Middle East Press on Visegrad’s Rape Camps, Amy Coney Barrett and UAE-Israel Peace Deal: New Age Islam's Selection, 19 October 2020
By New Age Islam Edit
Bureau
19 October
2020
• Visegrad’s Rape Camps: Denial and Erasure
By Ehlimana Memišević
• The Amy Coney Barrett Hearings Were Political
Theatre
By Anna Jacobs
• Indicators Point to Imminent New Uprising In
Iran
By Dr. Majid Rafizadeh
• Elections 2020: American Politics Has Hit the
Rock Bottom
By Nicholas Goldberg
• Warm Peace between UAE, Israel Is Good For
Business
By Michal Michelle Divon
------
Visegrad’s Rape Camps: Denial And Erasure
By Ehlimana Memišević
17 Oct 2020
Bosnian
Muslims toss 3,000 roses into the Drina River, each representing people killed
in the 1992-95 war, in the eastern Bosnian town of Višegrad, on May 26, 2012
[File: AP/Amel Emric]
-----
I was born
in the 1980s to a Bosniak family in Višegrad, an ethnically diverse town in
eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina. A couple of years later, my hometown turned
into one of the worst places on earth to be born a Muslim.
It was a
hot day in June 1992. The disappearances and the mass killings of Bosniak
civilians at Višegrad’s famous 16th-century Mehmed Paša Sokolović’s bridge,
which can be seen from almost every window in town, had intensified. Death and
fear were all around me. I was just six years old.
We were
sitting at home, my mother holding me in her arms, trying to comfort me. I
clearly remember telling her: “I wish they’d kill me first.” Death, however
scary it may be to a child, sounded better than watching my mom being killed in
front of my eyes.
At the
beginning of July, we fled to Goražde, a nearby town which was under the
control of Bosnian forces, but many of our neighbours, friends and
acquaintances stayed behind and faced genocidal violence.
Today, more
than 25 years after the Dayton Accords officially recognised the ethnically
cleansed Serb-majority entity Republika Srpska, where Višegrad is now located,
the stories of the horrific suffering of its Muslim residents still haunt me.
So it was
with anguish and a survivor’s guilt that I opened British journalist Christina
Lamb’s recent book Our Bodies, Their Battlefield. It details the use of rape as
a weapon of war across the world, including in Bosnia during the war. Lamb’s
account of what happened in my hometown reawakened the trauma of the war.
Knowing the
extent to which the current authorities in Republika Srpska are going to in
order to erase these crimes made reading her book that much more painful.
Death and
rape in Višegrad
In 1993, as
details of the horrific crimes committed in Bosnia started to surface, the UN
Security Council voted to establish the International Criminal Tribunal for the
former Yugoslavia (ICTY) to prosecute war criminals. The crimes committed in
Višegrad particularly stood out.
“These
courts have heard many accounts but even the most seasoned judges and
prosecutors pause at the mention of crimes perpetrated in Višegrad […] Crimes
which reached an unprecedented peak of capricious cruelty not seen anywhere
else,” one of the judges quoted in Lamb’s book had said.
Out of
14,000 Bosniaks who lived in Višegrad before the war, about 3,000 were killed,
often in the public executions on that famous Ottoman bridge, which served as
an inspiration for Yugoslav author Ivo Andrić’s novel The Bridge on the Drina.
The
killings on the bridge in June 1992 were on such a mass scale that according to
British journalist Ed Vulliamy, Višegrad’s police inspector Milan Josipović
received “a macabre complaint from downriver, from the management of Bajina
Basta hydro-electric plant across the Serbian border”. The plant’s director
requested to “slow the flow of corpses down the Drina”, since “they were
clogging up the culverts in his dam at such a rate that he could not assemble
sufficient staff to remove them”.
On June 14
and 27, 1992, more than 120 civilians, mostly women and children, including a
two-day-old infant, were locked in two houses in Pionirska Street in Višegrad
and Bikavac area which were then set ablaze.
Zehra
Turjačanin, the only survivor of the Bikavac massacre, recalled in her
testimony: “The people inside were burning alive. They were wailing, screaming.
It’s just not describable what I heard.” When she got out of the burning house,
she saw the armed men “lying in a grassy area nearby, seemingly intoxicated”,
“playing music very, very loud so no one could hear the sound of the burning
people screaming inside”, before running away.
Rape and
sexual violence, which were “deliberately and methodically used as a weapon of
ethnic cleansing and genocide”, as Lamb writes, were widespread in Višegrad and
other parts of eastern Bosnia. One of the victims told Lamb there were multiple
locations used to carry out mass rape: “The police station, the local sports
centre, even the Institute for the Protection of Children”.
One of the
most infamous rape camps was the hotel Vilina Vlas, located seven kilometres (four
miles) from town. It is suspected that at least 200 Bosniak girls and women
were held at Vilina Vlas and systematically raped “in order to be inseminated
by the Serb seed”.
“They
called us Turks. They told us, ‘You are not going to give birth to Turks any
more, but Serbs,’” one of the survivors told Lamb. After the repeated rape many
of them were murdered, thrown into the Drina river, or burned alive.
A group of
people in the village of Slap, located downstream from Višegrad, retrieved
about 180 bodies from the water. The female corpses, they said, were always
naked and wrapped in blankets that were tied at each end.
Despite
these gruesome crimes carried out in Višegrad between 1992 and 1993, there has
been only limited justice delivered.
A Bosnian
court found a member of the Republika Srpska police force, Željko Lelek, guilty
of crimes against humanity in Višegrad, including rape and sentenced him to
sixteen years in prison. One of his victims was Jasmina Ahmetspahić, who ended
her life by jumping out of a window at the Vilina Vlas hotel, after being raped
for four days.
Milan
Lukić, the leader of the Bosnian Serb paramilitary group White Eagles, who
established his headquarters at the Vilina Vlas in 1992, was not charged with
sexual violence even though “there was ample evidence about a large number of
rapes, murder and other serious crimes being committed at the Vilina Vlas”,
according to Dermot Groome, who led the prosecution of Milan Lukić at the ICTY.
He
described the women who were tortured and violated at the Vilina Vlas hotel, as
“some of the most traumatised people he had ever encountered in his work as a
prosecutor.”
The ICTY
sentenced Milan Lukić to life in prison for war crimes including murder,
cruelty, persecution, and other crimes against humanity committed in Višegrad
in 1992 and 1993, including the Pionirska Street and Bikavac fires.
The erasure
Despite the
Bosnian court judgement that confirmed the Vilina Vlas hotel was used as a rape
camp and the extensive testimonies submitted to the tribunal, the government
officials, and the majority of Višegrad’s Serb residents continue to deny rape,
torture, or murder took place there.
The denial,
which in the words of the prominent genocide scholar, Israel W Charny,
represents a celebration of destruction, renewed humiliation of survivors, and
metaphorical murder of historical truth and collective memory is not only
widely accepted, but it has been state-supported.
In June, as
survivors marked the 28th anniversary of the Pionirska Street and Bikavac
fires, the administration of the Rehabilitation Center Vilina Vlas, as it is
officially called now, announced it is offering government-issued vouchers for
discounted stays and use of rehabilitation services.
Then in
July, the Bosnian media reported that Republika Srpska’s Tourist Board, with
the support of the municipality of Višegrad, has started a promotional campaign
called “We are waiting for you in Višegrad” and provided gift vouchers as a way
to attract tourists. Vilina Vlas was also part of the campaign.
Support and
encouragement of the denial go far beyond Bosnia. In 1998, shortly after the
hotel reopened and the Serb authorities started encouraging foreigners to stay
there and help erase the memory of its horrors, Austrian author and genocide
denier Peter Handke booked a room.
He later
wrote about his experience in Višegrad, expressing doubt about Lukić’s
involvement in the killings and such crimes happening at all. Despite his
appalling genocide apologism, the Swedish Academy awarded Handke the Nobel
Prize for the Literature in 2019.
And beyond
the realm of the written word, the rape and genocide of Muslims in Višegrad and
elsewhere in Bosnia are now celebrated and glorified by white supremacist
across the world and serve as an inspiration for terrorist acts.
It is now
becoming increasingly clear the denial and distortion of truth not only
constitute an assault on the history of one particular group but also pose a threat
to us all. Denial is one of the most certain indicators that a repeat of such
crimes in the future is imminent.
Therefore,
it is more urgent than ever to fight denialism in the Balkans and across the
world, to preserve the memories of the victims and remember the unimaginable
suffering inflicted upon them. Failing to do so would constitute complicity in
ethnic cleansing and genocide.
The Serb
fighters started that process by killing and then trying to erase any physical
evidence of their victims’ existence by burying them in unmarked graves or
throwing them in the Drina River. Embracing denial and forgetting the names and
lives of these people would complete the process. As Holocaust survivor Elie
Wiesel wrote, “to forget would be akin to killing them a second time.”
We must
fight for the victims’ memory and for the triumph of truth.
-----
Ehlimana Memišević is an assistant professor at
the Department of Legal History and Comparative Law, Faculty of Law, University
of Sarajevo.
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2020/10/17/visegrads-rape-camps-denial-and-erasure/
-----
The Amy Coney Barrett Hearings Were Political
Theatre
By Anna Jacobs
18 Oct 2020
Judge
Amy Coney Barrett speaks during the third day of her Senate confirmation
hearing to the Supreme Court on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC on October 14,
2020 [Reuters/Andrew Caballero-Reynolds]
-----
Earlier
this week, the American public watched carefully the congressional hearings of
President Donald Trump’s nominee to the Supreme Court, Amy Coney Barrett. For
four days, Barrett answered questions about her background and legal opinions.
To a
non-American, this may have seemed like a useless exercise, given that the
Republicans hold a 57-43 majority over the Democrats in the Senate, so
Barrett’s confirmation is sure to sail through.
Also,
historically, the Senate has rarely rejected a president’s Supreme Court
nominee. The last time this happened was in 1987, when the
Democratic-controlled Senate refused to confirm Republican President Ronald
Regan’s nomination of Robert H Bork for his conservative judicial opinions on
key issues ranging from civil rights to abortion.
Given these
hearings have a predetermined outcome, they often turn into political theatre
of sorts. But this does not mean they are not important.
One of the
most contentious aspects of Barrett’s confirmation hearings was their timing.
President Trump decided to push forward with the nomination just days after the
death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in September. The hearings
were scheduled just weeks before the US elections, amidst a public health
emergency and COVID-19 outbreaks in the White House and Congress.
Democrats
decried the fact that the Senate was spending time on this confirmation process
rather than passing a COVID-19 economic relief package, while also putting
people in danger by gathering individuals in one room to conduct the hearings.
This, many argued, unnecessarily exposed Senators and others to potential
COVID-19 contamination.
There are
two main reasons why the Republicans are rushing.
First, the
Supreme Court is set to adjudicate a case on the Affordable Care Act (ACA) –
President Barack Obama’s major domestic policy achievement that reformed the
healthcare system and expanded health insurance coverage – and both Trump and
the Republicans are counting on Barrett to help overturn it.
Second, it
is looking more and more likely Democratic challenger Joe Biden will defeat
Trump in the upcoming elections, while Republicans may lose control of the
Senate. Solidifying a conservative majority by confirming three Supreme Court
nominations by the incumbent Republican president represents a solid victory
for the Republican party, one that could outlast a Democrat-controlled
presidency and congress.
But by
pushing forward with these rushed hearings, Republicans are going against their
own past practices. When President Obama had the opportunity to nominate a
Supreme Court judge prior to the 2016 presidential election, Senate Republicans
refused to hold any hearings and insisted the process should be delayed until
after Americans voted. This time, when it is in their political interest to
rush a nomination ahead of the polls, they seem to have no qualms about doing
it.
Democrats
on the committee, for their part, are using the hearings not just to grill
Bennett on important political issues that she will have to decide on as a
Supreme Court justice, but also to appeal to voters. Democrats, including
vice-presidential candidate Kamala Harris, used their allotted time to articulate
why these hearings are problematic and how they reflect the failed leadership
of President Trump and the Republican Party.
Barrett
gave little information about how she would rule on flashpoint issues in
American politics today, such as abortion, the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare),
gun rights cases, and legal disputes that could arise in the upcoming
presidential election. She was asked about her personal views, which she
masterfully avoided answering. She did, however, clearly describe her judicial
philosophy, known as originalism. When asked to describe this concept she said
the following:
“I
interpret the Constitution as a law, that I interpret its text as text and I
understand it to have the meaning that it had at the time people ratified it.
So that meaning doesn’t change over time. And it’s not up to me to update it or
infuse my own policy views into it.”
This
judicial philosophy, adopted by conservative judges reflects a very narrow view
of the rights that emanate from the US constitution. It limits them to what is
mentioned in the text and avoids interpretations that could ensure a plethora
of rights that are not directly delineated or established by unchallenged legal
precedent (known as “super precedent”).
The US
constitution was drafted in 1787, and the last amendment was added in 1992. It
is a living, breathing body of legal principles that more progressive judges
interpret more liberally to better apply them to modern society and challenges,
known as non-originalism.
Judges that
follow an originalist judicial philosophy are less likely to ensure a right to
affordable healthcare or a woman’s right to have an abortion, for example, and
are more likely to reaffirm the rights of gun owners, upholding the provisions
of the second amendment of the constitution (the right to bear arms).
Barrett
clerked for one of the most conservative Supreme Court judges in US history,
Antonin Scalia, whom she sees as a role model. As a Federal Appeals court
judge, she issued several conservative rulings, and as an academic at Notre
Dame Law School, she voiced her conservative legal philosophy in various
publications.
This means
there is a strong possibility of her supporting decisions that could overturn
legal precedents like the 1973 ruling in the Roe v Wade case, which established
that the constitution protects a woman’s right to abortion.
Barrett’s
views on the ACA are also known. She critiqued Chief Justice John Robert’s 2012
decision to uphold key parts of the ACA, arguing he interpreted the law “beyond
its plausible meaning to save the statute”. The Supreme Court has agreed to
hear the Trump administration-backed lawsuit against the ACA one week after the
election. Trump’s two other Supreme Court nominees, Neil Gorsuch and Brett
Kavanaugh, will almost certainly vote in favour of striking down the law.
Although
initially there was public opposition to Barrett’s confirmation ahead of the
elections, some American voters seem to be warming up to her. Some new polling
reveals that 48 percent of voters want her confirmed, 31 do not, and 21 percent
are undecided.
Democrats
can do little to prevent the confirmation of Barrett, but their use of the
hearing to address US voters may have given Biden and Democratic congressional
candidates a boost. Mid-October polls show that Biden’s lead over Trump
continues to rise.
Three
Senate Republicans on the Judiciary Committee are also facing significant
re-election challengers, including the committee chairman Senator Lindsey
Graham of South Carolina, Joni Ernst in Iowa, and Thom Tillis in North
Carolina. The hearings could affect their chances of re-election.
The
hearings also helped mobilise grassroots women’s rights organisations. Over the
weekend, thousands protested Barrett’s nomination in Washington, DC and other
American cities across all 50 states.
A
Democratic-controlled White House, Senate, and House of Representatives would
be a powerful buffer against a conservative Supreme Court. One thing Democrats
can do, at least in theory, is add justices to the Supreme Court to overturn the
conservative majority. The constitution does not specify a certain number of
Supreme Court justices. The practice of having nine seats was decided on by
Congress in 1869 and has not been changed ever since.
If
Democrats control both the House and the Senate, they can pass new legislation
to overturn this decision. Past attempts to do this have failed, as public
opinion tends not to support such a move. However, we live in a new era, where
US politics is unpredictable. And as the Senate’s top Democrat Chuck Schumer
has said, “Everything is on the table.”
------
Anna Jacobs is a Doha-based researcher on US
politics and foreign policy.
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2020/10/18/what-is-at-stake-in-trumps-supreme-court-justice-nomination/
-----
Indicators Point To Imminent New Uprising In
Iran
By Dr. Majid Rafizadeh
October 18,
2020
All the
social, political and economic indicators in Iran point to the likelihood of
another major uprising and looming protests.
One of the
most important parameters is the economy, particularly how it is affecting
people’s living standards. Economically speaking, life has become unbearable
for many ordinary people in Iran. Unemployment and inflation are at or near
record highs and the cost of living continues to rise.
The Islamic
Parliament Research Center in June reported that the poverty-line income for a
four-member household in Iran has, over the last two years, increased from 25
million rials a month to 45 million, while the International Monetary Fund
predicts that inflation will be 34.2 percent this year.
While many
people’s wages have remained unchanged, the value of the Iranian currency has
significantly decreased. The rial has lost about 56 percent of its value so far
in 2020, making it one of the least valuable national currencies in the world.
As of last week, the rial was trading on unofficial markets at 304,300 to the
US dollar. Throughout the last two years, the currency has plummeted in value.
As a result, the Iranian authorities in May agreed to remove four zeros from
the currency. The falling value of the rial has inevitably increased demand for
US dollars and gold.
Even Iran’s
state-controlled Persian newspapers have begun warning the regime. For example,
the Arman daily last month wrote: “A glance at what we witnessed in forms of protests in recent years shows
that these protests started in areas where people are suffering from poverty
and have difficulties earning their living wages. The economic pressure that
lower social classes endure is unbearable. We should be careful that they do
not lose their tolerance because this could have social and security
consequences (for the state).”
The regime
itself is also encountering one of the worst economic years in its four-decade
rule, partly due to US sanctions and the decline in oil exports they have
enforced. The situation is most likely to get worse. Although the other
permanent members of the UN Security Council in August opposed a US bid to
impose further pressure on the Iranian regime by triggering snapback sanctions,
this move nevertheless put further pressure on Tehran.
Prominent
cleric Saeed Lavasani, the head of Friday prayers in Lavasan, acknowledged the
negative impact of the US move: “Activation of the trigger mechanism means the
defeat and complete death of the (nuclear deal), which means the path that we
went for seven years and put all the facilities of the nation on it, now we
must return that way. The mechanism of the Security Council is such that it
allows the United States to take such an action, which, although China and
Russia have formally opposed it, implicitly acknowledges that a new legal
challenge is emerging in the Security Council that will lead to long
discussions. Of course, it is not in our interest.”
However, it
is important to point out that Iran’s soaring inflation and crumbling economy
has not only been caused by US sanctions, as some policy analysts, scholars and
politicians suggest. The underlying factors are ingrained in Tehran’s political
and financial institutions, which are the country’s backbone. In other words,
it is the widespread corruption within the theocratic establishment and across
the political spectrum; the mismanagement of the economy by the leadership;
embezzlement and money laundering within the banking system; and the
hemorrhaging of the nation’s wealth on militias, terror groups and proxies
across the region that are the major factors contributing to the crisis.
Iran’s
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its affiliates, the Office of the
Supreme Leader, and the regime’s cronies are also responsible because they
control considerable parts of the economy and financial systems. The IRGC
controls about half of Iran’s gross domestic and owns several major economic
powerhouses and religious endowments, such as Astan Quds Razavi in the
northeastern city of Mashhad.
In addition
to the dire economic situation many ordinary people are facing, the regime’s
social and political suppression is adding to their fury. Human rights
violations, arrests, torture, executions, imprisonments, and the suppression of
the freedoms of speech and expression are at record highs. The Ebtekar
newspaper even wrote a warning message to the politicians and clergy last
month: “The social and national challenges have become so diverse and massive
that any justification or trick can no longer conceal them. There is an
inefficiency (lack of ambiguous plans and goals) of macro-management, which is
the bedrock of all kinds of social and national challenges without prospects.
Thus, we could safely say that a ‘fundamental national issue or concern’ in no
way matters for politicians, officials, clergymen, and those seeking power.”
In summary,
life has become unbearable for many people in Iran. The sociopolitical,
religious and economic landscapes suggest that a major widespread uprising will
most likely hit the theocratic establishment soon.
----
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a Harvard-educated
Iranian-American political scientist.
https://www.arabnews.com/node/1750696
----
Elections 2020: American Politics Has Hit The
Rock Bottom
By Nicholas Goldberg
October 18,
2020
There’s
unrest in the streets and vicious partisan division in Washington. Vast numbers
of people are out of work. The reality TV billionaire who occupies the White
House is tossing aside fundamental democratic norms, even hinting he might not
accept the election results. He’s been impeached, to no avail. And all the
while, a deadly virus is stalking the nation.
Surely this
must be the most dramatic, dangerous moment ever in American politics. Surely
we are more bitterly divided than in the past and facing the most consequential
election ever.
But is that
really true? “Every generation thinks of itself in the superlative. Best,
worst, most corrupt, most stressed, most polarised. It’s a form of collective
narcissism,” says H.W. Brands, a professor of US history at the University of
Texas at Austin. “But not all the generations can be right. Are we more
polarised than ever? Not more than the election of 1860, which caused a third
of the states to leave the union. Is this the most consequential election ever?
If it stops short of causing a civil war, then no. Is politics more bitter now
than ever? No. No one has been killed in a duel or beaten nearly to death on
the floor of the Senate.”
The last
thing I want to do is downplay the seriousness of our present mess, but it was
mildly comforting to be reminded in conversations with several historians in
recent days that, as bad as things are, they’ve been just as bad if not worse
in the past.
Brands’
reference to abolitionist Sen. Charles Sumner being beaten unconscious with a
cane in 1856 by a proslavery member of the House of Representatives is a
reminder of just how deep fissures can get. And Brands was not alone in
mentioning the fraught, pre-secession election of 1860 and the subsequent Civil
War, in which some 750,000 Americans died. All the historians I spoke to cited
those events.
Dangerously
high tensions
And there
have been other times, too, when tensions ran dangerously high. In some cases,
it was not clear that democracy would survive.
Jack
Rakove, a history professor at Stanford, pointed to the final years of the
1700s, a period of intense and bitter partisan competition between the
Federalist Party and the opposing Democratic-Republicans. The election of 1800
between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson tested for the first time whether the
United States would be able to transfer power peacefully from one political
party to another. The outcome was by no means certain.
David
Greenberg, a professor of American history at Rutgers, offered 1968 as another
time of extraordinary turbulence. President Lyndon Johnson had decided
unexpectedly not to seek another term. There was growing anger and division
over the war in Vietnam. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in
April, followed two months later by Sen. Robert F. Kennedy. Riots broke out at
the Democratic convention in Chicago. Then, in November, Richard Nixon was
elected president.
“I think
there was a sense that revolution was at hand, that the wheels were coming off,
that something crazy was going on,” said Greenberg. “There were ominous
feelings about what lay around the corner for America and for the future of
democracy.”
Other
historians pointed to periods of violent labour unrest in the late 1800s as
well as to the Great Depression as moments of crisis and anxiety in the United
States.
Yet, in
each case, the nation survived.
Of course,
today we’re facing what Princeton history professor Sean Wilentz called a
“triple whammy” — the pandemic, the worst economic downturn since the Great
Depression and a wave of racial unrest — just at a moment when we have a
president whom historian Robert Dallek calls a “malignant narcissist” and a
“psychological mess.” (Dallek compared the election of Trump to the election in
1920 of Warren Harding, whom he called “an inconsequential and unqualified
nonentity.”)
Your luck
can run out
Wilentz
noted that the country had Abraham Lincoln to guide it through the Civil War,
and that when it faced the Great Depression, Franklin Delano Roosevelt rose,
somewhat unexpectedly, to the challenge. “We’ve been very lucky,” Wilentz said.
“But as with gamblers, so with great nations: Your luck can run out.”
The
historians I spoke to expressed concerns about voter suppression and potential
violence in the weeks ahead. Several said they believe Trump will challenge the
outcome of the election even if he loses fairly.
But for
what it’s worth, they expressed mostly confidence — though tinged with concern,
caution and caveats — that the United States would muddle through.
Dallek put
his hope in the institutions of democracy; Wilentz (quoting Bill Clinton) cited
the character of the American people. Greenberg reiterated that we shouldn’t
buy into the myth of an “utterly stable American history with a clear arc of
progress.”
“We’ve had
a lot of ups and downs and dark moments and doubts about our future as a
nation,” said Greenberg. “I think we can gain perspective by taking the long
view of history.”
On a
related subject, it is my view that Trump is the worst president of my
lifetime. But is he the worst president ever? I don’t know the answer. In the
coming days, I’ll put that question to historians, and we’ll see if the long
view of history cuts Trump some slack.
-----
Nicholas Goldberg is an associate editor and
op-ed columnist
https://gulfnews.com/opinion/op-eds/elections-2020-american-politics-has-hit-the-rock-bottom-1.74647459
----
Warm Peace between UAE, Israel Is Good For
Business
By Michal Michelle
Divon
October 19,
2020
A big
component that is helping garner mutual understanding is religion and its place
in both societies.
Those
saying the Israel-UAE agreement isn't peace but a business deal don't know much
about the Emirati culture and people. Emiratis would rather negotiate with
friends - some say they will only do business with friends. This point is an
important one to stress both to sceptics of the Abraham Accords and to Israelis
looking to do business in the UAE.
To the
sceptics I say, open your eyes. This peace is undeniably people-driven despite
it coming at a personal cost to many. Emiratis publicly supporting the Abraham
Accords are continuously targeted online while forced to absorb hateful
rhetoric and death threats. Those in the spotlight have made one thing clear to
me and to their followers - they will not be intimidated.
To Israelis
excited about the prospects of business partnerships I will extend a friendly
piece of advice - don't come to the UAE expecting to find an oil well or money
tree, you will miss out on the country's greatest asset, its people, and leave
empty handed. Expect the first few meetings of any nature to be introductory
meetings. Show genuine curiosity towards your counterparts and their families,
and know that once the relationship is established, business will flow
naturally.
Deputy
Mayor of Jerusalem Fleur Hassan-Nahoum spent the past week in Dubai celebrating
Sukkot with the local Jewish communities (there are already two) and meeting
local officials and potential business partners. Hassan-Nahoum says she came
with two hats; the first as Deputy Mayor advancing opportunities for the city
of Jerusalem, and secondly as co-founder of the UAE-Israel Business Council
which seeks to help connect businesses from both sides. While Hassan-Nahoum
visited in a professional capacity, she stressed that her most important
objective was "to build an infrastructure for a warm peace" and help
establish people to people relations.
"Unlike
Israelis who are very transactional, Emiratis want to build relationships and
build trust. I as a Sephardi woman very much relate to that, I'm more like
them" says Hassan- Nahoum who is a big proponent of Sephardi heritage and
Arab-Jewish culture. The Deputy Mayor is looking to position the city of
Jerusalem as the epicenter of the Israel-UAE peace deal and is focused on
welcoming Muslim tourists to the Al Aqsa Mosque, Islam's third holiest site.
A big
component that is helping garner mutual understanding is religion and its place
in both societies. "Our religions are the same, we are both descendants of
Abraham" says Solly Wolf, President of the Dubai JCC who has been living
in the UAE for over two decades. While in Israel Judaism is more fragmented,
and criticism of government policy surrounding religion is widespread (topics
like restrictions on Shabbat, the Rabbinate monopoly on marriage, and Haredi
exemptions from military service) in the Emirates Islam seems to be much more
united in its belief and practice. Despite the various sects of Judaism in
Israel, a uniting force is the value of family best captured by the Shabbat
meal.
Friday is a
holy day for both Muslims and Jews. In Israel, whether religious or secular,
families are known to gather around the table to enjoy each others company,
together with an exaggerated amount of food. In the UAE Friday is not just a
day for prayer but also 'family day' - a full day dedicated to family
togetherness which is also practiced around the table with food.
Welcoming
the stranger is a core principle of Judaism and also a core features of Muslim
societies - it's part of both people's DNA. In the past nine days spent in
Dubai, I have been invited to multiple family dinners and have left
(speechless) bearing gifts to take back home with me. Rabbi Sarna, Chief Rabbi
of the Jewish Council of the Emirates "warned me" about the
unparalleled hospitality I will find here, and I can now confirm it personally.
Israeli residents and officials like Hassan-Nahoum will have to make sure these
gestures are reciprocated when Emiratis arrive to the holy Land.
While
Israeli and Emirati passport holders await for word on direct flights and
travel requirements, Israelis are advised to start preparing a menu for what I
promise will be an unforgettable meal with new friends.
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Michal Divon is a New York-based Israeli
journalist and TV host, currently working with News12 Networks. She holds a BA
in Government, Diplomacy and Strategy from the Interdisciplinary Center in
Herzliya.
https://www.khaleejtimes.com/editorials-columns/special-warm-peace-between-uae-israel-is-good-for-business
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