Reading the News

On Thursday, Iran and the United States held their first formal diplomatic discussions in thirty years. Convened in Geneva, the hope behind the meetings was to defuse further conflict between the West and the Islamic Republic.

Writing for France 24, I explain what the larger significance of the gathering was, focusing on its use, by the Obama administration, to combat criticisms of its attitude towards Israel, as well as its significance for other Mideast states.

Check it out.

Bring the Beat Back

I can’t tell you how many first class exhibitions were held in London during the half year that we lived there. Each week, it seemed, there was always something good, and most importantly of interest, that we could have gone to. Sometimes I wondered if the city’s cultural events weren’t programmed specifically for us, as though they were consolation for Jennifer’s dreadful work situation.

One such event was Unveiled: New Art From the Middle East, which opened on January 30th at the new Saatchi Gallery on Kings Road. One of the most comprehensive exhibits of its kind (in the US, such shows are usually nation as opposed to region-specific) I took the opportunity to write about one of it’s featured photographers, Shadi Ghadirian, (see above) in today’s edition of Zeek.

Shot in Tehran, Ghadirian’s work is emblemmatic of the unrest currently engulfing the Islamic republic. Contending with the intersection of religion and women’s rights in the Mideast, her staged photographs nevertheless indulge a universal vernacular easily transportable to any number of foreign contexts. The ghetto blaster atop this lady’s shoulder is the tip of the iceberg. Check it out.

Secret Weapons Factory

The Iranians are under the carpets. Quite literally. Imagine my shock when, upon exiting the elevator this morning, I found a stack of these flyers prominently displayed in our lobby.

Because my Italian is so bad, (not to mention my eyesight) the first thing I saw was “agenda” instead of “aziende,” which in English means “firm” or “business.”

A closer examination revealed that it is a brochure for an Iranian-owned, Persian rug cleaning company. I must be reading too many right-wing newspapers, I joked, as I left the building.

At Levantine Station

The Middle East has become a metaphor for the world. Whether you chalk it up to undue Zionist influence on post-WWII American foreign policy, the disproportionate impact that the Arab-Israeli conflict has wielded over Western political life, the growth of Islam in Europe, Arab immigration everywhere, or the global impact of Persian Gulf petro-dollars, the point is ultimately the same.

For a variety of legitimate (and, obviously illegitimate) reasons, the Middle East has become more tightly enmeshed in the West than ever before. Though it took until the War on Terror to drive this home, the Jihadi terrorist attacks of 9/11, and the military occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan have had the ironic consequence of colonizing American culture and politics in return.

-Photo: Archway tube, London. Text excerpted from Israel vs. Utopia

From Gaza to Tehran

On Friday afternoon, France 24 published my thoughts on the Gaza campaign’s geopolitical significance, recalling Israel’s deteriorating relationship with Iran during the Bush era. If you read French, the translation is stellar, and the comments fascinating. I’ll be the first to admit I’m easy, but I prefer this version to my English original.

Ahmadinejad As Zionist

Regimes like Iran need Israel to give the people they rule–many of whom are destitute due to systematic economic and political discrimination–an external object for their anger. Not only is the U.S. far too large to serve this fetishistic function, the reach of its consumer culture, particularly in the form of movies and popular music, makes it hard to regard America as fully external. In a sense, the U.S. is too near even when it’s thousands of miles away. By contrast, Israel is a place that people throughout the Middle East can imagine reaching in a geographical sense – the testing of missiles is always reported together with their cruising range – but it’s not part of their domestic experience. This has made it a fine scapegoat for the entirety of its six-decade existence.

What has changed since 9/11 and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq is that the political psychology of the region has been shaken by the physical proximity of American forces. Just as Israel has had to come to terms with the fact that the United States is now practically a virtual geographic neighbor, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria and, above all, Iran have had to deal with the repercussions of a military imperialism as invasive as the cultural sort that preceded it. The American presence in the region has never been so thoroughly embodied. For this reason, the old stand-by of hostility towards Israel is being summoned, often hysterically, as a way to shore up the cracks in these countries’ political identities.

To Israel’s America Lobby

It was an event that held a little significance for everyone. For Israelis, because of the commitment that the US President reiterated to their security. For Americans, because of the opportunity that their leader took to excoriate their country’s opposition in a foreign parliament. And, for Iran, which was once again reminded that, despite how poorly the US is faring in Iraq and Afghanistan, America would still protect Israel from any manner of threat. In other words, it was an exercise in consistency, one that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert duly noted by nearly falling asleep during the President’s speech in Jerusalem on Thursday.

Notwithstanding the umbrage taken by the US press to Bush’s address to the Knesset, for anyone familiar with the importance that the Republicans have attached to securing Jewish votes in the forthcoming elections, it all made sense. Of course the President would take advantage of such an ideal opportunity. The problem is that, aside from the advantages that Israel most definitely accrued from playing host to the occasion, it had less to do with Israel than it did with the United States, and the failings of the present administration to make any positive achievements in the Middle East during Bush’s two terms in office. With the failure of Lebanon’s government to contain Hezbollah, one cannot ask for a more timely display designed for domestic consumption during an election year.

As the United States slowly loses Lebanon to Iran, despite the immense investment the Americans made in the Siniora government, once again we have another example of how US intervention in the region has worsened Israel’s security. Sandwiched in between an Iranian-supported state in the south, and not one, but now two in the north, Israel’s situation, at the end of Bush’s final term in office, is actually worse than it was on 9/11. No wonder Israelis would want the kind of dramatic security guarantees that the US President has offered. No wonder they’d want it specifically from Bush, and that Israel would place so much value on it, too. Given how poorly the Israel Defense Forces have performed in recent years, the need for American reassurance, of the kind that the President reiterated, is that much more important. Its a horrible situation.

Yet, there is also good reason to argue that Thursday’s event in Jerusalem had little to do with reaffirming the significance of Israel’s security, however flawed America’s conception of it might be. Bush’s speech, as an editorial in Friday’s Haaretz suggested, also signaled the President’s willingness to use Israel’s conflict with Iran as a way of maintaining control over US Mideast policy after leaving office. To implicate Israeli security requirements with such a possible maneuver can only serve to further damage Israel’s long-term interests, not simply because precedent suggests that the US would lose such an engagement against the Iranians. But, as important, because it would implicate Israel’s security interests in contravention of America’s electoral process.

Americans may not have a clear idea of an effective Mideast policy alternative to that of Bush. Though the Democrats have not exactly offered any compelling options, the amount of energy that Republicans have expended trying to debunk Obama’s alleged positions suggests that conservatives fear another emerging policy is surely out there, and that it really is different. For as nebulous as that position might be, the desire for such a policy change is an enormous part of what will motivate millions of Americans to vote Democratic in November’s Presidential election. As the Bush administration’s failures in the Middle East have repeatedly demonstrated, that’s exactly why Israel ought to remain open to whatever alternatives an Obama-led government might have to offer.

Originally published on Allvoices

Noise Annoys

When I first heard San Antonio’s Fearless Iranians from Hell, I thought they were terrible. Just another thrash band, with predictably bad metal leanings. But, twenty years later, the project’s singularity is painfully obvious.

Faux-Middle Eastern hardcore, featuring the bass playing of an ex-member of the Butthole Surfers on the late, great Boner label, I played this hilarious 1986 EP back to back this morning with Muslimgauze, and it made a whole lot more sense.

While I’d argue that the concept is definitely stronger than the execution, one of the great things about punk has always been that as a form of critique, given the right context, sometimes a good idea is all that’s really required.

Always On Our Minds

If the National Intelligence Estimate published on Monday is true, and Iran is not actively pursuing a nuclear weapons program, it poses a potential problem for the Bush administration’s relationship with American Jewry. Given how the US President said last August that Iran is aggressively expanding its military capabilities in order to trigger a nuclear ‘holocaust’ - using such explicit language – how might we reconsider Bush’s willingness to employ such  loaded terminology when no such preparations are actually taking place? In light of this revelation, should Jews reproach the head of state for employing terms that unnecessarily stoked our deepest-held fears?

Invoking the specter of the Nazi genocide for political purposes is nothing new. In the Jewish community, nearly sixty three years after the Second World War, the legacy of the Holocaust continues to exercise enormous influence over how we think and talk about politics. From the slightest turn of phrase to the ways in which we understand our relationship with the Christian and Islamic worlds, the Shoah (‘catastrophe’), as we call it in Hebrew, is almost always a point of reference. Though there are numerous problems with the manner in which we grapple with this patrimony, there’s something even more problematic when its memory is ideologically leveraged by non-Jews.

If Israel were not locked in a long distance conflict with Iran, it would be easier to overlook the inflammatory nature of the American leader’s language. The problem is that Israel is in a heightened state of tension with the Islamic republic precisely because of American policies in the region. Frequently treated by its enemies as though it were an extension of the United States, witness Iraq’s repeated missile attacks on Israel during Operation Desert Storm as but one example. Factor in Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s repeated denials of the Holocaust, and his threats to ‘wipe Israel off the map’ and Jews have every reason to take the US President’s warnings with the utmost seriousness.

That is why it is incumbent that Israel’s self-declared friends express their care for the country a little more wisely. To stand in solidarity with Israel, in opposition to demagogues who threaten its dissolution is one thing. But to take at face value the words of a crazed paper tiger, and repeat them as though they were the genuine item is another. Instead of assessing their empty threat responsibly, by repeating them as though the threat was indeed real, the former Governor of Texas ended up reinforcing the feelings of fear many Jews already felt instilled in them by the Iranian leader’s racist rhetoric.

Know Your Enemy

A War on Terror readymade.  Serramonte Petco, October 29th.