IN Gaza, food's going fast.

Photo credit: MAHMUD HAMS/AFP/Getty Images

As you sit down to a Thanksgiving feast, please spare a thought for the starving Palestinians of Gaza. There are 1.5 million of them, most of them living hand to mouth, or on UN handouts, because Israel has them under siege.

It's a vicious cycle, one that's being repeated every few months or so. The Islamic militants do something crazy, Israel strikes back, the militants fire missiles into southern Israel and then the entry points into Gaza slam shut.  Food and the basic necessities of life are squeezed off to the barest minimum.

And who suffers? Not the militants, not Hamas nor Islamic Jihad. As usual, it's the people of Gaza who are dazed with hunger. My friend Azmi, who has diabetes, tells me he is running out of insulin, and he can't find any pharmacy or hospital that still has supplies.

Dialysis machines are breaking down in the hospital (the rare moments when there's electricity to run them) and there are no spare parts to replace them.  Bakeries have run out of flour. “I've been to the Cairo zoo,” says Azmi, “and I swear those animals are treated better there than we humans are in Gaza.”

Many stories are written about the smugglers' tunnels that honeycomb Gaza's southern border with Egypt. We write about how the smugglers bring Viagra and tiger cubs through the tunnels, as though Gaza were some big exotic shopping mall, a Neiman Marcus on the Mediterranean. But the truth his, all the stuff coming through the tunnel is expensive because it is taxed by the smugglers, and beyond the reach of most Gazans.

In the Third Act of this sorry performance, the international community and the UN start complaining loudly, and Israel lets in a few dozen trucks of food, or turns the fuel spigot on for a few hours to reduce the international outcry and show what good guys they are. That's what happened today. The Israelis let in 40 trucks. It's hardly enough. At a minimum, says Chris Guness, an UNRWA spokesman, “We need to bring in 15 trucks a day, every day.” Adds UN Humanitarian Coordinator for the Palestinian Territories Maxwell Gaylard, “This is an assault on human dignity with severe humanitarian implications.”

Then we have Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, obviously irritated by Gaza questions during his valedictory tour to Washington. He dismissed the near-famine in Gaza as nothing more than the whining of a few cry-babies, as if he expected them to make souffles out of sand, soups from stone.

Israel wants to draw a curtain around Gaza so nobody can see how it's punishing the Palestinians. That's why, for the past two weeks, they've barred the foreign press from entering Gaza.  The reason, says the Israeli military, is that catch-all phrase “security”, and it is pronounced with arrogant solemnity as if to say ‘Take it from us, we have our very good reasons. Don't challenge us.”

Well, the foreign press did challenge the Israeli government. We took the matter to the high court, petitioned Olmert and got our editors to write letters of complaint. Some journalists talk of chartering a boat from Cyprus and trying to run the Israeli naval blockade. These are desperate tries, but this is  a violation of the press's freedom, and the world's right to know. This is the sort of shameful attitude you might expect from Zimbabwe's Dictator Robert Mugabe, not Israel. Please.

Choking the life out of the Gazans isn't going to make them turn against their Hamas overlords. On the contrary, says my friend Azmi, “Everything that Israeli does isn't harming Hamas in Gaza. It's making them stronger.”  Starving Palestinians and depriving them of medicine certainly isn't going to make them like Israelis, or their supporters in Washington, any better.

Happy Thanksgiving.

By Tim McGirk/Jerusalem

 All eyes in the Middle East are on what President-elect Obama is going to do about the region's multiple problems. Expectations are huge, partly because of the miserable failures of the Bush administration, partly because of some positive signals that Obama sent during the campaign.

 Obama's going to be getting a lot of advice, but he should take a good look at two Op-Eds that appeared in the last week.

 The first is a Washington Post piece by Brent Scowcroft and Zbigniew Brzezinski, former national security advisors for Republican and Democratic presidents, respectively. They argue that despite the depressing state of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, "the opportunity for success has never been greater." They suggest that by giving the conflict immediate and determined attention, Obama could create a new dynamic that ushers in a pro-peace government in Israel's February election and sees Hamas joining the peace process so as not to be left out of the new momentum.

 The current weakness of Israeli and Palestinian negotiators, they argue, 

 ...can be overcome by the president speaking out clearly and forcefully about the fundamental principles of the peace process; he also must press the case with steady determination. That initiative should then be followed -- not preceded -- by the appointment of a high-level dignitary to pursue the process on the president's behalf, a process based on the enunciated presidential guidelines. Such a presidential initiative should instantly galvanize support, both domestic and international, and provide great encouragement to the Israeli and Palestinian peoples.

 Scowcroft and Brzezinski also underline a point that is often obscured by opponents of peace or by negotiators more in love with the peace process than in a peace solution that will require real compromises and political fallout:

 The major elements of an agreement are well known. A key element in any new initiative would be for the U.S. president to declare publicly what, in the view of this country, the basic parameters of a fair and enduring peace ought to be. These should contain four principal elements: 1967 borders, with minor, reciprocal and agreed-upon modifications; compensation in lieu of the right of return for Palestinian refugees; Jerusalem as real home to two capitals; and a nonmilitarized Palestinian state.

 The other Op-Ed is the syndicated Washington Week column by James Zogby, president of the Arab-American Institute. Zogby argues that the Arabs shouldn't wait for Obama to do it all, but rather ought to get started before Obama's inauguration in helping create more favorable conditions for Obama to work with. Specifically, he says Arab states should sweeten the Arab peace plan, which has created increasing interest in the U.S. and Israel, and push Fatah and Hamas toward a unity government that will speak for all Palestinians and earn the respect of the international community.

 If we are to be honest with ourselves, we must acknowledge that when Obama takes the oath of office on January 20th, he is likely to find a rather unappetizing situation laid out before him in the Middle East.

 If nothing changes in the next two months, the Palestinian house will still be divided, and the Israelis will still have no government and no clear mandate (elections, there, will occur on February 10th, and all signs point to either a hard-line Netanyahu victory or the cobbling together of a weak centrist-led coalition).

 Therefore, the question before the new Administration will be: can anything be done?, and, if so, how to start. Because I believe that steps can be taken on the Arab side to put their house in order before January 20th, the region's leadership ought to use the next two months' time wisely.

 I would propose the creation of a rather massive multi-billion dollar "Peace and Reconciliation Incentive Fund" that would provide immediate relief and job-creating investment... The bottom line purpose of the fund is to support the Palestinian people and to create the incentive and pressure for their divided leaderships to agree on a new government which, with Arab backing, is ready and able to make peace.

 In addition, the Arab League, instead of merely reaffirming their 2002 and 2007 peace plan, would do well to enlarge upon it by putting, as it were, "meat on the bones". They could, for example, spell out in greater detail the types of investment and/or trade incentives that would accompany final peace and/or normalization. And they could even create a staged sequencing (for example, with the signing of an Israeli-Palestinian framework, stage one will occur; with removal settlements and checkpoints in compliance with agreement, stage two will occur, etc.). The Arab plan has attracted interest not only with the incoming U.S. Administration, but among many in Israel, as well. Spelling out, therefore, the benefits and vision that accompany final peace would be of enormous benefit.

 I agree with Scowcroft and Brzezinski, that "the opportunity for success has never been greater," and, as they warn, "the costs of failure [have never been] more severe." Obama needs to keep that in mind as he ponders the Middle East quagmire.

 --By Scott MacLeod/Cairo

 Qatar continues to show the way. The tiny Gulf country over the weekend inaugurated the magnificent Museum of Islamic Art, taking another step in its quest to promote a cultural renaissance in the Arab world and provide a bridge between civilizations. One of the finest collections ever assembled, the museum showcases the beauty and the genius of more than 1,500 years of Islamic civilization. 

Emir of Qatar and Sheikha Mozah PHOTO BY Tom Stoddart--Reportage/Getty

 Qatar's purpose was summed up at the gala celebration Saturday night in Doha by museum authority chairperson Sheikha Mayassa, daughter of the emir and his wife, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani and Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser al-Missned: "We aspire to highlight the peaceful and sublime civilization of Islam, which continues to call for tolerance and coexistence among peoples."

 Nothing illustrates the latter point better than the decision to commission the Chinese-born American architect, I.M. Pei, who is 91, to design the museum as the last significant work of his fabled career. Pei spoke of how the challenge took him on a journey of discovery through the Islamic world, during which he studied the life of the Prophet Mohammed and visited jewels of Islamic architecture such as the Ibn Tulun mosque in Cairo. Thanking the emir for the opportunity, he described how the experience of learning about the Islamic world had enriched his life.

Museum of Islamic Art, by I.M. Pei

 Besides a permanent celebration of Islamic culture, the museum intends to take an active role in promoting knowledge and understanding through educational programs and international conferences. The museum is a pet project of the emir, whose 13-year reign has been marked by an ambitious effort, with Sheikha Mozah often playing a leading role, to promote political and social reform in Qatar, the Gulf and the greater Arab world. 

 Among Qatar's accomplishments to date are the establishment of al-Jazeera satellite channel as the first major independent Arab news organization, and the creation of Education City, a campus that has drawn branches of some of America's finest universities, including Georgetown, Cornell, Carnegie Mellon and Texas A&M, to the Middle East. You can see Qatar's progress as the cultural equivalent of the tourism bonanza in neighboring Dubai. While the emir was opening the Museum of Islamic Art, Dubai's royals were attending last weekend's gala opening of another of their mega resorts, Palm Island Jumeirah and its flagship hotel, the Atlantis.  

 The Museum of Islamic Art, which will be joined by additional museums in Doha, reflects Qatar's drive to put itself on the global cultural map. Last weekend was also the occasion for announcing a long-term partnership with actor Robert De Niro's Tribeca Film Festival. The plans are still being worked out, but Qatar will host the first Tribeca Film Festifval Doha next November hosted by the Museum of Islamic Art. Although with a Qatari twist, the festival will be patterned after the New York version in its mission to bring together the global film industry, diverse audiences and engage the local community. 

Geometric Interior of Museum of Islamic Art

 The Tribeca festival was established after 9/11 in an effort to revive the economy and spirit of downtown New York where the World Trade Center had stood before being destroyed by Muslim terrorists. After Saturday night's fireworks at the Museum of Islamic Art, Jane Rosenthal, one of DeNiro's co-founders, told me one of her motivations for the Qatar-Tribeca partnership was to create a better understanding with the Arab world. 

 "Very few film festivals are born because of an act of war," she said. "I feel, as New Yorkers, we have to try to understand Islam and the Arabic culture in a more profound way. If it can help change a few minds, that's great. If it can make a few people laugh and have a good time, that's also great. If it can educate a little bit, hey, that's even better."

 Qatar's new museum and film festival won't bridge all the cultural gaps, but their creators deserve our thanks and encouragement for trying to make the world a better place.

 --By Scott MacLeod/Cairo

British Foreign secretary David Miliband's trip to Syria earlier this week -- the highest level-level British visit in eight years -- was the latest sign of Syria's ongoing rehabilitation from a pariah nation to a regional player. Ever since Syria began a round of indirect peace talks with Israel, a string of European leaders have broken with the Bush administration efforts to isolate Syria and have found their own roads to Damascus. Syria has an "essential role" to play in the stability of the Middle East, Miliband said, and urged Syria to continue the talks, which have been stalled by the resignation of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert two months ago.

But yesterday, the International Atomic Energy Agency served up a reminder of just how difficult it will be for the Syria and the West to kiss and make up. The IAEA released a report yesterday which said that its investigation of the military site in eastern Syria which the Israelis bombed in September 2007 turned up evidence that could support claims by the Bush administration that Syria was trying to develop an undeclared nuclear reactor. In particular, the IAEA said that they found traces of processed uranium -- rather than depleted uranium, which might have come from Israeli munitions that destroyed the site -- and remains of a cooling system that matches the requirements for a nuclear reactor.  Since Syria is a signatory to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), the IAEA -- which overseas enforcement of the NPT  -- has asked to widen its investigation.

In which case, the IAEA wouldn''t be the only international body bearing down upon the government of Syrian president Bashar al Assad. A UN Tribunal in the Hague is due to begin its proceedings into the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri sometime in December. So far the UN investigation into that 2005 assassination and other attacks in Lebanon has focused on high ranking officials in the Assad regime. While these investigations don't pose an immediate threat to Syrian government, they aren't going away quietly.

But even by themselves, negotiations between Syria and the West won't be easy. For one thing, The US and Israel expect that a key component of any agreement would require Damascus to end its strategic relationship with Tehran, and stop supporting of anti-Israeli militant groups such as Hizballah and Hamas. But it's that strategic partnership – which began when Syria was the first country to recognize the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979 – that has helped the Assad regime survive all those years as a Western pariah. Though a peace deal with peace deal with Israel sweetened with a Western package of aid and expertise would put Syria solidly on the path to sustainable development, it would require an leap of faith unlike how the Syrian government normally operates. As one Syrian official with direct knowledge of the Israel file told me: “In Syria, you're considered a bad politician unless you have five or six options." Instead, the Syrian government sees the Israeli track not so much as an end in of itself but as a confidence building measure and prelude to a grand bargain between Syria and Iran on the one hand and America and its allies allies on the other that would redraw the balance of power in the Middle East, the official said. And while the Syrians are more than glad to see the backside of the Bush White House, they may be in for a rude awakening when Obama administration takes over. The ever-short American attention span is shifting further East, away from Syria and Iraq and the Levant and towards to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Obama may not try to isolate Syria, but he also may not have time to listen.

--Andrew Lee Butters/Beirut

When I read about the discovery of the bones of a 12,000 year-old woman near the Sea of Galilee, clutching a leopard pelvis, sporting the plume of a Golden Eagle, and with a collection of 50 tortoise shells, I wondered: Is this the first Jewish Mother?
Or was she the first woman tycoon? Clearly she had a lot of loot. And a leopard doesn't give up its pelvis cheaply. Undoubtedly, she was a woman of substance. I imagined her as a Paleolithic Leona Helmsley, the real estate billionaire dubbed the “Queen of Mean” by her maid.  Perhaps she had cornered the cave market in the upper Galilee, just when nomads were turning sedentary. And did she really need to be buried with 50 tortoise shells, not to mention a human foot?
What was going on here?  I called up Leore Grosman at the Hebrew University who, along with Natalie Munro, was one of the archeologists who found the woman's gravesite, in a cliff above a wadi. She disabused me of this fantasy that the skeleton might have belonged to the prototype Jewish Mother. “Of course not," Grosman replies huffily. “This was 6,000 years before Abraham and the start of Judaism.” But, she adds, “Humans have been living in the region continuously ever since.”  So, it's possible to imagine that some of her genes were eventually passed down to the Israelite tribes.
It turns out this 12,000 year-old skeleton belonged to a she-shaman, a witch doctor, who would intercede for her tribe in the spirit world. She also seemed to have a kink in her spine, which could have caused her to drag her foot. She limped.
This reminded me of something I heard as a kid from my dad, a geologist who explored the Amazon. He'd come home with wonderful stories: a tribe that shrunk the head of a Baptist missionary (his ginger hair and beard had novelty value in those lost backwaters of the Amazon), a giant boa that snatched a man out of a dugout canoe, and the shaman who convinced his tribesmen that at night he could transform himself into a black panther.
“Why did the villagers believe this?” I asked, ever the boy skeptic.
“Because,” my father replied, “both the panther and the shaman had a limp.”
Once, years later, visiting nomads in Afghanistan, I was shown an Afghan woman shaman, and she too was deformed. The men took turns carrying her around in their arms; it was an honor. She was frail, had long fingers studded with talismanic rings and bright, shining eyes. She was radiant. The Afghans trusted her connection with nature; she divined where to find water and a blade or two of grass in the desert.
I mentioned this coincidence of the three shaman's deformities to Archeologist Grosman and she didn't seem surprised. “You often have cases where shamans have undergone a severe mental or physical trauma, which make them more receptive to the spirit world,” she explained. And that, she said, might have been the case with the she-shaman of the Galilee. With her damaged spine, the shaman couldn't have moved much. But in the company of her animal spirits, she roamed far and free.

by Tim McGirk/Jerusalem

An edict that kept women's portraits --including rockstar Fergie's-- off Jerusalem's buses is now abolished.

Credit: Film Magic

In her race to become Israel's next prime minister, Tzipi Livni owes a debt to a plucky little party whose name sounds like an alarm clock. “Wake Up, Jerusalemites!” it's called. They fielded six candidates for Tuesday's city council elections.  Three of their candidates were women, and so is Livni.  So when they went to Egged, the public transportation company, to arrange for ‘Wake Up, Jerusalemite' posters to be plastered on the city buses, they were in for a nasty surprise.

Women's faces can't appear on the sides of Jerusalem's buses, they were told. “It doesn't matter if you're an 80-year old woman or an eight-year old girl,” one company rep explained. “What can I say? It's Iran.”

Iran? Wait a minute. This is Jerusalem, capital of a  model democracy, the only one in the Middle East, right?. Not, apparently, when it comes to women. Egged is worried that if a bus were to drive through an ultra-orthodox neighborhood with a woman's face on the side, it would so incense the haredim that they might smash the bus.

When Black-Eyed Peas played in Jerusalem, the bus company photo-shopped Fergie out of the band posters. Boy, was Fergie fuming like an angry minx about this when she came out on stage. Clearly she likes to be on the bus, in the driver's seat.

Time was running out for the youthful party, so they approached an advocacy group, the Israel Religious Action Center, whose lawyer Einat Hurvitz rushed the case to the high court on Nov. 8, three days before the vote. Next morning, the judge heard the case and scolded Egged's behavior as “shameful'.  Wake Up, Jerusalemites rushed out and plastered their posters on as many buses as they could find, and a sympathetic Israeli press covered the event, giving them more P.R. then they could ever have dreamed of. Two of the women on their ticket were actually elected. They'll have their work cut out for them: most of their fellow councilmen are black-hatted and bearded members of the ultra-orthodox parties.

How does this effect Livni, who is a stratosphere higher, politically? It means that campaign posters with her face can now grace Jerusalem's wildly careening buses.
By Tim McGirk/Jerusalem

 Barack Obama chose Rahm Emanuel to be his chief of staff not for his Middle East policy expertise but his Beltway experience and savvy. Nicknamed Rahmbo, Emanuel was Bill Clinton's scrappy White House political director--he taught that president the Hebrew word for balls, baytzim--and has served three terms in congress. 

 Yet, news of Emanuel's appointment is causing a stir in the Middle East. It's being met with some elation in Israel, a country that has been notably uneasy about an Obama presidency, and some despair in the Arab world, which had largely embraced Obama. An Oxford-educated Arab friend called Thursday night to ask me in a tone of deep disappointment, "Did you notice how in the span of 24 hours Egyptians went from being ecstatic to being depressed about Obama?" The Arab News in Jeddah, whose editorials are a good reflection of the Arab mainstream, did an astounding somersault on Friday. Just the previous day, the paper hailed the "symbol of hope and change" in the U.S., saying Obama's historic election "threatens the cosy Washington consensus. We are, therefore, embarking on exciting times." After hearing of Emanuel's appointment, the paper headlined its next editorial "Don't pin much hope on Obama." Arab expectations, the paper warned, "are likely to be dashed, generating a great deal of pain and resentment...The new team may turn out to be as pro-Israeli as the one it is replacing."

 Arab disappointment aside, there's enough in Emanuel's background to raise a fair question of whether the key appointment of such a demonstratively pro-Israel figure is going to help or hurt the prospects for Obama's avowed plans to play an effective role in brokering Middle East peace. Obama promised to be actively engaged as an Israeli-Arab conciliator from Day One, a far cry better than President Bush, who ignored mediation for six years because he believed that Islamic terrorism and lack of Arab democracy were more serious problems to tackle. But many will be looking to see if Obama will avoid the excessive pro-Israel bias and attendant strategic asymmetry that Arab officials--and also some former U.S. diplomats--cite as one of the factors in the tragic, bloody collapse of the peace process during the Clinton administration. It's impossible and unfair to judge Obama's future Middle East policies on the basis of one appointment, especially when the job in question is not directly responsible for the Middle East. Still, for the Arab world, it's a dispiriting start to the Obama era in the region, anything but the hoped-for sign of greater American sensitivity and fairness toward the Arabs.

 Emanuel's public views express backing for the peace process coupled with total support for Israel's security and distrust of Palestinians as well as Washington's traditional Arab allies. Atlantic magazine's Jeffrey Goldberg, who says "I've known Rahm for a long time," reports that "he is deeply and emotionally committed to Israel and its safety. We've talked about the issue a dozen times; it's something he thinks about constantly..." In customary, boilerplate praise in 2006, Emanuel called Israel "a vital ally of the United States since the beginning of its existence, sharing democratic values, friendship, and respect and enjoying a strategic partnership. American and Israel shall remain close friends for years to come." In a rare break with his famous partisanship, Emanuel lauded Bush's State Department for supporting Arab pro-democracy activists, decrying past U.S. policy that allowed "repressive regimes...such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia [to] receive a pass." In 2006, Emanuel was a vocal critic of Bush's decision to allow Dubai Ports World, a Dubai government-owned company, to manage operations at six U.S. ports. Not only would that endanger U.S. "safety and security," Emanuel said, but would enable the United Arab Emirates, a close U.S. ally, to "promote terrorism and violence against Israel" through its support of the Hamas government elected in Palestine at that time. As a condition to doing business with the U.S., Emanuel said, the UAE should be required to renounce its anti-Israel boycott. Intense congressional pressure eventually forced Dubai Ports World to abandon its plans, causing wide bitterness in the Arab world, including among Westernized moderates.

 During the Clinton administration, Emanuel helped arrange the historic signing ceremony for the Oslo peace accords between Israel and the PLO at the White House in 1993. He accompanied Clinton to the Middle East for the Israeli-Jordanian peace agreement signing and Yitzhak Rabin's funeral. Recently, Emanuel personally escorted Obama last June when the Democratic candidate gave a strongly pro-Israel speech to the pro-Israel AIPAC lobby group in Washington and held a private meeting with AIPAC's Executive Board. Emanuel's father Benjamin was quoted in an article about Rahm headlined "Our Man in the White House" in the Israeli daily Ma'ariv last week, saying "Obviously he will influence the president to be pro-Israel. Why wouldn't he? What is he, an Arab? He's not going to clean the floors of the White House." Last week, Ha'aretz quoted U.S. Jewish leaders praising Emanuel's selection. William Daroff, director of the United Jewish Communities Washington office, said: "Rep. Emanuel is also a good friend of Israel, coming from good Irgun stock, davening at an Orthodox synagogue, and sending his children to Jewish day schools." But Ha'aretz also quoted an unnamed veteran Israeli diplomat saying Emanuel's association with Israel "doesn't necessarily bring him closer to us. One thing is certain--Israelis will not be able to pull the wool over his eyes." 

 What has most grabbed attention is Emanuel's various deep personal connections to Israel. His father Benjamin was born in Jerusalem, fought to establish the state and was an Israeli citizen before emigrating to the U.S. where Rahm was born in 1959. As a kid, Rahm went to summer camps in Israel. His father is quoted as saying Rahm continues to spend his summer vacations in Tel Aviv and speaks Hebrew though not fluently. Emanuel abruptly left his post on a Richard Daley mayoral campaign in Chicago and volunteered for service in the Israel Defense Force during the 1991 Gulf War. A 1997 Jerusalem Post story reported that Emanuel did menial work at a supply base in northern Israel. The Post quoted him saying that the experience was not a sacrifice but "something I wanted to do." The article also quoted fellow Daley campaign worker Peter Giangreco saying, "Here's a guy who, during a very, very, very important campaign to him and the city, said there's something bigger here. He takes loyalty and duty, and his beliefs, very seriously." In his presidential memoirs, Bill Clinton twice mentions that his aide had "served in the Israeli army." 

 Benjamin Emanuel, now an Illinois resident, is reported to have been a member of a Jewish nationalist "terrorist" organization, Irgun Zvai Leumi (IZL). According to a 1997 NY Times profile of Rahm and two equally successful brothers, the Emanuel family name was originally Auerbach, but it was changed in a tribute to an uncle Emanuel Auerbach who was killed in a "skirmish with Arabs" in Jerusalem around 1933. The Times article said only that Benjamin "passed secret codes" for the Irgun. Benjamin told Ha'aretz that his son was named after "Rahamim," who the paper identified as a slain combatant belonging to Lohamei Herut Israel (LHI). Also known as the Stern Gang, LHI was an Irgun splinter group that carried out political assassinations in the name of Jewish nationalism, including those of the Swedish U.N. mediator Count Folke Bernadotte and British diplomat Lord Moyne.

 For Palestinians and Arabs generally, the Irgun and Stern Gang are bitterly etched into their historical narrative as murderous terrorist organizations, not unlike the way that Israeli governments, most Israelis and much of the world have viewed the PLO and Hamas. Led by the future hard-line Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, the group fought for the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine during the 1930s and 1940s. It's extreme views and tactics led it into regular conflict with Haganah, the mainstream Jewish paramilitary group that formed the basis for the future IDF. The Irgun's symbol was a hand grasping a gun over its map of Israel--the territory encompassing today's Israel, the West Bank and Kingdom of Jordan. The Haganah initially formed to defend Jews from attacks by Arabs, who were in violent revolt against British Mandate and Zionist movement actions to establish a Jewish homeland. Believing the British were in fact betraying Jews, militants who differed with the Haganah's policy of restraint broke away, formed the Irgun and launched spectacular terrorist attacks such as the bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, then the British military HQ, which killed 92 people, as well as the kidnapping and murder of British soldiers. The group also played a violent role in terrorizing Arabs into fleeing cities and towns that the Zionist movement sought to include in a future Jewish state. The Irgun's actions included placing bombs in crowded Arab markets, indiscriminately bombarding civilians in Jaffa, the major Arab town adjoining the Jewish city of Tel Aviv, and the notorious Deir Yassin massacre. 

 Although accounts of what happened at Deir Yassin differ, there is general agreement that the Arab killings there in April 1948 significantly fueled the panic in which hundreds of thousands of Arabs left their homes and villages--whose "right of return" remains one of the bitterest points of dispute in more than 15 years of on-again, off-again Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations. In his landmark work on the Palestinian refugee problem, Israeli historian Benny Morris described Deir Yassin this way: "After a prolonged firefight, in which Arab family after family were slaughtered, the dissidents rounded up many of the remaining villagers, who included militiamen and unarmed civilians of both sexes, and children, and murdered dozens of them. Altogether some 250 Arabs, mostly non-combatants, were murdered; there were also cases of mutilation and rape. The surviving inhabitants were expelled to Arab-held East Jerusalem. The weight of the evidence suggests that the dissident group did not go in with the intention of committing a massacre but lost their heads during the battle, which they had found unexpectedly tough-going. It is probable, however, the the IZL and LHI commanders from the first had intended to expel the village's inhabitants."

--By Scott MacLeod/Cairo

It was well past daybreak in Baghdad Wednesday when President-elect Barak Obama finally gave his acceptance speach. Afterwards, I pulled back the curtains from the windows in the television room of the New York Times bureau where I'd been gathered with friends to watch the results since 3 am, and blearily gazed out towards the Tigris River, half-expecting to see the city transformed by the dawn of a new era in American history. But of course, all I saw was blast walls, checkpoints, helicopters, and the anxious calm of a country that is still at war with itself.

Witnessing the American election from afar in Iraq has been something of an anti-climax. In the beginning of the presidential race two years ago, it looked like Iraq was going to be the central issue. The American financial meltdown, and the tentative success of the "surge" changed all that. Nor was the much was their much election action in Iraq itself to cover. Those of the 152,00 American service men and women who voted did so by absentee ballot well before election day, and all were under orders not to discuss politics with reporters.

Moreover, while Obama's victory may have transformed overnight America's reputation in the rest of the world, it will have less impact on the course of events in Iraq than one would have expected from listening to the campaigns. John McCain had promised to stay the course in Iraq until "victory" -- whatever that means. But in reality, nearly everyone else wants us out: the Iraqi people, the Iraqi government, the Bush Administration, the Pentagon, and Obama, not to mention the troops themselves.

The only question is how quickly we go. Bush wants us out by the beginning of 2012. Obama wants to pull at least half of our soldiers out by 2010. The Iraqi government seems less concerned with actual details of a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) -- which would set a timetable for withdrawal, but also legitimize the continued American occupation until that date -- than with appearing to stand up to the American occupation.

Though they appear to have softened their stance now that Obama has been elected, the Iraqi government has been sitting on the SOFA. They seem to be under the impression that they can wait until the Obama administration comes to power and then cut a better deal. But the UN mandate that currently legalizes the American presence expires on midnight December 31st of this year, and Obama won't take office until Jan 20th. Without a SOFA during that interim period, all American projects would cease, and all American troops would withdraw from Iraqi cities and towns and hunker down on their bases and watch whatever chaos ensues. Imagine not so much the Fall of Saigon, but Escape from New York.

So it's either fortuitous or ironic that the US just completed its massive $750 million new embassy complex, which is built to house some 1,000 staff members in luxury bomb shelter conditions complete with tennis court and missile defense system. The building is meant is be the new focus of American influence in Iraq -- a pool of technical talent that will help manage reconstruction and governance. But already it's clear that the embassy -- which will cost over $1 billion a year to operate -- is a prime target not just for insurgent mortar fire but also for the inevitable budget cutting in an increasingly cash-strapped Washington.

Still, Election Day in Baghdad was not without its special moments. The new embassy -- which looks like a cross between a liberal arts college campus and a maximum security prison -- held its first public event yesterday, a reception for foreign dignitaries, Iraqi officials and members of the press. Ambassador Ryan Crocker's speech emphasized the lessons to be learned by the smooth transfer of power between rival parties by democratic means, a speech which on another day might have sounded like a lecture. But it's hard for any American in the Middle East not to be thrilled by the fact that our country -- which has its own history of sectarianism and civil war -- is once again practicing what we preach. "It's a great day to be an American," I overheard one official say to another as they clinked glasses of fruit juice. "Amen," replied the friend.

--Andrew Lee Butters/Baghdad

 Barack Obama's speech in Chicago late last night contained glancing references to the Middle East, the first glimpse into his mindset as the president-in-waiting, as he prepares to set up his transition team for taking office in January.

 He referred to America's "two wars" in Iraq and Afghanistan as among the top challenges that "are the greatest of our lifetime." He paid tribute to the "brave Americans waking up in the deserts of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan to risk their lives for us." A supporter of the Afghan war and fierce critic of the Iraq invasion, he clearly understands that he has now inherited both.

 Obama went on to make an eloquent promise to restore American leadership in the world, on the basis of a shared destiny with all of humanity, and emphasizing the power of American ideals rather than American gun power. "To those who would tear the world down"--an apparent reference to terrorists and their sponsors--he warned, "We will defeat you." He added, "To those who seek peace and security, we support you."

 We'll need to wait and see what policies Obama actually adopts and what actions he actually takes once he becomes president. But with the partisan politics of the campaign behind him, the international and Middle East references in the historic acceptance address seem to be a serious reaffirmation of some of his campaign stands.

 Obama's promise of leadership and support for peace and security is in line with his vow to reinvigorate the Arab-Israeli peace process and seek a negotiated solution to the Iran nuclear standoff. His warning "to those who would tear the world down" may have been aimed not only at al-Qaeda and other Islamic extremist groups but at the Iranian regime as well--in keeping with Obama's vow to get tough with Iran if it refuses to go along. The speech was not the place for proposing or reaffirming specific policies, but Obama was notably silent about Iraq. Perhaps his labeling it as one of the "greatest" challenges of our lifetime," and his praise of U.S. troops there, are signs that President Obama will be more careful about the potentially explosive repercussions of a U.S. withdrawal than candidate Obama was able to be.

 --By Scott MacLeod/Cairo

 Will Palestinians have a "friend" in the White House if Barack Obama is elected president on Tuesday? Many supporters of the Palestinians think so or at least hope so. My advice to them: Don't hold your breath. Get too close to a Palestinian, or voice too much sympathy for his cause, it seems, and you're apt to be smeared as someone who is little better than a terrorist yourself. If you're an American politician whose middle name is Hussein, you really could be in for a hard time. 

 Most of the evidence that Obama is an Arab lover, despite his strongly pro-Israel campaign statements, centers on some of his associations and comments pre-dating his successful run for the U.S. Senate four years ago. He became friends and occasionally dined with Rashid Khalidi, a University of Chicago professor whose family is of Jerusalem origin. In 2003, Obama attended a farewell party for Khalidi, who was moving to Columbia University in New York. As the LA Times wrote about the event in a report last April:

 Speaking to the crowd, Obama reminisced about meals prepared by Khalidi's wife, Mona, and conversations that had challenged his thinking. His many talks with the Khalidis, Obama said, had been "consistent reminders to me of my own blind spots and my own biases... It's for that reason that I'm hoping that, for many years to come, we continue that conversation -- a conversation that is necessary not just around Mona and Rashid's dinner table," but around "this entire world."

 Whether it was heartfelt, as it apparently was, or just a politician playing to the room, the words strike you as a wonderfully enlightened if regrettably rare thing to say. At a time of massive misunderstanding between the West and the Islamic world--in 2003, at the time of the dinner party, as today--here was an American politician willing to be challenged in his acceptance of conventional wisdom about the Middle East. 

 Or, in private, anyway. If you do that too much in public--or if your private musings become public--such is the field for Muslim-baiting in America that you may have a problem if you are a politician. Imagine: here we were in the final week of a crucial election for president of the most powerful nation on earth, and what was the hot issue for too much of the press? Not the economy, not Iraq, but Obama's attendance at a party five years ago--a Muslim man's party. On Friday, the august NY Times, trying to keep in step with the media pack chasing the story, ran a 1,000-word profile of Khalidi, reported and written by no fewer than three of its journalists.

 To be fair and put the blame mainly where it belongs, a McCain ploy is what sparked the obsession with Khalidi: His campaign unleashed the witch hunt by hinting darkly at Obama's secret connections with nefarious Middle East terrorists when it called on the LA Times to release the party videotape--as if it would show Osama bin Laden and Ahmadinejad were there, slapping Obama's back--"to provide a clearer link between Barack Obama and Rashid Khalidi."

 That's detestable Muslim-baiting, whether McCain intended it that way or not.

 The fact that Obama and Khalidi are friends is not a mystery to be unraveled, as McCain insinuates. What he and some of the media are suggesting is that Khalidi is a disreputable character, and that Obama showed irresponsible judgement in befriending such a man. The charge against Khalidi, an American citizen who was born and raised in the U.S., is that he is an outspoken supporter of Palestinian rights, a very brash critic of Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories and of the pro-Israel lobby in the U.S., and has links to the P.L.O.

 Khalidi, as far as I know, is guilty on all three counts. But, so what? He is an academic with outstanding credentials, a prolific author and energetic teacher who headed the Middle East Institute at Columbia, one of America's most prestigious universities. He is a relatively rare prominent supporter of the Palestinian cause in the U.S., even as his voice is all but drowned out by American supporters of Israel. If he has offended some by using the words "Israel" and "apartheid" in the same sentence, that may be a misrepresentation to anyone who has lived under or witnessed white rule in South Africa, but former President Jimmy Carter, a Nobel peace prize winner, has made the same error.

 Khalidi served as an advisor to the P.L.O.-vetted Palestinian delegation at the Madrid peace conference in 1991. If you suggest there's something sinister about that, well, you may as well say that all Palestinians are bad guys, whether they're bombers or peace negotiators.

 Funny thing about associating with Palestinians, the most unlikely people have been doing it. Did you know that the most frequent foreign VIP visitor to Bill Clinton's White House was none other than Mr. Terrorist himself, Yasser Arafat. (Psssstttt. On at least one occasion that I personally know of, Clinton called Arafat "my friend.")

 But don't expect Barack and Michelle to host any Palestinian poetry readings at the White House. If they do, I doubt they'll let anybody videotape it. I hope the Khalidis at least get a dinner invitation from the First Family out of it. Obama's been freeloading off Rashid and Mona long enough now.  

 --By Scott MacLeod/Cairo