Children running behind a truck in Hebron.

Children coming home from school in the settlement.

A man leading the children home in the settlement– backpack on one shoulder, gun on the other.

Soldiers guarding the settlement.

Soldiers checking a teenager near the tomb of Abraham.

Praying at Leah’s tomb.

Near the tomb of Abraham.

Checkpoint.

Candles in Abraham’s tomb.

Abandoned area of the settlement.

Mural in the settlement.

Street in old Hebron.

Abandoned, overgrown area in the settlement.

Security checkpoint to go into the mosque.

Riding through downtown Hebron.

This week’s Feminist Query interview is with Tamara Abdul Hadi, who is an Iraqi Canadian photojournalist. She’s been based in the Middle East since 2004, where she worked for Reuters and completed assignments for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and more. After living in Dubai for 3 years, Tamara moved to Lebanon, where she is currently working on personal projects and giving photography workshops to disadvantaged groups of people.

Do you consider yourself a feminist?
Sometimes. Being a woman, it is in my nature to stand up for our gender. It’s a given. When I’m in Saudi Arabia, where I’ve been on numerous occasions on assignment, I find myself feeling the need to ‘stand up’ for my rights as a woman. I believe that being in a place like Saudi Arabia where women’s rights are little to none brings that out in me. Any form of injustice, be it towards women or not, is something that needs to be seen or heard. As a photographer, I have the power to expose such injustices, so I use that when I can.

Read the rest of the interview, and view some photos, here at change.org.

I spoke with Wesam about the challenges of using international law to promote human rights, and why he thinks it’s worth the struggle.

So, do you think that the international law that exists today is adequate?

Yes, we have no problem with the laws; in fact we find the law to be our most valuable asset, because the law is clear, in our view, and adequate to protect the rights of the Palestinians. The main problem, with the law, particularly international law, and those that stem from it like international human rights and humanitarian law, is the lack of enforcement, and enforcement of international law only comes through the will of states to enforce it, and this involves political will, and unfortunately, that is lacking gin our situation. So as long as there isn’t going to be political will to enforce the law, and assure its implementation, then the law will continue to be violated because there’s no punishment for its violation.
And Palestinians will continue to be more and more frustrated with the law. Palestinians are very aware of the law, and you can go on the street and ask people if they understand the Geneva Convention—they will tell you yes. Then you ask them what it means, and they’ll say, not much, because its not being enforced and its not being applied. And this is the main problem.

So do you feel like you’re fighting a losing battle—fighting with a tool that doesn’t work?

No. Well, it’s not a losing battle, it’s a very difficult and challenging battle. We have to maintain the movement, because we know justice is on our side. The law is supposed to symbolize what justice should be. And we feel it does so—we have to continue to strive for it, and push for that justice to be achieved. So as Palestinians, we have two options—we can either give up and succumb to the will of the occupying power, or continue to fight for our rights and for justice.

In a legal context?

In a legal context. From our perspective as human right defenders, the main tool for the struggle of justice and the rights of the Palestinian people is the utilization of the law. And, again, sometimes it gets really frustrating because we cite the law and raise the issues, and people will tell you ‘yes, we know that’s the law, but for political reasons, we are not going to act this way or that way.’ So the challenge is on us to continue to find creative ways to make them act.

To make it a legal requirement for them to act.

Yeah, exactly. And in essence it is a legal requirement. If you look at the fourth Geneva Convention, the signatories to that convention have obligations to ensure compliance with that convention, to seek out violators of that convention—but they are not doing so, this is the problem. It requires that states act to take the political decision to move and seek implementation, and this is what’s lacking, and this is what, from our perspective, is one of the major challenges, and is also a new avenue to direct our work. We know the main challenge is political will, so we are now trying to effect that political will, by challenging those states directly for their inaction in the situation, in their relation with Israel.

So now you’re not only legally challenging Israel, you’re also challenging every country in the world that’s not doing something to stop Israeli violations of international law?

Absolutely. I mean, theoretically, all the states that are signatory to this convention have this obligation.

Of course, you’re not going to say that, like, Djibouti has the same requirements.

Right. But we have taken a symbolic step in challenging the UK for the failure of the UK to meet its obligations under international law, as well as UK domestic law. And this is a landmark case—al Haq vs. the UK government—that was filed in June of this past year. The hearings were heard in June. All the details are on our website with regard to this case. This is an example of challenging the government’s inaction.
Now, even with these sorts of challenges you still run into politics. Unfortunately, the judicial system in any country in the world still has political influence on it, even though we’d like to think the judiciary is completely independent. And one of the things that we’ve seen is that when it comes to questions of the government, particularly the executive and legislative actions, the judicial branch is unwilling or unable, more likely unwilling, to rule on their actions, in their capacities as executives and legislators. And this is unfortunate, because what their decision has meant is that even if the government clearly is acting in contravention of the law, we will not do anything to stop them. It is their requirement to change their legislation and their executive actions to meet the requirements of the law, and this is a political decision that we will not venture into.
And this is a similar thing that we’ve seen in the US. The US has a provision called the political question doctrine. I see it as basically a get out of jail free card for the judicial branch to not address issues that are politically sensitive.
We’ve seen this in the case against Caterpillar, in the US. After a long battle, eventually the court said ‘well this is an issue of foreign policy, therefore it’s a political question, and we’re not going to give judgment.’ And this is very unfortunate for us, but it is a step, at least, towards challenging directly.
Now, we continue to meet with frustration but there are also some successes. We’ve seen, for instance, in our case in the UK, that even though in the preliminary hearings the judges ruled against us, during the time from the filing of the case to the hearing, and decision, there was actually some progress made. There was a review of all the import-export licensing agreements with Israel, by the UK secretary of state. There was an actual decision to issue a partial arms embargo on Israel, cutting off some of the supplies that would have been coming before our case was filed. And also the UK government did not cave into Israeli pressure to modify their legislation regarding war crimes. So these are small successes but they’re not enough, but the fact that we’re moving some steps forward is a good sign. This is what gives us the hope to keep pushing forward, because you feel like knowing that you have the law, that you have justice on your side, eventually, justice will prevail. And those that agree will be the ones to sit in that judgment day, and make the right decision. But you have to continue to knock on the door.

Some might say that because of the political influence, the courts’ ruling on international law, the political influence makes the court’s method, or the court itself, illegitimate. Do you think that’s true, and if so do you have a problem with working within that framework?

Well, I wouldn’t say that it’s illegitimate. It has the power as well, and again, the judicial branch is supposed to be independent; it should not be succumbing to political influences. And here, it comes down to people. It comes down to individuals, to judges. The judicial system is made up of judges who are people. So, are these people willing to take those courageous steps to move forward? And this is a question we’ve seen actually, in Spain, a case where the judge was very brave and continued to push forward a case for investigation against Israeli war criminals, despite political pressure in Spain not to do so. Now, what happened in Spain is again the judge is supposed to sit in judgment of the law, the legislature makes the law, so the legislative branch caved into political pressure and Israeli pressure, and modified the legislation itself, therefore tying the hands of the judicial branch, even though the judge himself wanted to move forward. So it s this constant battle of trying to put out what the law is and how it should be implemented, but at the same time being able to resist the political challenges and pressures that want to prevent the law from being enforced.
So this is why we work not only on the legal, judicial level, we also work on the advocacy level, with decision makers. We meet parliamentarians and various diplomats to also raise these issues, because you have to attack from different fronts, and at the same time, not just at the governmental level. We also work with civil society organizations, we have a very good relationship with various human rights organizations around the world that we also send our message to and ask them to pressure their decision makers, because they are the constituency of the decision makers. So if it’s coming from them, it has even more impact.
So its constantly juggling how you want to send your message, and who do you want to deliver it to—it’s always a challenge. But that’s what keeps things exciting.

So you were saying it’s a slow process, but you’ve seen some successes. One thing that people have said to me is that they sensed a change after Operation Cast Lead, in the way the international community viewed the Israeli military’s actions and the way people in the region took a stronger stance against it. Did you find that?

Well, we felt two things, really. One was a great deal of frustration, because you know what is being done is wrong but the international community is not acting to prevent it, and this was very frustrating to Palestinians in general, and particularly us as human rights defenders, knowing what the law is and watching it being violated on live TV. So in that sense it was very frustrating.
What was encouraging was the movement on the streets in the world, condemning the actions of Israel and calling on their governments to act. And we actually saw a lot of strong condemnation come out—the problem is that a lot of it was just rhetoric and words. It has to be followed up by action, and until now we haven’t seen action. There ahs been some slight progress in the sense that, for example, the European Union delayed movement towards upgrading relations with Israel, but these words of ‘delay,’ and ‘freeze,’ and things like that, are just ways to let things settle down, but they are not a manner that actually punishes Israel for its violations. And this is one of the more frustrating things—when you see the discussion of relations with Israel, and the desire to upgrade them with Europe, for example, what message does that send? That you can act the way that you want, but we’ll continue to act with you as business as usual. This is very frustrating for us, because again, the international law is tied into relations between states, and unless Israel feels something because of its actions in its relations with other states, it won’t have the incentive to change.

And do you think that eventually working through law alone will create political will?

We hope so. I mean, its going to take more than the law itself, but the law, coupled with movement on the streets by solidarity groups and grassroots movements, that can be empowered to act when they have concrete law that supports their actions.
For example when someone goes to protest in front of number 10 Downing street, they can protest on emotion, but by having something tangible as well saying ‘the way you’re acting, my government, is in violation of this law, and you’re acting contrary to my interests as a UK citizen,’ then it gives it even more force, to force the decision makers to act because their constituency wants them to act.

So it gives a language to the protest, or to the grassroots movement.

Exactly.

So I spoke to an Israeli representative the other day, who said that while the laws are fine in principle, they need to be developed to fit the context of terrorism. Do you think that that is a valid complaint, or a valid call on the Israeli side?

Well this is not just an Israeli call, it’s an American call, as well…it’s an issue that I think—the law can always be developed. From our perspective, we think that the law is adequate but could be developed to address our situation of prolonged occupation, with elements of colonialism and apartheid, which are things that have never really come together in a way that they have here. So it’s our job to take the law that exists in different places and apply them in a way that allows us to make the strongest argument. The argument that it needs to be changed or modified in order to deal with issues of terrorism, we see it more as a desire for those that want to loosen the law, and make it much weaker—this is their justification, is that there’s a new issue of terrorism, so that the law needs to be put aside sometimes. And this is very dangerous—when you are willing to put aside the laws that are put in place to protect our rights for fears that you have, and also for keeping in mind the root causes of these issues. And your unwillingness, as politicians, to deal with them. It’s easier to place a band-aid on the wound than to heal it properly.
And, I mean, this is an issue that I think the law is capable of dealing with, as well, but it’s a question of whether or not you want to be working within the confines of law, or do you feel you need to be above the law in order to deal with issues as you see fit.
This is the question—when you have the power to act above the law, as the US does, as Israel does, then you do so and then you try to push for modification of the law to meet your actions and justify them. But when you look at it from the perspective of those that are not superpowers able to operate above the law, they operate within the confines of the law, and they find ways to make those laws meet their needs, and we see that more I think when we look at how Israel and the US deal with issues, as opposed to, for instance, the UK and Europe. Israel and the US, and Israel more than any, is far reaching in that they push the law so far that it almost has no meaning because of the exceptions that they want to impose into it. And this is very dangerous.

I mean, surely there are legal violations on both sides.

Absolutely. But the law deals with violations on both sides, its there to deal with armed conflict between two parties.

So, Israel claims that there’s a double standard by the international community. They’re not allowed to act in self-defense, because the world, and particularly the Arab region, is on the side of the Palestinians. So they feel that law ties their hands. What would be your response to that?

Well the law should tie their hands. Unfortunately, it doesn’t.
And the issue of double standard is an issue that we continue to raise as Palestinians. When you look at the way the international community deals with states that act in contravention of the will of the international community, you see sanctions imposed on North Korea, on Iran, but you don’t see sanctions imposed on Israel even though the international community says what Israel is doing is wrong. There are Security Council resolutions saying as such. This is the double standard.
Now the issue of Israel wanting to defend itself, I mean, we have again a paper that addresses this issue of self-defense. Israel, as the initial aggressor, is not put in the same boat as states that are not occupying another people, another state, and you can’t be the aggressor and at the same time argue self-defense, in international law in general. So this is an issue that Israel refuses to acknowledge. They just throw out the words self defense and expect everyone to take it wholeheartedly. Now Israel as a state has its rights, but it doesn’t have a right to secure its illegal acts. And this is what Israel is doing. So when it takes Palestinian land, and then puts a wall around it and says ‘this is a wall for our defense,’…It’s defending what? It is defending the crime that you’ve committed. And no criminal can ever sit back and feel like ‘I am secure in the crime that I’ve committed.’ Justice will always be following you to hold you to account for that crime. And this is what Israel is doing now, it is continuing with its crimes, it is continuing with its occupation, it is continuing to deny the Palestinian people their rights.
So if it’s continuing to try to defend its illegal acts, it will never feel secure. No criminal ever feels secure—they always have to look over their shoulder.
If Israel really wants to be secure, then it implements the law, and then it acts as its own sovereign state, not a state that is occupying other people. And then, if it is attacked by other sovereign states, it can use the justification of self-defense to retaliate. But while it is acting in the manner that it is, in violation of international law, and continuing this occupation, it can’t use the argument of self-defense. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.

So as far as the case that Ocampo has said that he’ll consider—are you optimistic? Do you think that will go anywhere? Some people point out that non-states don’t have the power to bring a case in front of the ICC. Do you think he’ll take the case?

Well, there have been some good arguments for him to take the case, and we support him pushing forward with the case.
Now, there are a lot of legal challenges that need to be addressed, but some very eminent scholars have made the argument that it is possible for him to move forward with such a case. And it’s the law—in the sense that the law is always open to interpretation. And the fact that Palestine is still under occupation, does that prevent it from being able to make this challenge? We think not, because it is a fact that Israel is occupying it that is preventing it from acting in this capacity. And it is always within the power of Ocampo to be able to say ‘for the purposes of the ICC, we will deal with the Palestinian jurisdiction.’ Now, this again requires some courageousness on the part of Ocampo, but also on the part of those that would need to move it forward—all Ocampo can do is bring it to the pre-trial chambers. Now that consists of other judges, from other countries, that are signatories to the Rome statute in that they will have the final decision as to whether or not the investigation will proceed. There come in some more political influences, potentially, and this is a fear that we keep in mind, that even if Ocampo has the courageousness to move the case forward, the question is how far forward will it go. But we’ve seen that again, it comes back to political will. Even states, for example the Sudan, that isn’t a signatory, the security council is capable of asking the ICC to prosecute people from states that are not signatories to the Rome Statute. So, it is within the realm of possibility that the Security Council could act.

With America on the Security Council?

Well, again, this is where the obstacles of political will come into play, and this is the constant challenge that we’re going to face.

But you think that balance between politics and law is sort of a necessary evil, something to work within the confines of?

I mean, we have to work within their confines. Is it necessary that politics will always be able to trump the law? I don’t think so. I think that if the law is set up properly, then it should be used as a shield to prevent political influence that seeks to act in contravention of the law. But, unfortunately, the law is not that powerful because it doesn’t operate in a vacuum. The law is made by lawmakers, and only interpreted and applied by the judiciary.

So, you said earlier that people here know what the Geneva Conventions are but they’re not enforced. Do you think that the understanding of international law—the knowledge of it, idea of it, the discourse of it—is growing?

Yes, absolutely. I mean, we as al Haq have a lot of work that we do on raising awareness of the law and what our rights are as Palestinians. We conduct training and workshops throughout the West Bank and have field workers in Gaza. We are constantly delivering this message in the work that we do, and that’s why it’s so prevalent in Palestinian society—international law in general. If you go to the states and ask people about international law, they’re not going to know. But here, you have a very strong understanding of it but a lot of frustration with it.

So just one more question—are you optimistic about the role that law can play in creating social or political change?

Yes, absolutely. Because the social and political change that is sought is always sought for the benefit of society; at least, we’d like to think so. Some people obviously will act contrary to the betterment of society for their own individual benefit, but in general, society seeks to improve, and improvement is always moving towards a more equitable society, a more just society, and this is what the spirit of the law is—to set forth that justice, and what it should be. And if it’s dealt with properly, then you will achieve justice. So the law is this mechanism that we should use to be able to achieve social and political justice. The question is how far, how long it will take to get there.

Read more about the work of Al Haq here.

Read the rest of the article here at Air America.

The first few are from Amman, and the others are en route to the King Hussein/Allenby Bridge border crossing to Israel.

A bombed out cinema in downtown Beirut, with a new mosque behind it.


A church, completely destroyed, near the cinema.

The roof of the church.

The roof of the church, again.

The old Holiday Inn Hotel.

Apartment building, near the Corniche.

Graffiti on the wall of the Church: “Remember.”

Two Palestinians, a 13 year old boy and a 40 year old man, were shot in East Jerusalem this evening.

The Palestinians were shot and wounded in East Jerusalem by a gunman who was arrested on the scene, according to Israeli police. The gunman, in his twenties, told the police that he felt “threatened by the fact that Arabs were standing next to him,” and claimed that six Arabs had attacked him.

I wrote a post about it for Air America–read the rest here.

Hamdan’s unique sense of pragmatic optimism is inspiring. I really like his academic skepticism and realism, which he combines with an NGO-er’s confidence that there will (and must) be change. In the interview, we discussed human rights in Lebanon, international justice, and why he thinks the Middle East is headed for change.

My first question is, working as an NGO, with Greenpeace and here [at the Arab Human Rights Fund], how much you think rights are a part of the dialogue in Lebanon? Do you think that there’s a general awareness?

Its not part of the dialogue. Its rarely part of the dialogue, although its starting to become part of the dialogue. You know, what we’re experiencing in the past few years is a really important new phenomenon. It is a phenomenon that I would describe as, suddenly, even one human life is becoming important, or the tragedy of one person becoming important. Not like, maybe 5 or 10 years ago, when people would die somewhere and no one would care. Now it’s becoming more important. I will give you some examples. In Lebanon, when you have cases of beating up by the police and so on, it’s becoming a scandal. It wasn’t an issue a few years ago.
Half a year ago, we had a very strange incident here. In East Beirut, in the Sassine square, two gays were caught by somebody together in a small abandoned house, that person called a nearby army soldier at a checkpoint, a couple of army soldiers came and just came in, took these guys out of the abandoned building, and just beat the hell out of them in the middle of the square. People in the area went crazy and started screaming at the policeman, it became a huge issue. It was in the media, yeah, in defense of these two, and on top of it, a week later we had the first demonstration in the Arab region of gay people demonstrating for their rights in Lebanon. The first ever. There was never ever a demonstration of gay people fighting for their rights in the Arab world—it happened here. And the policeman, the army people, were basically reprimanded, we know that it led to quite some trouble inside the army, you know, ‘how could you do this, you don’t beat them up, its not your business, and so on…’why didn’t you let them do what they want, in an abandoned building, its none of our business as long as no one sees them.’ So, just to show you that things like that are happening, in Lebanon, for example.
Even in Egypt—in Egypt for the past year there have been many incidents that policeman shoot, by mistake, or by stupidity, or on purpose, innocent people in whatever incidents, and it always afterwards led to demonstrations and officers being arrested, and so on. That was not the case two or three years ago. So, the debate, the issue of human rights, is becoming, even on a very personal level, its starting to pop out because people are not willing to take—let me be blunt—to take shit from the authorities anymore. And when people don’t take that shit anymore, it means that the barrier of fear is falling apart. And that’s a very important development that could lead in many directions. When people aren’t anymore afraid of repressive regimes and their instruments, we have a possibility for change—in whatever direction, by the way, it can be quite nasty, it can also be positive.

Why? What sparked this change?

What we’ve been seeing here for the past few years, is that you have a sociological revolution in the Arab region, you have a huge middle class developing, millions of young people who are educated, who are on the internet, who traveled, who studied abroad, who came back, and so on, and this automatically leads to change.
On top of it, you have a media revolution in the past ten years—since al Jazeera, basically, and information cannot be hidden anymore from people. It’s almost impossible. Via satellite TV and Internet, people get information that ten 15 years ago they would have never received. They were much more brainwashed and restricted to two three local national horrible television stations, where you could only see rulers coming and going and shaking hands. That’s over! No one watches this anymore, its over, its finished. You still have here and there national television stations that spend their time following what Qaddafi is doing the who day, or King of Saudi Arabia, or Assad…but nobody watches it, they watch al Jazeera, al Houra, al Arabia…BBC Arabic, even Russian news in Arabic, but they don’t watch the crappy national television stations. So all of that is leading to many social upheavals, here and there, and many political changes.

Working with NGOs, have you found that you’ve been leading this, part of it? What exactly is your role?

If I can give you the example of Greenpeace in Lebanon between ’94 and ’99, it was a time where we had a Syrian army still in Lebanon with a secret service and so on, and we were the first organization in that country, maybe in the Arab world, working on environmental issues in an aggressive way, and we basically pulled down two environmental ministers, we scandalized numerous issues from toxic waste to industrial pollution, we shut down a factory, two waste incinerators, prevented many new ones from being built, and so on, yeah, and the whole issue at the end, if I want to be honest with myself, also, it was not much about the environment. The issue was to prove that you could change things in an Arab country like Lebanon where you had restricted freedoms, where there was a ban on demonstrations, where you had Syrian secret service together with the Lebanese stooges running the country and threatening everybody, including me, and my staff, that you could make change happen with peaceful democratic means, via media work, via peaceful demonstrations, AND peaceful actions, which we did—we were the first ones doing that, after the war in 1990 in Lebanon—breaking the law. We didn’t care. We told them, make our day! Arrest us! Yallah (lets go). Ahlan wa Sahlan (welcome). Lets go—lets see how far you can go with us.
They threatened us, they took us to court, interrogations, phone calls, you name it, anything, they didn’t dare to do it. At the end, what happened is that Greenpeace at that period in Lebanon, had in a way a leading role, because from that point on people saw that someone was demonstrating, and wasn’t afraid, others started demonstrating too. Then you had the wall of fear breaking, and when the wall of fear breaks, you cannot stop people, its impossible.
From that, afterwards, many things happened in the country. Numerous peace volunteers from my time established NGOs, a domino effect, and there were many articles about that, analysis, saying if they can do it, we can too. Look at the gay rights movement in Lebanon. It’s the only one in the Arab region that’s visible. It is visible. They have a visible NGO, Helem, in Lebanon. These guys have a website, they say where their pubs are, and restaurants. They have an office, brochures, and they had a demonstration a few months ago. No one can stop them anymore because there are so many. Although we still have a law in Lebanon banning gay activities. It’s mad! You know, officially they can put them in jail, each one of them for half a year. But they wouldn’t dare, because there are so many. They are public, and that’s it, they broke the barrier of fear. They said you want to arrest us? Go ahead. Yallah. So Greenpeace in a way was a catalyst at that time for many many NGOs. I wouldn’t say that about many other countries, we were more receptive in Lebanon.
I think in other countries, well, in Egypt, Kafah was something that really broke something in Egypt. When they started working years ago with blogging, and small demonstrations. All of a sudden people stopped being afraid anymore and going to the streets.
Fear is breaking, and you don’t respect these people [the authorities] anymore. You don’t respect them, you don’t fear them, you don’t care. So you do whatever you want.

That’s a pretty optimistic view…

Yes it is optimistic, but lets be realistic—it’s on a very personal level. And it’s not changing the systems, yet, but it’s changing the personal lives of people. This social revolution, I think, has lead to a lot of personal freedoms being achieved in many Arab regions. I wouldn’t say now in the countryside of Egypt, but I would say in Cairo, or Alexandria, or some cities. We’re talking about elites, in cities.

So part of what I’m looking at is the relationship between national law and international law. One thing that interested me that you just said is that according to national law, the government could put gay protesters or openly gay people in jail…which human rights law prohibits. Do you think that people are turning to international law? Do you think that there’s an awareness that there’s some sort of legal protection?

No, no, no. That’s on a very small scale—elections, NGOs. As the human rights fund we’re funding activities that go exactly in that direction. You know, most Arab countries have signed the universal declaration for human rights. But they did not translate it into national laws, they don’t respect it and they don’t care. So some openly say we have reservations about the issue of women’s rights, children’s rights, or whatever…and don’t sign it, or sign it and voice reservations. And they don’t translate it into national laws anyhow.
Some countries, for example in morocco, they’ve ratified a year ago the international convention on the rights of disabled people, and they have now started to translate that international law, with the help of an NGO that we support, into national law. But it’s only happening in a few countries in a region, where you have governments that are very interested in changing things. They start with women’s rights, disabled rights, children’s rights, and eventually, it will lead to political rights, or judiciary rights. In Morocco, the King now is saying that he wants an efficient independent judiciary, whether he means it is a different issue. At least he’s saying it.
This for me is the most important issue in the Arab region—the independent judiciary, rule of law. Good governance. If you have that, you solve everything. Because then you can get your rights as a woman, as a child, as a gay, whatever…if you have an independent judiciary, which you don’t have in the Arab region, you don’t have it anywhere. Not a single Arab country has an independent judiciary, rule of law, good governance. None zero.

So what do you think the path is to creating that? And do you think that the social changes that are taking place can make that happen?

There are many factors that are leading to change. You know, and how fast change will happen in what country in the region depends on numerous factors, of course. In general, you have the factor of a demographic change, of a social revolution, young educated people. You have the factor of more and more free media, and more flow of information reaching more and more people, influencing them then you have the factor of more and more people effected by globalization—traveling, studying abroad, and so on. Many countries in the Arab region were closed up to the outside world for centuries, and they’re opening now at light speed. Then you have the factor of economic power. In many Arab countries you have new elites growing that have money, and money brings power, and that also has an impact.
Then you have the issue of a strong civic society in many Arab countries, and one other factor is the beginning of the end of the Islamic movements, and proof of their failure. Politically, they have failed. They have shown that they cannot rule. Look at Iran—it’s a total mess. Economically and politically, and it used to be an example for many Arab countries, saying ‘look Islam can lead, can solve all our problems.’ You know in Egypt they have this slogan, ‘Islam al Hal’, Islam is the solution; it is still the slogan of the Muslim brotherhood, which is a joke. ‘Islam wa al hal’, sorry, can you tell me please how do you run a country of 80 million people on the verge of salvation, by telling them only ‘ al hal wa al islam’? How do you run a country, pragmatically, policies, on everything? And these guys don’t have it. They have failed in Iran, in Afghanistan. The ruthless murderous policies of Iran and al Qaeda and Islamic jihad and all these loonies have basically turned many people in disgust in the Arab region. At the beginning maybe some were a bit happy that the twin towers were pulled down in 2001, because of the Israeli Palestinian conflict and so on, but eventually more and more Arabs and Muslims realize that this is not the way to go. Terror, murder, Islamic fundamentalism and so on. So it is a trend, I can feel, that is going away. People are still religious, which is no contradiction, but they are pulling away from fanaticism and violence led policies from groups like al Qaeda and so on.
Another positive trend is that George W. Bush has been voted out of office and you have Obama—it has an impact. This guy in power has an impact. Before I came here I was watching TV and the guy was giving a beautiful iftaar (meal breaking the fast for Ramadan) in the White House. Bush did it also and Clinton started it, but nevertheless…with this one, it is more credible, you can believe him. Another factor is in the countries themselves, you know? Many rulers in the region are now dying out, and some of their younger sons have taken over, like in Morocco, the new king has changed many things—not perfect, but he has changed many things, like installing the truth and reconciliation commission to debate publicly the abuses of security services on the people during the reign of his father, and making people apologize for the murders and disappearances. Wow! It’s the only thing like this to have happened in the region; not perfect, because the people who did it are not in jail, but nevertheless, it is a lot. In Syria, it did not lead to a positive direction, it’s the contrary, going still in the wrong direction.

But in some countries it is going in the right direction, like in Jordan. In Jordan we are supporting a project by a local NGO that is training lawyers and judges to include in their ruling international conventions on human rights—Tamkeen. It’s a small start up—not even registered yet—but we liked them so much we said yes! Go for it.

So it’s a move to put international law into national Jordanian law?

Yes. Into the day to day activities of lawyers and judges. These guys are the future.
In Egypt, it’s going a little backward, in the gulf it’s going very slowly. Maybe in Saudi Arabia they are changing the religious institutions and cutting down the power of the religious fundamentalism and religious policemen. It’s very slowly, always step by step. They kill you, how slow they are. Every country is a bit different.
Here, in Lebanon, its anarchy. As long as we don’t have inner peace and a solution for Hezbollah’s arms and so on, as long as we still have this mess, we will have no reforms of anything, everything is blocked.

So, on a related question to the possible end of Islamic fundamentalism as a movement…

I would say the beginning of a downturn, of a curve going downwards. In the standing they have among Arabs and Muslims, in their influence. People are disgusted by the violence these guys are bringing and the mayhem they are bringing to people. These people have killed more Muslims than the Israelis did, or the Americans did, or whatever. When you think about all the people who have been killed by Muslim fundamentalists in Iraq, its unbelievable, you know. Car bombs every single day-its mad.

I noticed that the website for the Arab HR Fund mentions independence from Western, European governments. I know that there’s a lot of consideration that international law, HR law, even sometimes NGOs, where the money is coming from, is a Western force, and a lot of times Arab countries’ law doesn’t align with international law. So my question is how do you combat that idea, that it’s a western invention? Do you need to?

Well its not. The universal declaration of human rights is a declaration by people around the region, around the world. It’s not an invention—its wrong. So people they come to me they say it’s a Western, Zionist, Crusader invention…I tell them, sorry guys, its wrong. Sorry, it was written by people all over the world, including a couple of Arabs. One Lebanese. One famous Lebanese diplomat at the UN was part of the team who wrote that, who wrote the UNDHR. You missed the point guys.
And then we get to the money, and there there’s a problem, because all the Arab NGOs in the region receive their money mainly from outside sources—EU, UN, Government, USAID, foundations, you name it, anything. Arab philanthropists do not give to human rights and social justice issues. They’re afraid to do that because it’s regarded as political. If you are wealthy and you have economic interests in any Arab country, you do not give money to the Arab HR fund or an organization like Tamkeen, because it could be a problem for you, you don’t want to have a problem with the authorities. Very simple. That’s why we have established that we can say that the money is coming from Beirut, it’s coming from the Arab Human Rights Fund. Unfortunately, until now, 99% of our cash comes from the Ford Foundation, and four other European organizations, and the Open Society institute in New York.

George Soros’s organization?

Yes, the big Zionist! The guy who spreads velvet revolutions everywhere…God forbid! The guy who spreads democracy, open societies, human rights, you know. So we are supported by these people now abroad, and this is a problem we have. It is an issue of legitimacy. Ideally, all our money should come from Arab philanthropists, but Arab philanthropists are afraid. And they need time to trust you, before at some point they give you money. For example, Greenpeace, 94-99 in Beirut, after 2 or 3 years of work, we started raising money in Lebanon. Before, I refused—I said we had to build our credibility first, and then we can start asking people for money, and then afterwards for two years we managed to have 7,000 donors in Lebanon. We are the only NGO in Lebanon, probably one of the very few in the Arab region, maybe the only one, that has a base of small donors, 7,000 people with an average of about 23$ a year. That’s a lot of money! And, 7 high donors. And the 7 high donors always give the money anonymously. They were afraid because of trouble of the authorities if they knew they were supporting Greenpeace—of all things!

So, in terms of the foreign influence thing, things like the ICC, ICJ, Tribunals—they’re often seen in the same way. Two of those are based in the EU, and the Hariri tribunal, for example, is too. You’re a fan?

Yes! And the Sudanese president—who I hope will end up in jail one of these days. It’s wonderful, it’s wonderful. Don’t think…many Arab people in the region think it’s a very good idea, and they know exactly the impact it has on Arab rulers. The killing of Hariri will not go unpunished. Whatever mayhem it may cause, the day the international tribunal will say ‘we demand the arrest of so and so many people’—say, among Hezbollah, seen as the guys who carried out the murder, with support of course from Iran and Syria, and if the orders come from den Haag to arrest some people in Damascus, high ranking officials—wow, great. Look at happened with Omar al Bashir in Iran. This is very important, and you have a couple of Arab writers and commentators who say this is good! We have no other choice. We cannot put these people on trial in the Arab region. Impossible! Lets be realistic. Sorry, yanni, guys. And you have people in the Arab region who want these tribunals. In Lebanon more than half the population wants it. Look at the elections—forget the Shia, who are running like sheep behind Hezbollah. By the way, I’m a Shia. But most of the population want that because they think if you finally put these people behind bars, it will finally stop these things from happening.

By setting an example?

Yes! Enough is enough—khalas—you don’t get away with it anymore. You know? And we have to through with it at once, no matter how bloody and problematic it may be.

It could be a revolution. These two things are a revolution in the Arab region.

Well, when Hariri was killed, that was a revolution of sorts.

Many, many people in Lebanon were killed before him. Many politicians. Bashir Gemayel in 92, before him, Mouaad was killed, also, by the Syrians. Bashir Gemayel, and parliamentarians, and leaders, and wow…so many people, its unbelievable, how many were killed. And with Hariri, it was enough—Khalas. Enough is enough.

So do you think that international judiciary measures like Tribunals and courts—I know the Palestinian authority has submitted a proposal to the ICC about cast lead and Ocampo is saying ‘ I’ll think about it’—do you think those are positive steps?

Yes. Absolutely. And in Sudan, I hope this guy will end up in Jail too. A living president, still living and acting president, who is basically wanted by the international community. It’s beautiful. Fantastic. It is just fantastic. And hopefully some Israeli generals at some point, Olmert and some of his people, Barak, will face some tough questioning.
Setting up the court is always a political decision. Lets be honest about it. I mean, I don’t think an international tribunal will be set up ever to try an Israeli war criminals. I don’t think so. To make it pass you’ll have to have American and western powers approving it, and I don’t think they will. So you know, its tough luck, I don’t think we’ll ever happen.
But what will happen is you will have a debate about that for years to come, all the time. And why not setting it up at some point will be always an embarrassment for everybody supporting the Israeli government. In the case of Syria and Darfur, of course you have the majority everywhere against them in the West, for ideological reasons and so on. So…it is a political decision. Of course! But the moment it is on track—that’s it—it is basically the rule of law that functions. And facts. But setting it up, or not setting it up, is political.

So do you think that the politics of it—the fact that it is political and it has to be political to happen—do you think that makes it any less legitimate?

It’s a fact. It doesn’t make it at all less legitimate, because the guys who killed Hariri, or Bashir and his friends who are responsible for genocide in Darfur…it happened, and they deserve to be tried. Unfortunately, for political reasons, you can’t try everybody. Unfortunately, those guys in Israel, in Hamas, maybe, and some people here and there, could never end up in front of a court. It won’t happen, unfortunately. But it doesn’t mean that because that doesn’t happen, we don’t do this.

Justice for the sake of justice?

Yes, exactly. The more we get, the more in the future it will be difficult for political reasons not to establish courts. This is the rationale I believe. The more you have courts now, like the Yugoslavia court, the Rwanda Court, the Hariri court, the Bashir Court, hopefully, one of these days, the more it will be difficult in the future for others to escape the court. The more it will be embarrassing, maybe in 20, 30 years, for a US administration to prevent, lets say, future crimes against humanity, by the Israeli army.

Or by the American army…

Yeah, or by the American army. Look at Cast Lead now. Cast lead, now is basically very very tough. They have never been under such pressure before, ever. I don’t think they can do that again. I mean, they are not releasing the name of their officers. Hiding their names, you know, some of them aren’t traveling anymore, they’re afraid of being arrested.

So one thing that I hope to talk about it my essay is that I think we’re seeing movement towards an era in which there’s more acceptance of international law, there’s more acceptance of international courts and tribunals, and not necessarily that it will be preventative, but I think that there’s less general acceptance, and that eventually that can become something that’s more widely known in the general public, and people will begin to hold their governments responsible. Do you think that’s a pipe dream?

No. It’s happening, this is the direction it’s going now, in countries in the Arab region. It is not a pipe dream, it is going in that direction, in some countries faster, in some countries slower, in some countries its not moving at all yet, in some countries its very dramatic, like in Egypt, you never know if it is going to go. In Syria, its still frozen, in Yemen it’s going down the drain, total chaos. But it is moving, in many Arab countries, in that direction. There is no other way. We have no other choice. We cannot run this region properly, you know, if we don’t have the rule of law. It will collapse. It will disintegrate. We will have more and more laws, and people are realizing that. And the rulers are losing their grip, they’re losing their grip in most Arab countries. They’re realizing they have to give more, have to share more.

What I wanted to say is that the strategy to that goal, there is not only one, you have many things that have to happen at the same time: sustained pressure from abroad, non stop pressure from abroad, from someone like Obama, and the EU, and so on, and international institutions like the world bank and the IMF, that are, by the way, including human rights in their work, more and more. Even the World Bank! So you have that, pressure from abroad and other regimes in the area—political pressure, economic pressure, whatever. And then you have maybe, insha’allah, the end of the Israeli Palestinian conflict. Maybe, if this ever happens, it will take a lot of pressure from the Arabs. Then the regimes will no longer be able to oppress because they are fighting Israel. No excuse, for emergency laws in Syria, Egypt, Jordan. We don’t’ need them, why do we need them? We make peace with Israel, and suddenly, we cannot always blame the Zionists, you know, for everything. Suddenly we have to look in the mirror. It will put a lot of pressure on the regimes.
The third thing is that we need to strengthen civil society more. The more you have people on the ground doing public awareness, doing projects on the ground, the more you are creating an elite and people that understand how things should be run in a proper way. You’re creating automatically future leaders of democratic society, and you’re also raising awareness on a large scale.
And then, luck. Sometimes history…things happen, and then, click. Like the killing of Hariri. The idiot in Damascus thought that by killing Hariri, everybody would be terrified and shut up, like the way it used to be before. He was dead wrong—it went the other way. It boomeranged him. And that was luck for Lebanon. Basically it was—if you want to be very cynical about it—the best thing Hariri ever did for Lebanon was getting killed by the Syrian regime. That unleashed something that could not be stopped anymore. And suddenly things happened quickly. If he weren’t’ killed, we’d have kicked the Syrians out eventually, it was a matter of time, maybe 10 years, 15 years, maybe …I don’t’ know. Who could have dreamt that these guys would be out, in 2004? Who? Nobody. And suddenly they were out; they had no choice, because if they hadn’t been out, all over Lebanon people would have killed them, because they killed Hariri. And people were not afraid anymore. They were not afraid from them anymore, and they [the Syrians] did not expect that. The dictator mentality in Damascus thought ‘I just kill the bugger, and they’ll all be terrified,’ like chicken, like usual, ‘ I have to kill someone every 5-10 years, like my father did with Gemayael’, and then they’ll shut up again for a couple of years. Wrong. So its luck, a twist of history.

[…]

In terms of Israel and Palestine, what do you think about the idea that an international court would be a positive forward if, politically, it could ever happen, or are you more of a proponent of a truth and reconciliation commission that’s less politically combative?

I would go for the second option, but only in the framework of a peace deal between the two peoples. But this can only happen if the right people put pressure on the Israelis.

Do you think Obama will do that?

I hope. I mean, he is saying he will, and it looks as if he’s doing it, but lets see if it will keep up. If this administration enforces peace once and for all, and the Europeans are behind them, you know the moment the Americans are pressuring them the Europeans will pressure them too, at once. At the same time, they’ll offer a lot of money to both sides to sweeten the…compromises they’ll both have to do. Many settlements will have to be given up, the Palestinians have to give up some of the West bank, some will be given back in return, Jerusalem has to be divided, the mosque will go to the Palestinians…at the same time, the Palestinians and the Israelis need to have a truth and reconciliation. They need to apologize to one another, you know? The Israelis need to say, sorry, in ’48 we screwed you, you didn’t deserve that. You paid the price for the holocaust, we know it’s not your problem, but you paid for it—sorry. And they have to compensate all of the Palestinians who cannot come back to Haifa, to Yaffa, to all of these cities in the Galilee and so on. They have to be compensated, and they have to apologize. And the Palestinians have to say sorry, we shouldn’t have killed the athletes in Munich in ’72, we shouldn’t have done that, and done that, and so on.
But most of the apologies have to come from the Israelis, I’m sorry. Just look what happened in Lebanon in ’82, when they smashed the camps, destroyed southern Lebanon, ten thousand people were killed at the time—Palestinians—flattened with bombs. Or else they will have no real peace. They can have economic peace but they have to…you know, become friends. And they can be, but it can only happen through truth and reconciliation. That seems to function if you do it properly—look at South Africa. You have to say I’m sorry, then they have to accept your apologies, and then you have to heal the wounds.

Check out Fouad’s website here.