion with reference to Russia’s right to defend its national security. It follows that Ukraine is a Western puppet that initiated hostilities and threatened Russia. Additionally, to increase the war’s relevance to Arab audiences, comparisons are often made between the colour revolutions in Eastern Europe and the Arab Spring, alleging a unified Western conspiracy behind the two events.

Other prevalent comparisons focus on the invasion of Ukraine and the invasion of Iraq, the Western responses to Ukraine and the Palestinian issue, and the disparities in how the West treats Ukrainian refugees in contrast with those from the Middle East. And while the Ukrainian president is portrayed as a clown, the Russian president is depicted as the creator of a new Russia, the leader who challenges Western hegemony, and the commander who possesses a miraculous homemade military arsenal ready to be shared with Arab and Muslim countries.

Above all, he is portrayed as a mysterious KGB man who personifies "masculinity", appearing as a bare-chested knight on his horse, practicing martial arts, or sniping in the forests. This framing affirms the directed messages of the Russian Arabic-language media. Invariably, interventions of pro-Putin Russian analysts on Arabic media channels focus on the struggle between East and West, Russia’s friendship with the Arabs, the ties between Ukraine and Israel, and Russian support for Arab causes in international forums over recent decades.

Wishful thinking, nostalgia and dissatisfaction

Perhaps the dream of a multipolar world is another explanation for Putin’s support in the Arab region. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine helped to promote narratives of a new world order that is taking shape, motivated by growing Chinese economic influence and Russian geopolitical expansion.

Two conflicting narratives – democracy versus iron fist: Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine

 stirs controversy among Arab populations. Although many Arabs intuitively empathise with

 the Ukrainian people, social media reveals significant support for Russian president Vladimir Putin,

 despite the daily scenes of killing and displacement in Ukraine, in addition to the detrimental 

impact of the war on the economies of the Arab region. So why the sympathy? Since 2011,

 polarisation in the Middle East has shaped the Arab public’s reactions to politics. While

 secular-religious polarisation influences responses to domestic and regional issues, polarisation 

over the model of governance (namely democracy versus the authoritarian strongman model)

 shapes reactions to many global issues, including the recent Russian invasion of Ukraine

In this narrative, analyses are intertwined with wishful thinking, nostalgia, and dissatisfaction among the Arabs toward the prevailing unipolar system. As mentioned earlier, the Western-made global institutions seem politically inconsistent regarding Arab crises, while it appears that the West benefited the most from an international order that it created and fostered.

Except for the Arab oil monarchies, indicators of development and production in the Arab world today remain dismal. Indeed, in many Arab countries, citizens live in conditions of poverty and war, or are forced to emigrate, while other Arab countries are on the path to becoming failed states. Routes to recovery for these countries may take decades.

In this context, future ambitions mingle with nostalgia and collective memories of the Cold War period in which the USSR was an ally of Arab regimes, a guarantor of the balance of power, a source of military and economic aid, and a supporter of the ambitious Arab quest for liberation. 

Amr Salah

© Carnegie Endowment for International Peace 2022

Amr Salah is an Egyptian writer, researcher, and doctoral candidate at the Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution at George Mason University. 

Shoah and Nakba – two interlinked catastrophes

Asked about the Shoah, Palestinians often bring up the Nakba, the displacement of Palestinians associated with the founding of the state of Israel. An Israeli Holocaust researcher and a Palestinian political scientist have developed a concept aimed at promoting dialogue about these two interlinked national traumas. By Joseph Croitoru



Shoah is the Hebrew term for the Holocaust, the Nazi genocide of Jews. Nakba is the Arabic term used by Palestinians to describe their flight and displacement from the land in the Arab-Israeli War of 1948. Even at a linguistic level, there is a parallel between the two terms, because both words mean "catastrophe" in the respective languages.

Nevertheless, it became evident as far back as 2007, when the Jerusalem-based Van Leer Institute invited Jewish and Arab educational theorists from Israel to discuss the issue of the Holocaust, that Israelis and Palestinians have great difficulty relating to the trauma experienced by the other. The meetings, which took place over the course of a year, received financial support from the Heinrich Boll Foundation, a German think tank with close ties to the German Green Party. In the summer of 2009, part of the group met for a workshop at the memorial and educational location known as the House of the Wannsee Conference in Berlin.

The meetings also brought together Israeli Holocaust researcher Amos Goldberg, who was part of the team running the dialogue group, and Palestinian political scientist Bashir, who lives in Israel. When Bashir gave a lecture at the Van Leer Institute about Arab attitudes to the Holocaust and mentioned the Nakba in his lecture, Arab Palestinian participants from Israel insisted on discussing the Palestinian catastrophe too.

The controversial nature of the discussions that ensued spurred Goldberg and Bashir to consider another form of dialogue. They drew up a draft paper that compared the Shoah and the Nakba (without equating them with each other), reflected on their comparable importance in the collective memory of the respective groups, and called for mutual empathy.

Holocaust memorial Yad Vashem in Jerusalem: Many Israeli Arabs came into contact with the Shoah first and only afterwards with the Palestinian catastrophe, the Nakba. Publicist Marzuq al-Halabi and journalist and translator Antoine Shalhat both wrote that it was only after 1967, when they met acquaintances and relatives from the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories, that the Nakba became a theme for them. Al-Halabi's knowledge of the Holocaust made him to a certain extent immune to the Arab and Palestinian defensive attitude which, in his opinion, has less to do with the Shoah as an historical event, than with the way the Israeli side presents it and uses it politically to evade responsibility for the Nakba. He also says that on the Arab side, the Holocaust is denied or played down. A common claim, he says, is that the Palestinians had to bear the consequences of the Holocaust – albeit only indirectly – although they were not responsible for the crime

Asymmetry of national catastrophes

On the basis of this paper, Jewish and Palestinian intellectuals were invited to write contributions for a book, a collection of articles, which was published in Hebrew in Jerusalem in 2015 and immediately triggered protests from the Israeli right wing. Bashir and Goldberg's introduction to the book translates as "Reflections on memory, trauma and nationalism in Israel/Palestine". They had previously published a shorter version of this introduction in English in the Journal of Genocide Research in 2014.

The authors' wanted first of all to discuss in detail the differences in attitudes. They said that the Shoah was, in terms of its scale, not comparable with any other event that as such is considered singular. However, because the Holocaust has become – not only for Jews but also now for large parts of the Western world – the ultimate symbol of evil, any attempt to connect it even loosely with other chapters of the history of violence is quickly suspected of being an attempt to trivialise the Holocaust.

They went on to say that while the Shoah is over as an historical event and the Jewish people has, despite the trauma, been able to get back on its feet again, the Palestinians are to this day, in a position of political, military, economic, and cultural weakness because of the consequences of the Nakba.

According to Bashir and Goldberg, there is also asymmetry in the national catastrophes of both peoples from a moral point of view: the Palestinians were not to blame for the Holocaust, but the Israelis were responsible for the displacement and flight of the Palestinians and for their discrimination in Israel and oppression in the Occupied Territories.
Integrating the other’s catastrophe in one’s own narrative

According to Goldberg and Bashir, a rapprochement between Israelis and Palestinians, who both see themselves as victim communities, is made more difficult above all because the Shoah and the Nakba are used equally to legitimise national claims. Nevertheless, they feel that it should be possible to integrate the catastrophe experienced by the other into one's own narrative without having to abandon the "ultimate claim to justice" derived from the national traumas.

Both scientists considered American historian Dominick LaCapra's concept of "empathic unsettlement" to be helpful in this context. When applied to the Israeli-Palestinian case, this would entail developing empathy for the sensitivities of the other, without having to adopt the other's positions.

Jewish resident Katya Michaelov embraces her Arab neighbour, Obaida Hassuna, whose son, Musa, was killed in recent clashes between Arabs and Jews in the mixed Arab-Jewish town of Lod in central Israel on 29 May 2021. Empathising with each other's pain and trauma is difficult for Israelis and Palestinians. But in the long run it is essential for mutual understanding between the two parties to the conflict. "My child and their grandson are friends and play together," Michaelov says of her neighbour. "All of this is political and it's the people who are suffering"

The Hebrew-language anthology, which was published in 2015, brought together contributions that responded to the call for dialogue on an equal footing and those that criticised this approach. One of the articles in the first group was written by the Israeli professor of literature Hannan Hever, who used several poems by Israeli poet Avoth Yeshurun (1904–1992) to show that in the early years of the State of Israel, there was indeed sympathy among Israel's literary figures for the fate of the Palestinians.

Yeshurun was of the opinion that genuine understanding for the Palestinians' experience of being victims could only come from the perspective of Jewish victimhood and that both should be seen as equally important. Hannan Hever even saw in this the seeds of "multidirectional memory" (2009), a concept developed decades later by Michael Rothberg.

Several Israeli Arab authors who contributed to the book recapitulated that as Palestinians, they knew about the Holocaust long before they were in a position to focus on the Nakba and its consequences. One reason for this was the curriculum taught at Arab schools in Israel where there were lessons on the Shoah, but not on the Palestinian catastrophe of 1948. What's more, families did not talk about the Nakba for fear of reprisal from the state. Journalist and writer Marzuq al-Halabi and journalist and translator Antoine Shalhat both wrote that it was only after 1967, when they met acquaintances and relatives from the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories, that the Nakba became a theme for them.
The Arabs and the Holocaust

Al-Halabi's knowledge of the Holocaust made him to a certain extent immune to the Arab and Palestinian defensive attitude which, in his opinion, has less to do with the Shoah as an historical event, than with the way the Israeli side presents it and uses it politically to evade responsibility for the Nakba. He also says that on the Arab side, the Holocaust is denied or played down. A common claim, he says, is that the Palestinians had to bear the consequences of the Holocaust – albeit only indirectly – although they were not responsible for the crime.

In their second anthology on the Shoah and the Nakba, Israeli Holocaust scholar Amos Goldberg and Palestinian political scientist Bashir Bashir also examine the current debate about the competition between Holocaust and colonial memory. For example, Palestinians see Zionism, the State of Israel and its occupation practices as a continuation of the European colonial movement in the form of "settler colonialism" – a perspective that is rejected by the official Israeli stance, which is based on the experience of the Holocaust

The various aspects of the way the Arabs handle the issue of the Holocaust was also addressed in the anthology by the Israeli expert in Islamic Studies Esther Webman and her colleague Meir Litvak.

Their assessment that the issue of the Shoah was being used for anti-Zionist propaganda on the Arab side – for example the accusation of a Zionist "collaboration" with the Nazis – corresponded with the observation made by Samira Lahyan, a Palestinian educationalist living in Israel.

She searched in vain for a reference to the Shoah in school books used by the Palestinian Authority. The authority issued a statement saying that a change in policy would only be conceivable if the Nakba were to be taught in Israeli schools.

Philosopher Elhanan Yakira wrote about the Israeli attitude of refusal in the book: he said that a "universalisation" of the Holocaust as a Jewish gesture of dialogue must be rejected because such a gesture blurs the fact that the Nazi's primary objective was to annihilate the Jews.

No one, he pointed out, was asking the Palestinians to sacrifice the "Arab character of the Nakba" in return.

In 2018, Goldberg and Bashir published their second collection of contributions, The Holocaust and the Nakba. A New Grammar of Trauma and History (Columbia University Press).

In their introduction, they examine the current debate about the competition between Holocaust and colonial memory. According to Goldberg and Bashir, in the Israeli-Palestinian case, the two narratives collided with particular force.

They said that the Palestinians see Zionism, the State of Israel and its occupation practices as a continuation of the European colonial movement in the form of "settler colonialism" – a perspective that is rejected by the official Israeli stance, which is based on the experience of the Holocaust.

Nevertheless, Bashir and Goldberg believe that a rapprochement of the two "metanarratives" is indeed possible. The post-colonial narrative would have to consider Zionism as an answer to the growing calamity facing European Jews at the time, among other things. And when talking about the Holocaust, awareness should be raised that the Shoah is part of a long history of ethnic cleansing that also includes the Palestinian Nakba.

British historian Mark Levene expanded on this idea in his contribution to the book. According to Levene, the toleration of displacement and genocidal ethnic cleansing in Europe in the first half of the twentieth century made the idea of a "transfer" of the Palestinians seem feasible in the eyes of the Zionist leadership of the Yishuv in Palestine – the consequences of which are known to us all.
Elias Khoury: take the Jewish trauma into consideration

The competing "metanarratives" are barely mentioned in the remaining 14 contributions to the book. Instead – especially in the contributions from Israeli Jewish authors – very personal, sometimes biographical reflections on the Shoah/Nakba field of conflict and reports of fictitious and real individual stories in which the victim images of both sides overlap dominate. Palestinian anthropologist Honaida Ghanim found this dynamic – the frequent change of perspective between Shoah survivors and Nakba victims – in particularly succinct form in the story "Return to Haifa" by the left-leaning writer Ghassan Kanafani, who was killed by the Israelis in Beirut in 1972.

Israeli historian Alon Confino told the exceptional story of two married Holocaust survivors who upon their arrival in Jaffa refused to be billeted in a house abandoned by Palestinians because it reminded them of their own experience of being displaced and persecuted.

A first step towards the historicisation of the attempts to reflect together on the Shoah and the Nakba was taken by the Palestinian political scientist Nadim Khoury, who teaches in Norway, who traced the origins of these attempts to the years following the conclusion of the Oslo Accords.

One entire section of the book was devoted to the Lebanese writer Elias Khoury, who also wrote the foreword. Bashir and Goldberg were inspired by his novel Gate of the Sun in which a Palestinian calls on his compatriots to take the Jewish trauma triggered by the Shoah into consideration. The last three contributions in the book focused on Khoury's novel Children of the Ghetto: My Name is Adam, which was published in English translation in 2018.

The Palestinian Nakba of 1948

It's a day of celebration for Israelis but for Palestinians it's the Nakba, the catastrophe. The foundation of Israel on 14 May 1948 meant hundreds of thousands of them fled or were expelled from their homes.

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Destroyed homes

The journal Central European History (Vol. 54, 2021, Issue 1 / Cambridge University Press) devoted six review essays to the book, to which Goldberg and Bashir have responded. Because they, among other things, called for a wider, flexible concept of Israeli-Palestinian binationalism – from a federation via a condominium to a binational state or a cooperative two-state structure – Shoah researcher Laura Jockusch accused them of "political activism" at the expense of a scientific approach.

Goldberg and Bashir countered by saying that it must be possible to think about ways in which dialogue could be accompanied by an egalitarian, binational political theory that considers a process of decolonisation to be a prerequisite for an historic reconciliation of both peoples. Moreover, they said, the obvious overlap of Shoah and Nakba is suitable as a scientific object for a number of reasons, for one because the two are to this day closely intertwined in the collective memories of Israelis and Palestinians. They also pointed out that the two are interlinked as historical events too.

Goldberg and Bashir said that at political level, the shock of the Holocaust conclusively cemented within the Yishuv leadership the endeavour to found a Jewish state with a Jewish majority, which was only made possible by the displacement of the Palestinians in 1948. They also said that the interlinking is also illustrated by the numerous biographies of the one third of Israeli soldiers involved in the war at the time were Holocaust survivors.

In response to the objection expressed by several people, including Philipp Ther, that Zionism cannot be seen as just another version of colonialism, the two researchers replied that for them too, in this context, settler colonialism is not the only explanatory approach. The complaint – voiced by a number of reviewers – that there was a lack of historical analytical depth to the book's contributions, which addressed more literary, philosophical and artistic issues, Goldberg and Bashir explained that it had been exceedingly difficult to find authors willing to write about this very difficult subject. Both men hope to continue the debate they have started.

Joseph Croitoru

© Qantara.de 2022

Translated from the German by Aingeal Flanagan

How women have managed periods throughout history

Women have been managing their periods for millennia, but the way they do so has changed as menstruation has become more and less stigmatised over time.

• Eastern Eye
• 01 June, 2022

Menstrual products helped women hide their period and overcome prejudice (Photo: iStock)

By: Eastern Eye

From rags to tampons, menstrual cups and free-bleeding, take a tour of the history of period products on this Menstrual Hygiene Day.

Not always taboo 

For most of human history, menstruation was very poorly understood.

In ancient times, it was often thought of negatively, the blood considered impure and periods thought to be a curse.

From the 15th century, “women would apply remedies, for example enemas, perform physical exercise or take emmenagogue plants”, which helped regulate menstruation cycles, French historian Nahema Hanafi told AFP.

It was the job of the women in a teenager’s family or community to inform her about periods. But they also discussed how it worked with men.

“In medieval and modern times, people talk about menstruation because it is a crucial health issue that concerns the whole family,” Hanafi said.

Noble women, for example, would catalogue their periods in correspondence with their father or uncle.

However menstruation became taboo in the 19th century Europe with the rise of the middle class, which brought about new social norms, the historian said.

Modesty became a feminine virtue.

“In this movement, everything related to the body and sexuality was kept from women’s sight, which prevented them from being informed about these subjects — and from talking about them,” Hanafi said.

Rags attached with hooks 

Throughout history women mostly wore skirts or dresses.

Peasant women let the blood flow freely.

Middle class or high brow women used cloth, held in place by knots or hooks, to catch the blood.

However women had fewer periods than today, because they were more likely to be pregnant.

And girls used to get their first period years far later in life.

Girls got their period at around 16 years of age in 1750, compared with an average of 12.6 years today, according to the French Institute for Demographic Studies.

The first products

The first menstrual products started appearing towards the end of the 19th century, particularly in the United States and Britain.

“Early products sold in the US and the UK were rough, large and not particularly good,” said Sharra Vostral, a historian at Purdue University who has written a book on the history of menstrual hygiene.

Sanitary pads became widely available from the 1920s, buoyed by mass advertising campaigns as companies targeted a new market. Tampons followed suit in the 1930s.

“Many people believed women were not qualified to do lots of things during their period,” Vostral said.

Menstrual products helped women “hide their period and overcome prejudice… that’s also why these products became very appealing,” she said.

The menstrual cup first went on sale in the 1930s, but became more widely available in the 2000s.

Sponges and reusable pads

More options have been available to women in recent years, including reusable pads, sponges and period underwear.

“It took a very long time for period products to meet the needs and comfort of women,” said Elise Thiebaut, author of the 2017 book “This is my blood”.

The rise of social media has also seen more discussion and heightened awareness about menstruation. And some advertisements that had long used blue liquid to depict menstrual blood have now switched to red.

Are these signs that the stigma surrounding menstruation could be lifting?

Thiebaut said that the dialogue had changed “in an exceptional way over the past five years — but it is in certain circles, certain generations, certain countries.”

Courtesy: AFP

ALL OECD COUNTRIES LIKE THIS

80 per cet of customers have less than £500 in savings: Lloyds bank

Lloyds Banking Group is the biggest lender to households and small businesses in the UK.

• Pramod Thomas
• 06 July, 2022

FILE PHOTO: A man is seen withdrawing cash from outside Lloyds Bank on October 28, 2020 in Stoke, England. (Photo by Nathan Stirk/Getty Images)

By: Pramod Thomas

THE top official of a British bank has said that its customers have less than £500 of savings in their accounts, according to a report.

Charlie Nunn, chief executive of Lloyds Bank said that customers with persistent debt problems jump up by a third in the first six months of 2022, the BBC reported.

He added that most customers are now worried about the cost of living crisis. People in UK are struggling with the soaring cost of food, energy bills and fuel.

According to the bank data, credit card spending on travel was up 300 per cent when compared to last year.

Nunn revealed that 80 per cent of UK customers and families have less than £500 worth of savings in their account.

However, he suggested that the financial position of many customers is ‘healthier’ now than before the pandemic.

The bank boss said that 75 per cent of Lloyd’s 26 million customers were worried about the cost of living, and 20 per cent were cutting discretionary spending to afford essentials.

Lloyds Banking Group is the biggest lender to households and small businesses in the UK.

The chief executive predicted interest rates would rise to around 2 per cent in the next year from the current 1.25 per cent, and added that there will be flat growth in the next few quarters. 

Lloyds, which employs over 70,000 people, gave 64,000 employees a 3.6 per cent pay rise plus a one-off autumn lump sum of at least £1,000.

“We very much want to support making sure that we don’t build in inflation in a way that isn’t needed. It felt like the right thing for this year. And it was the appropriate action in the context of this unprecedented inflation spike,” Nunn was quoted as saying by the BBC.

Lloyds is exposed to the risk of firms going bust as their input costs soar at the same time as their customers’ incomes dwindle. Nunn revealed that the bank is not prepared such a scenario.

UK

Households warned of potential £1,400 rise in energy bills by next year

AUGUST GRAHAM, PA CITY REPORTER

8 July 2022, 8:01 am

Households across Britain might be in for an even bigger shock than expected this winter after one of the country’s premier energy consultancies warned of steeper bill rises.

Cornwall Insight said the price cap for the average household could go up in January by £360 more than previously thought.

Its experts said bills could rise from today’s record £1,971 to £3,245 in October and then further to £3,364 at the start of next year.

It marks a steep rise from Cornwall’s previous predictions, as international gas prices remain stubbornly high.

In its previous forecast, on June 22, the energy consultancy predicted bills rising to £2,981 in October, and £3,003 in January.

The forecasts are based on what an average household will spend on gas and electricity in a year. A household that buys more energy will see higher bills, and vice versa.

The new predictions are bleak, and will put further pressure on households already facing rising food costs amid the cost-of-living crisis.

In April energy bills rose 54% for the average household.

Dr Craig Lowrey, from Cornwall Insight, said: “There is always some hope that the market will stabilise and retreat in time for the setting of the January cap.

“However, with the announcement of the October cap only a month away, the high wholesale prices are already being ‘baked in’ to the figure, with little hope of relief from the predicted high energy bills.”

Before he left office, former chancellor Rishi Sunak announced a £15 billion package to help with the rising cost of living.

It promised up to £1,200 for the most vulnerable households.

But the price cap was at £1,277 last winter, so if Cornwall’s January predictions are correct, households will be left nearly £900 worse off than they were before the crisis, even with the maximum help from the Government.

The consultancy said the energy market has become increasingly volatile amid uncertainty over the gas that Russia sends to Europe, while recent strikes by Norwegian offshore workers have also driven up wholesale costs.

Ultimately these prices will trickle down to consumers.

“As it stands, energy consumers are facing the prospect of a very expensive winter,” Cornwall said.

A MILLION prescriptions for antidepressants are written for teens in England each year – is the pandemic or overstretched mental health services responsible?

The number of drugs doled out to 13 to 19-year-olds rose by a quarter between 2016 and 2020.

• Kimberly Rodrigues
• 08 July, 2022

iStock

By: Kimberly Rodrigues

The COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent lockdowns brought with it anxiety and fear for everyone. However, according to experts, the lockdown restrictions imposed due to the pandemic have especially affected young people’s mental health, the world over, and England is no exception.

A report in the Daily Mail has stated that more than a million prescriptions for antidepressants are currently prescribed to teens in England each year. And this number is reported to have increased by a quarter since 2016 amid the mental health crisis after lockdowns.

Mental health and children’s charities told MailOnline that the data is an ‘alarming sign’ of a mental health crisis in Britain.

According to the NHS’s latest data, a total of 1.03million antidepressant prescriptions were made to people aged between 13 and 19 years in 2020 – amounting to a 26 percent increase, compared to the number of prescriptions in 2016 (822,717).

The greatest increase was observed amongst 13-year-olds and 19-year-olds which was up by about a third – 33 percent and 34 percent respectively.

There has also been an increase (39 percent) for antidepressant prescriptions in those in their 20s during the same time.

The Daily Mail also reported that a total of 7.1million antidepressant prescriptions to this group were made in 2020, which is a rise of 2 million compared to 2016.

‘These figures are yet another alarming sign of the crisis in mental health services for young people,’ said Olly Parker, head of external affairs at mental health charity Young Minds.

The NHS has, however, warned that some of the youngsters may have been prescribed the drugs by GPs during the times counselling was not available. Additionally, the NHS records only prescriptions and not individuals which means an individual could have been recorded many times.

Parker reasons that the demands of mental health services may have left many family doctors feeling they have no option but to prescribe drugs to help young people in crisis.

He is quoted as saying, “’Medication can play an important role in helping a young person manage their mental health but should never be a substitute for talking therapies such as counselling.”

Backing this claim, Laurence Guinness, chief executive of The Childhood Trust, a charity representing children from poorer families said, “The Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services system cannot cope with referrals and too many children are left without any alternative than to seek help from their GP who is often limited to prescribing medication.”

With regard to young people’s mental health and how it has greatly suffered during the pandemic, Stephen Buckley, head of information at Mind is reported to have said, ‘We know this generation has been particularly affected by the pandemic, who have grappled with educational disruption, isolation, and loneliness and now face uncertainty about jobs and income,’

Experts too feel that some of the factors that are responsible for the impact the pandemic has had on minors include developmental age, education status, economic status, pre-existing mental health condition or quarantine due to fear of contracting the infection.

They also affirm that the pandemic situation has led to short-term and long-term psychological and mental health implications for adolescents and children.

Buckley added, “The rise in antidepressant usage reflects the concerning state of young people’s wellbeing across the country and the need to invest in early mental health support before problems become more expensive and difficult to treat.”

Therefore, he has called for the Government to invest more in children’s mental health services in England.

Social media use, university debt, and the prospect of never being able to afford their own home have all been attributed as being behind a rise in mental health issues among young people, states the report in the Daily Mail.

Chris Martin, chief executive of The Mix, a charity for under 25s, reportedly said, “’Our own research with young people revealed that antidepressants were the second most used drug amongst 16–25-year-olds and that one in 10 young people have also misused antidepressants in the past year.”

He, too, attributed the rise to the overstretched mental health services in the country.

“While antidepressants can be right for some, they should not always be the first option for treatment when a young person might benefit more from access to talking therapies or advice on sleep, exercise, and diet,” he said.

Professor Subodh Dave, dean of the Royal College of Psychiatrists believes that the NHS prescription data needs to be interpreted cautiously. The reason he states is that antidepressants have wider clinical use.

In fact, some antidepressants have other applications outside of mental health such as helping to alleviate chronic pain conditions such as ongoing neck and back pain.

So, in response to the data, he is quoted as saying, “These figures need to be interpreted carefully as antidepressants can be prescribed to young people for a range of health conditions, including physical ones.”

Bruce McConnell Gives Remarks at the University of International Relations, Beijing, China

Delivered on July, 6th 2022 at the symposium "Earth Security from the Perspective of International Security."

FEATURING Bruce McConnell
July 7, 2022

On July 6, the International Symposium on “Earth Security from the Perspective of International Security,” hosted by the School of International Relations introduced the perspective of international security into the study of earth security, and set up a bridge for the integration of arts and sciences and the discussion of security. More than 80 experts and scholars from the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, Turkey, and domestic international relations and science and technology circles conducted cross-border discussions in a combination of online and offline methods.

Via Rail warns of service halt amid strike notice

Noah Zivitz

Managing Editor, BNN Bloomberg

Via Rail service could grind to a halt Monday after a union representing more than 2,000 workers served strike notice.
 
Unifor said in a release Thursday evening that it served 72-hour strike notice to the passenger-rail company after insufficient progress in labour talks. The union said 99 per cent of the affected workers — which include maintenance and front-line service staff - voted in favour of st

rike action, which could begin at a minute past midnight Eastern Time on Monday .  
 
"We will do whatever it takes to get members the collective agreement that they deserve," said Scott Doherty, Unifor's lead negotiator and executive assistant to the national president, in the release.
 
He also claimed Via "continues to push concessions" that would be tantamount to a lessening of job security.
 
"Unfortunately, if no agreement is reached, Via Rail will be forced to suspend all services for the duration of the strike and until normal operations can safely resume. We recognize that this would be a major disruption for our passengers and for communities across the country," said Via President and Chief Executive Officer Martin Landry in a release.
 
A strike and suspension of service would be another blow to Canada's travel industry, which has been in turmoil for weeks amid rampant delays, cancellations, and long waits at the nation's airports as airlines and airports struggle to keep pace with pent-up demand.
 
Via said affected passengers will be allowed to seek a full refund for unused tickets or make changes to reservations at no cost.