MECCA

On 23 February 2012 in Montreux Switzerland, Dmitri Nabokov, son of the author, Vladimir Nabokov, died.

Dmitri’s death touched many throughout the world for a variety of different reasons. For some, he was the last link to his father as he was the guardian of Vladimir Nabokov’s literary works and memory. For others, he was a great friend whose zest for life and penchant for courting danger were contagious. Whether he climbed the Swiss Alps, pushing himself and some of us to the limits of our strength, or raced Ferraris and Vipers, scaring us to death when he drove at race-car speeds around the hair-pin curves in the Alps on the way to dinner, or simply entertained us with his model trains and helicopters, Dmitri was an original. There was no one like him.

For me, his death marked the end of a fifty year friendship that had its ups and downs, ins and outs, and that began in 1962 when I was a sixteen year old student at a boarding school in Montreux, Switzerland. It was there, spending Christmas at the Montreux Palace Hotel, that I met Dmitri who had come to visit his parents for the winter holidays. Through Paul Rossier, then director of the hotel, Dmitri was able to take a look at my passport to find out my name, age, and where I came from. When my school friend and I were having tea in the Rose Bar, Dmitri wandered in and struck up a conversation. “How’s the weather in New York?” he said to which I replied, “I wouldn’t know since I’m in boarding school in Montreux.”

That was the beginning of our relationship that had many incarnations throughout the world for half a century.

After graduation, when I entered the University of Lausanne, I traveled with Dmitri periodically to Milan where he studied voice with Professor Luigi Toffalo. By then I was eighteen and in total awe of the opera singers who studied and performed with Dmitri, potential stars such as Luciano Pavarotti, Franco Corelli, Fernando Corena, Nicolai Ghiaurov, and many others. After I returned to New York, Dmitri was there when I married and had my daughter, when I divorced and remarried, there with my parents when we celebrated birthdays, anniversaries, and finally I was there when a series of tragedies occurred.

When his adored father died, Dmitri was not only bereft and lost but took on the full responsibility of his mother. Worried about her health, Dmitri asked me to come to Montreux, and for reassurance asked that my father, a cardiologist, come as well to examine his mother. We came and stayed for several weeks. While Vera Nabokov was in mourning, she was physically in good shape. As for Dmitri, not only was he prepared to change his life and routine to be near his mother, but he was worried about how to go about managing his father’s legacy. The concern showed on his face. He had lost a certain spark in his eye and his usual ready smile. Slowly, he adjusted to the job and began to organize his time so he could be near his mother to comfort and work with her.

A year later, the unthinkable happened.

In 1978, I was at the International Monetary Fund annual meeting in Washington when a nurse at the emergency room at the CHUV—Centre Hospitalier Universitaire—in Lausanne called my hotel. She asked if she could put Dmitri on the phone. His voice was faint but his words were clear. “I’m dying, Boobsie,” he said, “please come but don’t tell Mother.”

There was no decision to make, except to get to New York, pack a bag and take my daughter with me to Lausanne. He had crashed his Ferrari while on the way to the dentist from Montreux to Lausanne. Whether it was a spontaneous explosion or sabotage, we never found out but Dmitri had suffered third-degree burns over 40% of his body, and a broken neck. When I got the call, he was hanging between life and death. Before I left for Switzerland, I called Vera Nabokov and with feigned innocence, asked to speak to Dmitri. Her response told me she had no idea the extent of his injuries. “He’s not here,” she said. “He suffered a minor traffic accident.”

Within days, she learned the truth. Both she and I could only see Dmitri through a glass partition where he was swathed in bandages in the burn unit. Miraculously, he survived and was eventually moved to a rehabilitation center where he stayed for more than six months. Again, I traveled to see him with my daughter and saw that while he had survived, his blue eyes were dull and lifeless, but still had his usual and unbelievable will to fully recover. There was no doubt that he understood quite well that his road to recovery would be long and arduous.  After he was released, he came to New York and stayed with me for several weeks. When he was in New York, he saw some of his closest friends, Brett Schlesinger, Sandy Levine, and others who were so instrumental in providing laughter, evoking memories from their time in the United States Army together, and making him aware that so many people loved him and needed him.

Time passed and with it other sad and happy events in both our lives. Dmitri was writing, translating his father’s works, taking care of his father’s literary estate, working with Nikki Smith and Peter Skolnik, his agent and lawyer, to reissue so many of Nabokov’s books. Eventually, he bought an apartment in West Palm Beach and divided his time between there and Montreux. By then, I had moved to Paris but Dmitri and I were in close touch and through him, I met and became good friends with his cousin, Ivan Nabokov, an esteemed editor in Paris, and his wonderful wife, Claude. Ivan and Dmitri had shared a childhood together, been roommates at Harvard, and shared a lifetime of family memories and history.

The good times began to unravel when, in 1991, Vera Nabokov was in the last stages of Parkinson’s. Dmitri called me from Palm Beach and asked that I go to Montreux, assuring me he would meet me there as soon as he could get a flight. I arrived that evening from Paris. Dmitri arrived the following day. Madame Laundy, Vera Nabokov’s “dame de compagnie,” was with her at the hospital. That evening she called and said, “Madame Nabokov has gone like a candle flickering in the breeze.” When we arrived at the hospital, I understood why Dmitri was unable to go through the usual bureaucratic exercises. It was simply too much for him. He asked me to identify his mother’s body. He also asked me to remove the gold wedding band from her finger. Ironically, the Morgue was under construction. Following the nurse to the basement of the clinic, I watched as she opened one door after another, containing various and unknown people who were waiting for relatives to claim them, until she found the room where Vera Nabokov was resting in peace. Doing the necessary to satisfy the Swiss rules of death, I removed her wedding ring and gave it to Dmitri.

As per Dmitri’s wishes, we dressed her in a light blue dress that matched her eyes, and said our good-byes before she was removed to the crematorium. Nikki Smith was there for Mrs. Nabokov’s cremation, as were several other close friends including all the wonderful women who had cared for her during her illness, and who had cared for Dmitri as well. To say it was difficult for Dmitri was an understatement. His only close relatives were Ivan and Claude Nabokov. His closest literary colleagues remained Bryan Boyd, Vladimir Nabokov’s biographer, Steve Parker, Nikki Smith, Peter Skolnik, and Stacy Schiff, Vera Nabokov’s biographer, as well as several of his father’s foreign publishers. The friendships Dmitri had made in Palm Beach, the few friends he had in Switzerland and those who had been around since he was in his twenties remained loyal and attentive. The women who had cared for his parents were still with Dmitri and now, along with several collaborators such as Tatiana and Tony Epicoco were extraordinary in keeping up with all the office work concerning the Nabokov literary empire. The organization and support, however, did nothing to avoid more tragedy. 

In the early 2000s, Dmitri became seriously ill. The doctors were baffled. There was no one diagnosis that could explain why he had slipped into a coma. As expected, I came to Montreux, as did Ivan and Claude Nabokov, and Brett Schlesinger, and all of us, including his devoted staff, believed that this was the end. But once again, the boy cheated death and came out of the coma, recovered as fully as possible considering he had been suffering from diabetes and polyneuropathy for years.

Life went on.

There is no doubt that I have left out some who were also decent, honest and loyal to Dmitri during his life and whom he considered to be close friends and colleagues. But while his virtues were many, his one flaw cost him disappointment and often money.

Other than Dmitri’s accomplishments as translator, opera singer, and race car driver, he was charming, caring, sympathetic, funny, brilliant, and so very naïve. It is this last trait that made those of us who knew him, understood him and adored him, fearful that he often succumbed to the charms of the charlatans of this world.

The ultimate illness that cost Dmitri his life was double pneumonia. His organs were failing, though his heart was incredibly strong. He was on massive doses of antibiotics, had feedings tubes, fluids, a bit of morphine, and a tube down his throat to clear his airway clogged from the ravages of the double pneumonia. He rallied once and Tatiana and Tony were elated that he could go home. Alas, it was not meant to be. On the day he was to be discharged from the hospital, his fever spiked and he relapsed. He slumbered, unable to speak, eat, and barely respond to the words of his doctors, nurses, and caregivers. Tatiana and I were in touch almost every day by phone. At one point, she told me that she had put the receiver to Dmitri’s ear and Ivan Nabokov spoke to him in Russian, addressing him by the childhood name his closest family called him. When Tatiana told me that, I asked if she could put the receiver to his ear for me. “This is Boobsie,” I said, evoking the name he always called me, “and Brett and Sandy and I want you to fight this thing. We love you.” There was never a response because the tube made it impossible for him to speak and the organ failure affected his awareness of time, place, and person.  Within days, however, my sadness, however, almost became overshadowed with outrage.

Within days of the end, I became aware of a woman named Lila Azan Zanganeh who had apparently written a book about Vladimir Nabokov in which she invented imaginary conversations with the late author.  While the book took literary license, readers understood that she could never have known Vladimir Nabokov given that he had died in 1977 before Azan Zanganeh was even born. People understood the conversations were invented by the author.

Without mentioning others who were equally outraged and shocked, I was told about an article in the Guardian newspaper written by Azan Zanganeh shortly after Dmitri’s death that was filled with self-serving false statements obviously intended to put her career before the death of someone she claimed was a friend.

Azan Zanganeh had met Dmitri several times before she began the book on his father and while writing the book, she visited him in Montreux, according to his staff, twice during the year. More to the point, she managed to insinuate herself into his entourage until, as she wrote in the Guardian, “he began to trust me and I him…” Perhaps…

As was so typical of Dmitri who had always been sensitive to pretty young women, at one point, he asked her if she would take on the job of “gouvernante” of his household, or chief housekeeper who directed the maids, cooks, and other domestic workers. Curiously, in the Guardian article Azan Zanganeh wrote after Dmitri’s death, she mentions this and claims she “politely refused” his job offer. For a writer to be offered a job as a chief housekeeper must have been vexing to say the least…

According to Dmitri’s staff, while he was in hospital, she called and was clearly “hysterical,” asking that they put the phone to his ear and screaming into the phone, “I love you, Dmitri. Don’t die etc…” In fact, at one point, one of Dmitri’s closest collaborators had to take the phone away from Dmitri’s ear and politely tell Azan Zanganeh that she was disturbing what they wanted to be complete “tranquility” as he slowly departed. That in itself is not venal. As one of Dmitri’s colleagues said, some people handle “death without dignity.” What is unconscionable is that in the Guardian article, the opening line is the claim by Azan Zanganeh that she “spoke to Dmitri fifty five minutes before he died on 23 February 2012.”

The truth is that the tube that cleared the airway made it impossible for Dmitri to speak to anyone, or even understand what was said to him, or even breathe unless it was cleared every thirty minutes. Only once, did he say “oui” or “yes” when asked a question by his doctors, a response that gave everyone hope that perhaps, just maybe, there was sufficient brain activity to resume treatment.

In the Guardian article, Azan Zanganeh further positions herself as the expert on Dmitri’s illness and his death, as well as claiming to have had a relationship with him that was intimate, and intense. Even more egregious and an affront to Dmitri’s memory is that she writes about his relationship with his parents as though she was there, knew them,  and was not only privy to but became Dmitri’s confidant concerning his feelings toward his mother and father.

Bryan Boyd’s biography of Vladimir Nabokov, a scholarly effort that took years and relied on Vladimir’s words is the ultimate reference to the late author. Stacy Schiff’s biography of Vera Nabokov where she spent hours talking to Dmitri, friends, relatives, and even me while we were in Montreux, is legitimate and factual. Neither book is even vaguely comparable to Azan Zanganeh’s effort to promote herself and her potential work on Dmitri before he was even cremated.  

It is not only dishonest but distasteful for Azan Zanganeh to appoint herself the expert on Dmitri, especially in the last stage of his life.

For those who cared for him, worked closely with him, collaborated with him, loved him, and knew him for decades, it is an affront to Dmitri’s memory to have this girl invent scenarios, circumstances, and conversations, as well as attribute feelings to Dmitri by exaggerating her importance in his life. And, because he is no longer to defend himself, challenge her, or deny her words, her actions are vaguely immoral.

Dmitri is gone. For those of us who knew him, it is a monumental loss, unimaginable that he is no longer with us. For others who only knew of him, it is a loss as well of a man who kept the greatness of his father’s works alive for the world to enjoy.

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Without getting into a polemic about who owns what and who was there first, the latest news flash out of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s office in Jerusalem that made it to the front page of the New York Times is simply shocking.

Netanyahu and his cabinet decided to withhold $100 million from the Palestinian Authority as a punishment for the Palestinians having gone before the United Nations in a quest for statehood. Further, the withholding of these funds which were taxes and custom payments due the Palestinians, was also a punishment because of secret meetings between the Palestinian Authority and the extremist group, Hamas. For weeks while the money was withheld, salaries of Palestinians throughout the West Bank and Gaza went unpaid. Children went hungry and men and women worked expecting to get paid and instead were told there was no money to pay them. How does that help to win hearts and minds?

This latest move by the Israeli government was shocking for several reasons. First of all, where is the understanding and sympathy for the Palestinians who did nothing different than the Israelis did decades ago when they went before the United Nations to claim a State for the Jewish people? And, where is the humanity within Israel, especially for a country and a people who understand suffering better than most, to create such hardship?

Israel claims it wants nothing more than peace and safety for their people. The Palestinians claim they want to live in peace on their own land. Both continue to use terror in all its forms to achieve their presumed goals. And, apparently when terror is not used and Palestinians take their cause to the United Nations, they are still punished with a more sophisticated form of violence.

For years, the reason that peace between Israel and the Palestinians has failed is complicated. Simply put, Israel refused to cede land and liberty because Palestinians were committing terrorist attacks and targeting Israeli civilians. When the attacks were aimed at Israeli settlements in what is considered occupied land, the result was mixed emotions—sympathy for the victims and sympathy for the attackers.

Some of us were outraged that Israel persisted in building settlements on disputed land when a moratorium on new Israeli outposts, villages or cities was an intricate part of any peace plan. When Palestinian attacks happened inside Israel—in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem or any other Jewish city, the hearts and minds of most people went with the innocent victims.

That is not to say that land is not the fundamental issue to any peace accord. It is and will continue to be until the Palestinians accept the existence of the State of Israel, which means at worst, that the Jewish State retreat to the 1967 borders. Unfortunately, there are zealots on both sides. There are the Israeli leaders who continue in arrogance to build settlements. And, while the Palestinian Authority has recognized Israel’s right to exist, their partners, Hamas and other extreme groups, have refused. For years the joke around Israel was that Palestinian extremists want peace alright, a piece of Tel Aviv, Haifa, Jerusalem and every other centimeter of Israeli land. Retreat to the 1967 borders in not an option for extremists on both sides.

Perhaps the time has come to redefine terror.

Terror is used to shock, intimidate, harm, and terrorize one’s enemy.

The most common form of terror is violence—as in suicide bombs, attacks on schools, murdering sleeping parents and children, targeted killings, Katushya rockets aimed across borders into Israeli cities, hijackings, to list a few.

If people wonder why terrorists attacked a pizzeria in Jerusalem, or Saudi terrorists crashed planes into the World Trade Center, the answer is always, “because they could.”  While terrorists do have a wish list of targets, it is mostly a matter of opportunity and more than often, the killers have to settle for second or third choices.

More subtle terror tactics are the weapons of the privileged. Financial terror, which the Israelis can and do use is because, once again, “they can.”

While it is true that Israelis do not strap on bombs and wander into a group of Palestinian civilians and detonate those bombs, it is also true that Palestinians use the only method of terrorism available to them. Strikes don’t mean anything. Refusing to work only means that there are hundreds of other Palestinians who are just waiting to take on any job available. There are no unions or organized labor forces. As for protests, they are a luxury in that part of the world and, as we have seen countless times, are met with bullets and tear gas.

To be perfectly clear, this is not an apology for blowing up innocent civilians. Rather, this is a warning that starving an entire population is as effective a terror tool as violence. Depriving people of food, shelter, medical care, and warmth is as violent a punishment as death—a slower and more angry death perhaps but still a death of hope, pride, and belief in the future.

What happened to a mutual understanding of wanting a homeland?

What happened to a mutual understanding of taking that quest to the United Nations?

What happened to memory?

More dangerous is what happens when both sides—Israeli and Palestinian—exert punishments that exceed the magnitude of the crime?

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While I am writing this, in the background is President Obama addressing the United Nations. For some, this is an historic day—21 September 2011. For others, it is more of the same, a different form of warfare that will lead to yet another kind of warfare and on and on…

The history of conflict in the Middle East between Israel and the Arab nations has gone through many different stages.

In the beginning, shortly after the Second World War, when the United Nations meant something both politically and influentially, the organization voted to create the Jewish State.  When the Palestinians were offered their own legal entity within the West Bank and Gaza, Yasser Arafat—the man who never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity—refused.  The reason would remain etched in stone for the duration of time—all of the land or nothing and they (the Palestinians) would fight to the death to reclaim what they claimed was theirs, which was not only the West Bank and Gaza but also the newly-created State of Israel.

During that time, Jordan was the occupying force in the West Bank and Egypt controlled Gaza. All the Arab nations applauded the Palestinians. Yasser Arafat became a hero and a symbol of the Palestinian struggle and the Arabs vowed to support the plucky Palestinians until Israel was obliterated from the map. Digging in their heels, Jordan and Egypt did nothing to improve the living conditions of the Palestinian people who languished in abysmal conditions in refugee camps. Egypt did not allow them to cross over from Gaza into Egypt to work. Jordan, whose population consisted mainly of Palestinians, did nothing as well to help them build an infrastructure which would have included schools, hospitals, or agricultural knowledge. Instead, the Arab world did exactly what they should have done to exemplify the tragedy of the displaced Palestinians. They ignored their plight. Jordan was fearful that the Palestinian majority would overthrow the concocted Hashemite Kingdom and Egypt was flexing its muscles as the leader of the Arab world.

Two of the many wars, uprisings, targeted killings, terrorist attacks, and skirmishes that followed changed the map of the Middle East and left us where we are today—with the American President addressing the United Nations on the subject of Palestine.

The first war happened in the 1950s.

In the early 1950s, Egypt violated the terms of the Egyptian-Israeli armistice agreement and blocked Israeli ships from passing through the Suez Canal, a major international waterway. It also began to block traffic through the Straits of Tiran, a narrow passage of water linking the Israeli port of Eilat to the Red Sea. This action effectively cut off the port of Eilat—Israel’s only outlet to the Red Sea and Indian Ocean. Closure of the Suez Canal and the Tiran Straits damaged Israel’s trade with Asia. Foreign ships carrying goods bound for Israel and Israeli ships carrying goods bound for the Far East were forced to take a long and costly circuitous route to the Atlantic and Israel’s Mediterranean ports.

At the same time, Palestinian Arab fedayeen (militants, based in Egypt, Jordan, and Syria) launched attacks on Israeli civilian centers and military outposts. A now-familiar pattern began—attacks by Arab fedayeen and retaliation by Israeli troops.

In July 1956, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal which not only affected Israeli trade, but also British and French oil interests and commerce with the West. For the first time in history, France, the United Kingdom and Israel had a common interest—to liberate the Suez Canal to achieve free passage through international waters. Israel had an additional agenda—to end terrorist attacks on their civilians within the borders of Israel.

On 29 October 1956, Israel began an assault on Egyptian military positions which ended by the Israeli capture of the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula.

The second war was in 1967, fought in six days in June, from the 5^th until the 10^th.  After a long period of tension between Israel, Egypt, Jordan and Syria, Israel launched several surprise air strikes against its neighbors. The end was decisive when Israel took control of the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan and the Golan Heights from Syria. The rest is recent history.

To capsulize, the Palestinians remained in the refugee camps—this time under Israeli control—in abysmal conditions. The Arab world used the Palestinians as a glaring example of Israeli brutality. Peace conferences were organized both for public consumption and behind the scenes negotiations. On 26 March 1979, the one and only peace accord was actually signed under the auspices of the United States and President Jimmy Carter. President Anwar Sadat, the President of Egypt and Menachem Begin, the Prime Minister of Israel, shook hands and signed an agreement to end their decades-long state of war. Two years later, on 6 October 1981, Anwar Sadat was assassinated by a group of Fundamentalist army officers. The rest is even more recent history.

More peace conferences, uprisings, Palestinian targeted killings, Israeli incursions, tanks versus stones, suicide bombers killing themselves and Israeli civilians, poverty, hopelessness, and intractable Palestinian leaders who aligned themselves with radical Islamic groups against arrogant Israeli leaders who kept on building new settlements on disputed land.

Spring 2011 arrived with all the beauty of buds, flowers, birds, sunshine, and bloodshed. The Arab world finally realized that they had been governed by despots and dictators who had billions in oil dollars, lived in sumptuous luxury, while the people suffered starvation, unemployment, and an absence of human rights. The list is long.

The Arabic Rebellions of the Arab Revolutions actually but unofficially began on 18 December 2010 in Tunisia. By Spring 2011, it had spread to Egypt, and then to Libya where a civil uprising resulted in the fall of the Ghadaffi regime. Civil uprisings occurred also in Bahrain, Syria, and Yemen, while there were major protests in Algeria, Iraq, Jordan, Morocco and Oman. Minor protests broke out in Kuwait, Lebanon, Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Western Sahara. Israelis and Palestinians were not exempt. In May 2011, there were increased clashes between Palestinians and Israelis at Israeli borders, clearly inspired by the so-called Arab Spring revolts. The major slogan of the demonstrations was Ash-sha’b yrid isqat an-nizam or “the people want to bring down the regime.”

Perhaps the most interesting and telling reaction to the rebellion was that brute force was not the only method used to quell the protests. The ruling regimes used internet censorship to stymie the use of social media by the protestors as to where to gather for marches, protests, and demonstrations, and where and when to close businesses and strike.

The world was ecstatic. Democracy was finally taking hold in those Arab countries where people had been subjugated for hundreds of years. Those who understood the improbability of democracy in those regions where there had never been equality or the freedom to vote knew that the only cohesive structure in place was the Mosque. It would only be a question of time before the Muslim Brotherhood and other radical political factions such as Hamas or the Islamic Jihad would come to power and lead the people into another kind of subjugation. Those same people also understood that countries under the control of extreme Islamic groups would join together to wage war against Israel.

Perhaps the world had forgotten that in the charter of Al-Fatah, Yasser Arafat’s political party, was the call for the total destruction of Israel. Perhaps the world has also forgotten that right now within the Palestinian entity on the West Bank and Gaza there are two governments. Roni Shaked, one of the pre-eminent experts on Palestinian affairs who writes for Yediot, a major Israeli newspaper, calls the two states Fatahland led by Mahmoud Abbas or Abu Mazin (his nom de guerre) and Hamastan led by Ismail Haniyeh. While Abu Mazin is received in Europe and the United States because of his lip service agreement to peace with Israel, Ismail Haniyeh has refused to take out the edict in the Hamas charter which calls for the total destruction of Israel.

Abu Mazin has the worst job in the world. He is restrained by Hamas to come forward and actually sign an accord, assuming that he understands economically and socially it would be the best course for the Palestinian people. So, once again, the Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.

Someone within Al Fatah had the brilliant idea of going to the Security Council at the United Nations and asking the Council to vote on granting Palestine permanent status as a member nation as well as making Palestine a State. It was clearly a short-cut approach after decades of attempting to negotiate a viable peace between Israelis and Palestinians, and a short-cut that would provide nothing except an official recognition of a state that had no cohesive government, borders, or willingness to live peacefully with Israel. This act motivated and foolishly inspired by Arab Spring (read Arab Winter) was a direct challenge to the American President who had the power to veto the motion. And herein was the dilemma.

If President Obama did not veto the motion, he would lose the right-wing Christian vote and support of the Jewish American population. If he did not veto the motion, he would once again be accused of being an Arab, or a Muslim, or of being sympathetic to a group of people who somehow were in the same camp as those who took down the World Trade Center.

Barak Obama has the second worst job in the world after Abu Mazin.

During his speech in front of the United Nations this morning, President Obama explained in a most measured and eloquent manner the facts of life. It is up to the Palestinians to unite and enter into peace negotiations with Israel. The United States would be willing to broker any peace accord along with those European countries who were also interested in securing restraint throughout the Middle East. But the United States would not endorse a short-cut measure that had not yet addressed the critical issues concerning borders, a recognition of Israel, and a better life for the Palestinians.

Unfortunately, there will be fallout from Obama’s decision and most probably within two days or so, the Palestinian delegation will take this vote before the General Assembly. Win or lose during that round, there are, however, far more serious problems.

War in the Middle East is inevitable. When the rest of those Arab nations eventually fall to those who are or who will rebel against the despots and dictators, the radical Islamic groups will take power. Democracy is a far-off dream that can never happen as we, in America, know it. Ultimately, when there is no more Mubarak or Ghadaffi to blame for the economic woes of those Arab countries, Israel will be the target. This time around the options are plenty—biological warfare, cyber warfare, more terrorism, suicide bombings, and yes, even the export of terror to our shores. This is a zero sum game.

Once, several years ago when I was traveling throughout the West Bank and Gaza filming a documentary entitled Army of Roses about the first six women suicide bombers, I was asked the following question many times by many Palestinians.

“Are you for or against suicide bombings?”

I understood the implication.

If I was against suicide bombings, I was pro-Israeli occupation.

If I was for suicide bombings, I was pro-Palestinian statehood.

In defense of Barak Obama, he is in the same bind. The fact that he vetoed this fast track to Palestinian statehood does not mean he is against the creation of a Palestinian State. At the same time, I would hope that just because he has a cordial television moment with Benjamin Netanyahu does not mean that he is in favor of continuing to build Jewish settlements on disputed land.

There should be no trick questions. There should be no hidden agendas. And, most of all, the world should understand that Arab Spring is really Arab Winter. There are no winners. There are only losers. If someone does not force face to face negotiations with results, Arabs and Israelis will be slipping on the icy slopes of repression or oblivion instead of basking in the sunshine of freedom.

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As a former working journalist and now a writer of fiction and non-fiction, I felt the time was right to give all of you listeners out there the lowdown on how the media functions.

Courses in journalism obviously focus on the facts, teach how to construct the opening paragraph which is to list the object of the report along with some tag lines that rope the reader in so that he or she will continue reading until the next paragraph, hoping to get more facts that were only alluded to or written to titillate in the opening salvo. Fair enough.

Armed with a degree and the starry-eyed objective of becoming a household name who is fortunate enough to be in the right place at the right time, there is always that remote possibility of winning a prize for reporting on something either better than anyone else or that no one else knew in time to scoop your own piece. Of course, the Hollywood of journalists is the television reporter who gets to tell a story backed by internecine uprisings, hostage situations, or just plain old natural disasters. The ultimate television journalist is no longer the “anchor” but rather the Anderson Cooper who is everywhere all the time there is something spectacular happening.

Take this latest disaster in the making and by the way, in the making for the last several days when Hurricane Irene hit the Bahamas and began her way up the East Coast of the United States, battering a bunch of southern states. Even FEMA got into the act with dire warnings and predictions all, in my opinion, because they and mostly everyone else screwed up Katrina to the point of shame and disgrace. But here’s what you did not know. One of the most crucial courses in Journalism 101 is the grave expression. It is done like this: a slight shake of the head, slightly narrowed eyes, furrowed brows, and an imperceptible quake in the voice. The teleprompter reads something like this, as in the case of poor old battered-herself, disappointing Irene. “She is barreling along the East Coast and will hit at 10 AM, predicted to be a 4, with massive damage and high winds in excess of 120 miles an hour, and rain of up to 20 to 24 inches. Wow!

We left our city apartment (coincidentally only one block from Zone A in New York City, to speed up to the country to secure our outdoor furniture—glass included—and make sure that our house was buckled up against poor old Irene. In constant touch with friends in the city, and fielding calls from friends in Paris, France, we arrived at our country house to find glorious sunshine, muggy weather, and nary a slight breeze. That was yesterday.  We dragged glass tables and furniture and surveyed huge trees to see, based on the calculations of the meteorologists and other weather pundits, of the direction of the wind, if there was the risk of those trees crashing into our house or barn. Hard to tell. The word on the screen and in the papers was that this was one time when the wind was coming from all directions to form some kind of a deadly funnel that would destroy everything in its path – north, south, east, west.

My husband who is from the South and has lived through many hurricanes back in the 60s and 70s when hurricanes were serious business (you know, before Al Qaeda and Khadaffi and Saddam, and massacres at high schools) instructed me to buy flash lights, candles, double D batteries, and, get this, cans of  Dinty Moore stew. No problem up until I read the Dinty Moore part on his list. As an aside, let me just say that in 1985, he showed up at my apartment in New York City during the last “monster hurricane” with rope, a miner’s cap with a light, water, flash lights and every other bit of hurricane paraphernalia he could find to “save” me. I was amused to say the least and he was incensed that I did not take the warnings seriously. Anyway, this time around, I put on my former journalist’s serious face and trudged out to the market to buy everything on the list, including a new product that Dinty Moore offered which was dumplings and chicken which, by the way, I wouldn’t feed to my dogs let alone my husband.

We are armed to the hilt, so to speak, sitting here in the country, with an array of crystal candle sticks on our counter in the kitchen, flashlights poised on every table in every room—and this is a very big house—gallons of water, along with a generator in case power goes out and we have to preserve our food in the refrigerator.  So far, there are a few drops of rain but frankly this is several hours after the deluge was meant to hit.

Call me cynical but I never believed that poor old Irene would really wreak havoc in New York City—Long Island, the Jersey Shore, parts of Brooklyn and other spots near the water, OK—but not in the actual city of New York.

Nothing is black or white so let’s give some credit to those disaster pundits and meteorologists and even some of those students of Journalism 101’s method of communicating the end of the world. But it got me thinking about what I have always sort of known all along. The attention span of the viewer or listener is probably not much longer than the shelf life of a banana. Back in my day, there were real stories to report—wars, uprisings, massacres, terror attacks, sabotage etc. There were and are also far too many human tragedies that turn the stomach and rob us of faith that all mankind and womankind has some glimmer of humanity. Based on this latest reporting of Irene, however, I am convinced of the following truths in some of the most current news stories.

1. Saddam Hussein was pulled out of that hole, relieved of his lice, and shipped off to Monte Carlo where he is a croupier in a casino. The revolution in Iraq would have happened anyway given the many religious factions and certainly aided and abetted by American interference.
2. Moammar Khadaffi mailed in his retirement letter weeks ago and is in Tuscany with his wives and children. Riots there are based on anger that the world forgave him for Lockerbee.
3. Dinty Moore stew is passed off as Boeuf Bourgogne in some of the best French restaurants in New York City.
4. Dominique Strauss Kahn is divorcing Anne Sinclair and marrying Diallo (his alleged victim), a plan that was hatched by the Socialist party in France months ago to show that they are not at all racist against their former Francophone population. The plan was also hatched to show how the United States is a “rush to judgment” country that tries to bend over backwards to treat people of color decently given our history of segregation and slavery.
5. Contrary to public opinion, Anderson Cooper’s family’s wealth comes from the manufacturing of flashlights, bottled water, and double D batteries.

No doubt I am taking a risk writing this. Perhaps I shouldn’t tempt fate. Don’t think it hasn’t occurred to me that when my husband and I return from dinner this evening at a lovely restaurant bordering the upper Hudson River, Irene may just have flexed her muscles and made sure every huge tree on our property has crashed into our house. But I stop myself. After all, I am not one of those people who apologizes to house guests if the weather is bad. Not my fault! Blame those disaster pundits and meteorologists.

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Sometimes when there is so much to say or to write, when the person armed with the knowledge knows the subjects too well, is aware of the inside story, and consequently the truth, it is difficult to begin. For me, having spent twenty-two years as a journalist in Paris, and ten of those years in a relationship with a highly placed member of the French Socialist Party, I refused a number of interviews and even unattributed “source” background for stories that appeared in the French and American media. Added to my decision to button up was that several of my closest French friends refused to admit the truth—that the reputation of Dominique Strauss-Kahn was not only well known throughout France, but that Anne Sinclair was painfully aware of her husband’s psycho pathology. We all knew. The fact is that a group of us shared the same doctors, dentists, hairdressers, and had the same friends. Paris is a small town, much like New York, or any other sophisticated city where there is six degrees of separation.

The question going through readers’ minds at this point might well be, why now did I decide to open up about this? I suppose because DSK, as he is known throughout France, and now throughout the world has, according to many in polite and not so polite French circles, gotten away with making violent and obscene sexual advances toward many women. Fortunately, I am not one of them though I was the object of several vulgar gestures made by DSK at a Socialist Congress where I was one of hundreds of people.

It was well known that Anne Sinclair suffered through her husband’s affairs and bore the pain of myriad accusations leveled at her spouse, weathered the gossip that circulated around Paris, and wept to a chosen few of her closest friends. People talk. They talk not always out of malevolence but often out of outrage that a woman like Sinclair, attractive, successful, privileged, and smart refused to cut her sick spouse loose years ago. But then, DSK always managed to get away with his behavior, and seemingly did not even suffer the slightest pang of conscience or regret. Perhaps someone forgot to tell him that foreplay was not a smack on the head, and consensual sex was not grabbing a woman by the hair as a prelude to fellatio.  Not unlike OJ Simpson whom so many believed killed his wife and her friend and gave himself permission to believe that he was innocent, so too did the former head of the International Monetary Fund, believe that he was too powerful and uber entitled to suffer the consequences of his actions. Until, of course, a maid at a New York hotel claimed he forced himself on her while she entered his room to clean. But yet again, the great white hope of the French Socialist Party was lucky enough to fall upon a woman who turned out to have a checkered past, a dubious present and who made the fatal error of lying to the office of the New York District Attorney.

Once again, the world has put the alleged rape victim on trial. Interesting that DSK’s past would not have been admissible in a court had there been a trial,  but apparently his most recent victim’s past made headlines throughout the world which resulted in no trial.

What really shocked me was that in the very beginning and still now, DSK’s defense was that the sex was “consensual.” In this instance, the poor guy didn’t have a choice as his DNA was all over the woman’s shirt and the carpet in his hotel room. What shocked me even more, however, was how Anne Sinclair, rallied to his defense, as if consensual sex between her husband and a hotel housekeeper or anyone else for that matter—and there have been many “on the fly” encounters—before he dashed in for a quick lunch with his daughter with traces of toothpaste on his lips, on the way to catch a flight back to Paris, was acceptable.  Could her thought process have been, “Dieu merci, at least he didn’t attempt to rape anyone this time…”

So many of my French friends had the attitude that if he had a moment with a hotel maid or anyone else, so what? Rape of course, they claimed, was serious, but who’s to say if it was rape? Some insisted it was a plot by President Sarkozy and the rest of the French right wing, to “set up DSK for failure in the upcoming French election.” If he had been “set up,” that would indicate that the French president and his array of advisors and dirty-trick meisters surely knew that putting a woman, any woman, alone with DSK in a hotel room would end in a violent sex act.  Let’s not forget the French and their ability to believe, rationalize, and report on what is convenient. After all, they rolled over for the sake of art and lunch when the Germans goose-stepped into France. And, during the 80s, gay actors and comedians who died of AIDS always had some other disease. The French never recognized AIDS until Rock Hudson inconvenienced them by showing up at the Pasteur Institute for a new treatment that had not yet been approved in America. Even today, people still believe that women who dress seductively are “asking for it,” or going to man’s apartment or dorm room is tacit permission to be penetrated. There was one case where the scion of an important French family was accused of rape and one of his pals who had been with him and the victim at the beach quipped, “We all went skinny dipping so they had sex.”

The latest in this disgusting saga is that the French think the American justice system is crude and primitive. We “rush to judgment,” they say. We “humiliate” the accused.  France, according to the French, is the last bastion of honesty, tolerance, and that special French “laissez faire” or “live and let live.” In actuality, the French system is based on Napoleonic law where everyone is guilty until proven innocent. Of course the big equalizer is that it often takes decades for a case to be brought up before a magistrate which usually means that witnesses are senile, perpetrators are aphasic and victims are dead.

So, why are you smiling Anne Sinclair?

Is it because now you’ll get back the $1 million cash bond you put up and the release of your Washington house worth $5 million? Or, is it because you think you still have a chance to be First Lady of France? Better yet, are you smiling because you believe that notwithstanding your husband’s denials and outrage at the charges levied against him, that he has learned a lesson? Well, keep smiling. This kind of behavior is indelibly in his hard drive, in his DNA, and in his psyche. He can’t change.

The good news for the rest of us is that somehow, somewhere, sometime, he will do this again or something equally as heinous. And, like OJ, he will be charged, convicted, and jailed. Until then, Dominique Strauss Kahn is irrevocably tainted. At this point, he couldn’t even get an account at Match.com, never mind a six year stint at the Elysee Palace.

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The headlines screamed the news – Osama Bin Laden Is Dead. The electronic media devoted entire days to discussing and dissecting the killing of Bin Laden by a secret American anti-terror force whose sole target had been to capture—dead or alive—the most evil mastermind of terrorism in history. The news of Bin Laden’s death resulted in an outpouring of celebration along with vows of vengeance throughout the world. Horns honking and people cheering at Ground Zero or around the White House made the reaction of any winning country of the World Cup pale by comparison. Crowds in the United States sang the Star Spangled Banner, while demonstrators in Europe and South America simply cheered America by shouting USA! USA! Even President Obama, usually a bit too cool and unemotional in the face of myriad of national and international disasters exclaimed, “The death of Bin Laden marks the most significant achievement to date in our nation’s effort to defeat Al Qaeda…”  As for the vows of vengeance, Al Qaeda sympathizers along with much of the Arab world, Asia, and a laundry list of anti-American pro-Muslim organizations, promised retaliation in the form of random killings of Americans and general terrorist strikes that would paralyze the western economy.

Osama is dead. I’m prepared to buy that, though I must admit I thought he had been dead for a while, actually from kidney failure since he was on dialysis for many years before he thought up the mother of all terror attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Call me silly, but I believed the stories about the portable dialysis machines that followed Osama from one remote hiding place to another. But never mind. No one knew anything for certain anyway. If and when he was dead from an attack by American forces and not kidney failure or any other malady, the world needed to see a body. The world needed proof. Somehow DNA just wouldn’t cut it, especially since so many of Osama’s supporters, worshippers, followers, doctors, Saudi government officials and even his own siblings have betrayed him and provided, throughout the last decade, samples of Osama’s DNA. In the past, when rumors spread that he had been killed, it was always in their interests to have the world believe that he was alive to send out the message that Al Qaeda was still powerful and still led by the most feared man on the planet. Now that the Obama administration has decided not to release photos of a dead Osama Bin Laden, conspiracies would have spread if Al Qaeda itself had not made the announcement that American had killed their beloved leader by means of deception, that is, betrayal of one of his couriers which gets to the next part of the story.

Two days ago, CNN did an interview with Peter King, a Republican Congressman from New York who is also Chairman of the Homeland Security Committee in Congress. A reporter asked him if he knew who happened to implicate the courier who ultimately gave the Americans the directions to Osama Bin Laden hiding place. In his inimitable conversational tone and without drama, just typical New York speak as King is want to do, he replied and here I am paraphrasing…SKM gave the name up when he was water-boarding. Water boarding? As in water skiing, or surf boarding?? A new sport that the guards at Guantanamo allow the prisoners to do as part of their exercise regime? The next question a reporter asked, however, was and here I am quoting, “Who is SKM” to which King replied, “Sheik Khalid Mohammed, the alleged mastermind behind 9/11,” and if any of you don’t recall the name, he is the man who is either photographed dressed and looking quite spiffy in a stylish kaffieh, or pictured nude from the waist up and looking rather hirsute.

But here’s my problem and call me a stickler for grammar.  SKM gave up the name of the courier while “he was waterboarding,” which in my mind, is a rather bizarre use of a verb that should be passive rather than active. Perhaps the answer should have been, while SKM was being water boarded by his interrogators. Water boarding as in a type of torture that we, the Americans, have taken to use to gather intelligence from those we suspect had links to Al Qaeda or Osama Bin Laden

Since when is torture by the United States discussed and admitted to in such an offhand way? Some of us knew about the transportation of terror suspects to secret places throughout Europe where they were tortured. Guantanamo was the least of the unspeakable prisons where these terrorists were held. When photos appeared of guards at Guantanamo posing prisoners in degrading positions or allowing dogs to terrify them, there was a horrified press that demanded statements from those in charge and I am still chuckling at the names of the three most powerful people in the last administration who claimed shock at seeing such horrendous pictures—bush, dick, and colon—but that’s another story. Does the administration think it is acceptable to admit to water boarding Sheik Khaled Mohammed because his information could possibly yield the whereabouts and capture of Osama bin Laden? Does torture depend on who is being tortured and for what gain? Are we now part of those countries that regularly apply torture to prisoners—either prisoners of war or simple every day serial killers? Where does it end?

There is something contradictory about what is happening throughout the Middle East as well as right here at home. Apparently, torture in American is now admitted by our elected officials without any apology or regret. Our forces shoot unarmed criminals or terrorists. Not only do we give a tacit nod to torture, but we also seem to have a hierarchy concerning who is a “bad” Arab leader and who is an “acceptable” Arab leader. Our litmus test is not so much how they treat their own people but how they treat the world, most specifically their attitude toward us and of course Israel.

When the uprising occurred in Egypt, Mubarak was our friend and ally until the crowds got too big and then he was a despot and dictator that “had to leave.” Mubarak finally relinquished power and people went around demonstrating about democracy and freedom and all those good things which were simply not going to happen. Now, according to press reports, Mubarak faces execution, and Egypt has brokered a deal between Fatah and the Hamas that will cancel out the peace accord Egypt once had with Israel. Add to that scenario the fact that the Muslim Brotherhood is part of the new provisional government.

As for Ghadaffi, not only do we and several other European nations send in troops to depose Ghadaffi but even NATO is part of the strike mission that bombs Tripoli and other cities. Ghadaffi is the target. This method seems to be another of our admitted and approved MO’s—we resort to killing those Arab leaders that we really didn’t like so much in the first place and who were really not particularly beneficial to our economy or who did not fit into our emotional agenda.

Does that mean that the next step is that ambassadors at the United Nations will be armed? Instead of voting and other diplomatic measures, there will be shoot-outs on 49^th Street?

Frankly, the lack of human rights—and never mind equal rights—are far worse in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, and the rest of the Gulf States. There are beheadings, public stoning for crimes such as adultery, theft, or protest against the government. But then there is the big equalizer that stops us from interfering—oil.

America has always been criticized for posturing itself as the “world’s policeman.” Since 9/11, we have become a nation that has actively participated in invading other countries. Despite Obama’s pre-election promises, we are at war in one way or the other in three different countries—Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya. We have also taken up “targeted killings” which previously we have condemned when Israel targeted terrorists that attacked their civilians and cities. Of course, the response is that Osama bin Laden was the one exception as he was the most evil terrorist in the world. Once that line has been crossed, however, invading foreign soil or targeting a particular criminal or terrorist, we are no longer just the “world’s policeman.” We have graduated to top dog in a group of countries that does not adhere to a sound moral agenda. We have become the “cowboys” the world always accused us of being. The big difference, of course, is that once we wore the white hats while now we are wearing the black ones.

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An article in the New York Times on Sunday revealed that there is a shortage of one of the three-drug cocktail used in lethal injections for the death penalty. Sodium Thiopental, an anesthetic, manufactured by Hospira, recently announced that it would no longer produce the drug to be used for executions. In Europe, where the drug is also manufactured and used in operating rooms, companies have also refused to export the drug to those countries that use it on inmates to be put to death.

Given the high technology when it comes to anesthetics, there are, of course, alternatives. Pentobarbital is one though it is used infrequently on human beings and rather to euthanize dogs and cats. True, there is little difference in the two drugs that ostensibly put the patient (human or animal) to sleep before the third part of the fatal cocktail is dripped into the vein. Both drugs come from the same family of barbiturates and efficiently depress the nervous system where the victim/patient/animal/human’s brain is put to sleep which results in the victim/patient to forget to breath, or the drug decreases blood pressure where sufficient blood is not pumped to the heart.

The problem is that sodium thiopental has been used in hospitals and in prisons because it has a fast onset, while pentobarbital is a long-acting drug. The reason pentobarbital is used mostly by veterinarians to euthanize animals is because it is not important if the animal wakes up faster or not. If the animal is still groggy, a higher dose is used so the lethal effect of the second injection simply stops the heart. Pentobarbitol is also used in certain rare cases on humans in hospitals—to induce coma in brain-damaged patients and, used in controlled and minor doses, to stop seizures.

It is not surprising that those of us who oppose the death penalty are against using any drugs for obvious reasons. Thiopental, however, can wear off too quickly and cause inmates about to be put to death to feel pain. The usual three-ingredient cocktail used to put inmates to death are a barbiturate with pancuronium bromide to put the victim to sleep and paralyze, and potassium chloride which causes cardiac arrest. The cocktail is certainly efficient and does the job, supposedly painlessly. In some cases, such as in Ohio, however, painless seems not to be high on the list of concerns, as officials there use an overdose of barbiturates alone simply to put people to sleep forever.

I am not arguing the pros and cons of the death penalty. For me, there is no argument. It is barbaric, outdated, and dangerous if one realizes that it is better to spare a guilty inmate than to execute one that could be proven innocent at a later date. What is shocking to me in this particular instance is the irresponsibility on the part of the United States, a supposed beacon of democracy and human rights to be part of a list of shame that still practices the death penalty in many of its states. Even as I write this, scientists and doctors are now researching to either find a substitute for the drug that allows the inmate/victim a peaceful death since the manufacturers of sodium thiopental are no longer willing to supply the drug, or those same researchers are trying to find another drug to do the job, even if it would be a more painful substitute.

We, in America, are in shameful company. For the sake of understanding who we align ourselves with when it comes to the death penalty, following are a list of countries that practice the death penalty. The list is divided into death for ordinary crimes and death for crimes of extraordinary circumstances. Whether benign or malevolent, the result is the same and usually with an audience that gets some satisfaction that justice is done.

Capital Punishment For Ordinary Crimes

Afghanistan, Antigua/Barbuda, Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belarus, Belize, Botswana, Burundi, Cameroon. Chan, China, Comoros, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Guinea, Guyana, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Kazakstan, North Korea, Kuwait, Lebanon, Lesotho, Libya, Malaysia, Mongolia, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, Palestinian Authority, Qatar Saint Christopher and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and Grenadines, Saudi Arabia, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Taiwan, Tajikistan, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, United States, Viet Nam, Yemen, Zimbabwe

Capital Punishment For Extraordinary Circumstances

Bolivia, Brazil, Cook Islands, El Slvador, Fiji, Israel, Kygyzstan, Latvia, Peru

There is nothing much to say about capital punishment that has not already been said—whether by those who are in favor of it or oppose it. We all know the arguments from those who support the death penalty about a life for a life, horrendous crimes where the perpetrator does not “deserve” to live, or the criminal does not merit the state paying millions to keep him or her alive etc. We also all know the arguments for those of us who are against it—saving the innocent, adhering to a civilized and humane penal system, and just generally not believing that we, any of us who are sane, have the right to take a life. Recently, I learned something interesting. While we in the United States have inmates on death row for years while stays of execution or constitutional minutia are debated, in China, things are different. And, how typical of the Chinese who have one of the worst human rights records in the world, to consider their way more humane.

The Chinese believe that since no one really knows the day they will leave this earth, the inmate is never told when he will be hauled off and executed. He is surprised when the guards come in and announce he is about to be put to death. In the minds of the prison officials, this puts the criminal on an equal footing with the rest of us. Death is a mystery that comes without warning.

Tragically, there is no solution to this polemic except if every country who practices the death penalty suddenly renounces its use.  In the larger scheme of injustices in this world, there are many who believe that the death penalty is not high on the list, especially if compared to the poor, starving, victims of war, or even our government which now has our men and women in harm’s way in three different countries. Personally, I feel helpless and even ashamed that I can’t do more to stop this particular barbaric injustice as well as countless others. But I, like the rest of us, merely have the right to vote and the choice of vacationing in those countries that join us on that list of shame.

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The year was 1986 and Colonel Ghadaffi was smarting from an air attack implemented by the Brits and the Americans. Then, as now, there had been accusations back and forth of Libyan planes invading foreign air space and American planes crossing over into Libyan air space. There were threats of consequences for not respecting no-fly zones, and of course promises of sanctions imposed on Libya for a variety of other reasons. At the time, I was living in Paris and when the United States finally made the decision to bomb Tripoli, the French would not allow our planes to fly over French air space. The situation was polarized from the beginning and destined to be a failure both militarily and eventually politically.

For months before the April 1986 bombing and for two months after, I met with the Libyan Ambassador to France in an effort to convince him to arrange an interview with Colonel Ghadaffi. Finally, the word from Libya was that the Colonel would receive me representing US News and World Report. Later, I learned that Ghadaffi assumed that the magazine was President Reagan’s favorite and therefore believed his “message” would get to the American president quicker than had he given the interview to another weekly.

The hotel Gran Kabir was considered to be five-star. For the ten days I stayed in Tripoli with my photographer, I must say that my every wish or utterance was the staff’s command. If I happened to say to myself while in the tub that there wasn’t any soap, within two minutes someone from housekeeping would knock, enter and provide me with a bar of soap. One could imagine that either my room was bugged or that the staff anticipated a guest’s needs before he or she could reach for the phone. My sojourn in Tripoli waiting for Ghadaffi to summon us for the interview was not only fascinating but also not unlike a spa of sorts. My diet consisted of sugar cake and icing morning, noon, and night, since I wasn’t used to eating camel meat or some of the other fare served every day at the buffet tables. As a result, I can attest to the sugar diet as I lost ten pounds in ten days.

During our stay in Tripoli, we were escorted around the city. We had a rather interesting time observing a revolutionary council meeting. A translator repeated the members’ words from Arabic into English while I scribbled notes, since tape recorders were discouraged. At one point, I must have been scribbling while the official was still speaking Arabic. He stopped talking, gave me a sly smile, ran his finger across his throat, and said in quite acceptable English, “So, you understand Arabic.”  Happily we got over that misunderstanding and were able to go on to see so many other interesting sights. For instance, there was a public hanging in Green Square of several Revolutionary Council members who had been convicted of stealing eggs, followed by a tour of coffee houses where dozens upon dozens of men without work would congregate all day, day after day. They seemed content, however, or terrified of expressing their discontent, since all said how wonderful the “Leader” was because everyone was equal, had access to hospitals, received a stipend from the government, and were sitting on billions in oil. Of course, equality in Libya meant everyone was poor without education and job prospects except the Ghaddafi family and their closest friends and advisors. In retrospect, it’s difficult to say if Ghadaffi was as loved as the people claimed though I do remember one incident when the Leader’s benevolence, as far as I was concerned, was questionable.

There was a Libyan man who seemed to be more eager than most to talk to me. We had several informal chats in one of the coffee houses until on the third day, I went to find him and he acted as if he didn’t know me. At one point, he whispered that it was dangerous for me and I should just go away and not come back. That afternoon I was “invited” to one of the police stations and questioned for several hours about my “relationship” with the man, the interrogator going on to inquire if I was married, had children, and frequented nightclubs back in France, which led to whether or not I imbibed alcohol which officially is forbidden in Libya. The fact that I was unmarried caused the greatest concern, at least as the interrogator imagined it affected the shame I had inflicted on my father. After I promised never to talk to anyone again except in the presence of my minder, I was allowed to leave.

Once released, the days passed slowly, though the most interesting part of my time there was hanging out in the lobby of the hotel. It was there that I met many of the infamous, Palestinian freedom fighters or terrorists, depending on which side of the bomb or bullet one happens to be on—men like George Habash, Abu Nidal, Abu Jihad, Abu Iyad, Shaket Barzani, the de facto leader of the Kurds, along with an array of others that represented American Indian causes, as well as minority religious factions throughout the world. Back then, Ghadaffi was their great benefactor and these men waited, as we did, days and nights for an audience with the Libyan leader.

Ten days after we arrived in Tripoli, US News and World Report issued an order that we were to “pull out,” as the cost of the hotel at $1,000 per night for the room alone, was doing nothing more than boasting the Libyan economy. We booked a flight on one of two days during the week that either Libyan Air or Alitalia was leaving Tripoli, packed, and proceeded to the lobby to head home. Before we could reach the front door of the hotel, we were stopped and told that the “Leader” would see us immediately. Ushered into chauffeured cars with a buzz of security and television cameras surrounding us behind and in front of our vehicle, we were driven to an unknown destination. We only learned where we were when we had arrived—the bombed out villa—Babal Aziz—where the American F-111s had made one of several direct hits to surgically eliminate Moammar Ghadaffi. Obviously, they had failed but the physical damage to the building was impressive.

Dressed in an Yves St. Laurent one piece jump suit, Ghadaffi entered the enormous room and, without making eye contact, proceeded to where our chairs were set and the cameras were focused. His guards and advisors snapped to attention. Libyan television was recording the event. I must say that back then Ghaddafi looked good, a bit like Tom Jones, a bit like James Garner. The rumor at the time was that an infant Ghaddafi and his wife had adopted had died in the American bombing. Western sources claimed that Ghaddafi had apparently “adopted” the infant after the bombing. The first statement I made to the Colonel after we had taken our seats was precisely that my sources claimed he had never adopted a baby who died in the air strike. Ghaddafi barely reacted though his guards and advisors cringed. In response, however, the Colonel informed me that his wife, Safia, had been “tied to her bed” as treatment for a bad back. When the bombs fell, Ghaddafi informed me that he and her nurses had spent “frantic minutes” disengaging her from the straps. Hmm…Enough chit chat. The interview began. The cameras rolled. My photographer began snapping pictures for what would be US News and World Report’s cover story.

The headline for the story came directly from Moammar Ghaddafi’s lips. “I am a combination of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln,” he proclaimed and proceeded to tell me how he cared little for power but only for his people. He was neither leader for life, dictator, president, king, God, or any other title that denoted omnipotent power. He had created what he called a Jamariya which meant that his people through the Revolutionary Council ran the country. He was merely a servant of the people. And, of course, the people loved him. He loved his people and he loved his blessed and dear departed mother, and he loved all creatures of this earth. He was a simple man who preferred living in a Bedouin tent since after all, those were his roots. He had liberated his country from King Idris who cared only for money and the profits he could hoard from oil. King Idris did not consider his people and if they went hungry or lived without a roof over their heads.

The interesting thing about Ghaddafi is that the interview was conducted in English and Arabic—I spoke English and Ghaddafi replied in Arabic—a tape I have and cherish. What is interesting, however, is that Ghaddafi had been educated at Sandhurst military school in England and so spoke perfect English. Obviously, he had the advantage of understanding my questions and having time to think about an appropriate response. His responses and statements were anything but appropriate but rather patently silly except when he berated Reagan and Thatcher as devils who killed innocent women and children with their bombs.

After the interview, we still had a day to wait for a plane scheduled to depart Tripoli. My minder, a horrid little man, came to my room the evening before our departure. Handing me a paper written in Arabic, he asked me to sign it. When I questioned the contents, he explained that the paper merely stated that I had been treated well while I was in Libya. Of course… I stalled, explaining that I needed to formulate the best possible compliments for the Libyan people and for Ghaddafi himself. I was a writer, I said, and could not just sign something on command. My minder acquiesced and allowed me to give him the paper before I left in the morning. That night, I stole out of the hotel and walked (how I did that I will never know) several miles down a dirt road to the French Embassy. We, the Americans, had shut our Embassy shortly before we bombed Libya. Knocking on the door, I was ushered inside and was able to meet with the French Ambassador and his very pregnant wife. They gave me a glass of good French wine to calm my nerves since I was convinced the paper I had been asked to sign was nothing more than a confession that I was a Zionist spy. I could picture myself dangling from a rope in Green Square like those unfortunate Revolutionary Council members who had been condemned for stealing eggs. The French diplomat told me not to sign whatever the consequences. Walking back to the hotel in the dead of night, my fear was overwhelming. The next morning my minder met me and asked for the paper. I thank Harry Bensen for my reaction. Harry is the celebrated photographer for Life magazine and countless other publications. I worked with him once when we did a story on the Ayatollah. Harry taught me to throw a fit if things got sticky. But, he cautioned, throw a fit only once and you will scare the daylights out of the Arab men. They are not used to women doing that. Throw a fit regularly and they will dismiss you as nuts. I threw a fit. Repeated that I was a writer and if he didn’t allow me to think this thing through back in Paris and fax it to him in Tripoli, I would call President Reagan myself so that more bombs would rain on his country. It worked. I got out and once settled on the Alitalia flight, began to relax. It was only when the pilot announced that we were finally over Italian air space did I dare to breathe a sigh of relief.

Now, more than twenty-five years later and the world has learned that Ghaddafi and his sons have hoarded billions overseas. During the time I lived in Paris, I knew that Ghaddafi was an important investor and owner in the FIAT car company. Sources in Europe also knew that he owned real estate throughout Europe, in England, as well as in the United States, and had many bank accounts in Switzerland.  And yet, the difference between Ghaddafi and the other Arab kings and despots whose kingdoms and countries are threatened by their own people is that the Colonel created an image of himself as a simple Bedouin who cared little for possessions. And yet, what was he thinking when he dressed in expensive Saville Row suits and other wacky costumes that he wore, all seen on bill boards throughout Libya? Yet, I must admit he was clever. Where he once supported every marginal revolutionary group in the world, including those terrorist organizations that exported terror internationally, Ghaddafi also knew when to repent and renounce the violence and play nice with his enemies.

Part of Ghaddafi’s appeal was that he was nobody’s poodle. Another part of his appeal was that regardless of gestures made by other Arab leaders toward Israel, his map of the Middle East had Israel blackened out, as if there was no Israel. His own people, as well as visitors and journalists were told never to mention the word Israel but rather to refer to it as the “Zionist Entity.”  In fact, when I asked him if he would ever recognize Israel, his response was predictable. “The Jews should go back to their homelands in Poland, Germany, and the rest of those countries in Europe where they came from.” And yet, rumor had it that his beloved and dear departed mother, Aisha, was, in fact, a Jew. There were some who said that about Hitler, that he had Jewish blood somewhere in his own twisted family tree.

Moammar Ghaddafi’s future is bleak. His best friend, Idi Amin is dead. Uganda has too many problems of its own to welcome him in exile. His other Arab friends are in deep trouble keeping their countries and kingdoms free from democracy. Hugo Chavez seems to be Ghaddafi’s only ally at this point and his grip on Venezuela is tenuous at best. Years of drug abuse, alcohol, and too many women, whether they were Korean or East German bodyguards, or Asian masseuses have taken their toll on the Colonel’s looks and on his health. His brain is clearly addled and his face is the painting of Oscar Wilde’s only novel, Dorian Gray, in the flesh.

The fact is that this revolution throughout the Arab world has been a disaster waiting to explode for decades. Whatever the image of the leader or however horrific their acts of violence were toward the world or to their own people is irrelevant. Whenever the rich get richer and the poor starve is an equation that can’t go on forever. Words make little difference. Promises eventually become mindless rhetoric. Image is useless.

What counts is who feeds the people, educates them, gives them opportunity for jobs and advancement, affords them social services, and offers them dignity and equality. Sound familiar? It should since right here in the United States, party affiliations are becoming increasingly irrelevant. What counts right here at home is the slogan used in 1992 during the presidential campaign between Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush, “It’s the economy, stupid!”

As for Ghaddafi, he had a good run—wine, women, and weapons, fame and fortune. The only thing missing was a dose of reality. But all that goes back to the last time I saw Moammar…

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Wouldn’t it be wonderful if my previous two Blogs were wrong?

How great would it be if democracy and a sound economic structure, employment, education, job opportunity and all the other good things emerged for the Arab people after their brave and vocal uprisings throughout the Arab world?

Perhaps I did lean toward a doomsday scenario when I wrote that the vacuum created by the overthrow of dictators would result in the religious extremists taking over.  Maybe, just maybe, a transition to equality where there is not such a gaping disparity between the rich and greedy in power with the majority who are poor and hopeless, would cancel out a desire for an Islamic Republic. After all, the Koran teaches that this life is merely a preparation for the afterlife. Frankly, if there is little hope for the basic necessities on earth, embracing religion would provide hope after death. But is that really what people want?

It is possible that I was relying too much on the Iran model of change, where change from the Shah to the Ayatollah was negligible at best, horrendous at worst. Why not assume the people really want positive change where one ism is not necessarily replaced with another, where their lives on earth would be better and they had the luxury of living rather than anticipating how great it will be at Allah’s table.

Time will tell if I was wrong but more important it seems, is the general impression that Al Qaeda can’t seem to get a foot hold into those Arab countries that are currently in turmoil, whether it is Libya, Egypt, Yemen, or Bahrain. What gives? What happened to the most treacherous terrorist organization in the world led by the quintessential bloodthirsty killer ever to walk this earth? The whole point of their terror tactics is to spread their belief that the United States and her allies foist their evil self-serving brand of democracy on the world. Their mission is to destroy these countries and any other nation that does not embrace extremist Islam as the way toward salvation. And, where do they strike? Anywhere they can, which means anywhere there is a security gap or where they sense disarray and weakness as in an Arab country in turmoil without a bonafide leader and cohesive government.

If my previous scenarios were wrong and, in fact, the uprisings on the streets of Cairo and Tripoli and other cities in the region result in some kind of transition toward democracy, the world can breathe a bit easier for several reasons. Those Arab people who were tenacious in their resistance to their leaders will have succeeded in deposing despots who have enriched themselves at the expense of providing the basic necessities of human life. Those countries will finally be able to guarantee men, women, children, and the elderly a future that affords dignity, nourishment, education, and a decent level of comfort for all – equally.

But what about the rest of us who have tried in vain to rid the world of Al Qaeda and in the process sacrificed thousands of lives?

The bad news is we failed at the expense of our youth who died in combat and thousands of citizens of those countries we invaded who also died during the civil wars that ensued.

The good news is that given the failure of Al Qaeda to step in and take over those Arab nations who have or who are in the process of toppling their leaders should assure us that the terror group who gave us 9/11 and many other horrific acts where thousands were killed, has lost its power, organization, connections, and influence. If that is indeed the case, which one of those countries in the western world who joined us in our so-called effort to smoke out Al Qaeda in remote parts of the world would, today, continue pouring billions in the war effort and justify sacrificing their soldiers? The obvious response at this point would be that, given the impotence of Al Qaeda, they and we should withdraw our troops from those war zones and, instead, focus on our own internal economic problems. And, among those problems would be finding a viable alternative to being held hostage at the gasoline pumps.

At the moment, I, like millions of others, am watching the bloodshed in Libya. What strikes me are the differences in our reaction to what occurred in Egypt to what is now going on in Colonel Ghadaffi’s Jamariya. Events are changing by the moment. As of today, the United States has branded Ghadaffi “delusional” and “out of touch with his people’s needs.” In fact, during a press conference at the White House, the spokesperson for President Obama asked the international press how he, Ghadaffi, could smile and laugh while his supporters slaughtered his people?  Only last week, the United States position was that the “Libyan people must decide what they want to do.” How many people were killed in the four days since we changed our official position?  This falls under the heading of real politik.

Mubarak was an important friend of the United States and Israel notwithstanding his brutality at home, while Ghadaffi was only recently demoted from terrorist status when he imprisoned the men who brought down the Pan American flight in Lockerbee more than a decade ago and agreed to a financial settlement with the victims’ families.

I met Ghadaffi in 1986, face to face, in his bombed villa at Babal Aziz. In fact, my interview with him for US News and World Report was the first after we, the Americans, bombed him. When I hear the words “no-fly zone” and “sanctions,” it reminds me of 1986 when we drew a line in the sand and the Colonel stepped over that imaginary line, which resulted in several squadrons of F-111s dropping bombs over Tripoli. Truth be told, I hesitated writing about my experiences in Libya and about my impressions of Ghadaffi who, at the time, resembled more Tom Jones than his image today, which is more like a bloated elderly woman. I was waiting to see if his words to me which were recorded and published in US News and World Report, still were a crucial part of his agenda for his people.

More on that tomorrow…

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After doing numerous radio interviews in the past several days on the situation in Egypt, and getting such diverse reaction from listeners, and from my last Blog, Freedom Is Just Another Word for Nothing Left To Lose, I realized it was important to explain several inalienable facts that had somehow eluded me.

One of those facts is to provide the historical impact of the Muslim Brotherhood not only on Egypt but on the entire Arab world. The other is to understand that like it or not, any discussion, debate, uprising, or war in the Arab world directly affects Israel. And, what affects Israel is taken into serious political consideration in the United States.

Beginning with Israel, the question often arises as to why we, in the United States, are prone to support Middle East dictators and absolute monarchs who, while not the paragons of human rights, have been willing to maintain peace accords with Israel. Even more pointed is why we, in the United States, have our fate and our moral compass so intrinsically entwined with that Spartan little democracy in the middle of the Arab world.

Even to the most cold-blooded, Israel is a country which hardly ever evokes a neutral reaction. The most simple example of this either/or, black and white mentality when it comes to the Jewish State, happened to me several years ago. Traveling throughout the West Bank and Gaza filming a documentary about women suicide bombers entitled Army of Roses, Palestinians would ask me, “Are you for or against suicide bombing?” I would always reply that I am against inhumanity of any kind.” The next question was almost predictable. “Are you in favor of the Israeli occupation?” And I would say no, that I was in favor of a peaceful two-state solution. But I could see the reaction on the faces of the people in the street. How could I be against blowing oneself up under the guise of freedom or liberation and not be against the Palestinians having a homeland. It just didn’t seem to make sense to them—the them who were taught that dying while taking the enemy along was the highest honor they could achieve.

The inevitable emotional response to Israel covers a vast spectrum of reasons. Beginning with a powerful Jewish lobby and a fervent Evangelical population that would neither vote for nor tolerate a candidate for President of the United States coming out in favor of compromising Israel’s security for a Palestinian state is a more cynical reason why we in America are Israel’s best friend. The other reason is more historic. Once upon a time when the Soviet Union existed in its old form and supported the Arab world either with weapons or training camps for terrorists, Israel was the only bastion of democracy in that region. Continuing on to certain phrases or comparisons such as Sarah Palin using the words “blood libel,” to describe banal accusations that had been hurled at her, to others calling the genocide in Africa or Cambodia or Serbia a “Holocaust,” to comparing what happened to six million Jews during the Nazi regime to any other unspeakable massacre, is often construed as trivializing the enormity of that dark era in European history. That is one memory that does not disappear quietly into the annals of history. As recently as last week, the head of the SNCF, the company that runs the trains in France, made a formal apology to the Jewish community for having transported French citizens to the death camps.

On one of the radio programs I did the other day, another guest joined the discussion, a man who was the head of a Jewish organization, cited by Reuters to be the most “anti-Israel organization” in the United States. The debate began and continued rather calmly until he stated that the entire Arab world was willing to recognize Israel and cement peace treaties with her if she would just retreat to the pre-1967 borders. Technically, that is true. Realistically, it is nonsense. The Israeli offer of withdrawal at the expense of maintaining strategic depth was never enough. The Golan would go to Syria, the West Bank to Jordan, Gaza to the Egyptians, and half of Jerusalem as capital of a Palestinian State. Of course, the other extreme side of that equation is that the current Israeli Prime Minister persists in building illegal settlements on Palestinian land. As for peace in exchange for a withdrawal to the 1967 borders or a full stop to building new Israeli settlements, they are both possible compromises in the world of make-believe. In the real world, Hamas, the Hezbollah, along with the different more extreme factions of the PLO, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States, Algeria, Libya, Syria, Tunisia, and of course Iran (though a bit out of the loop of the Middle East) constantly call for the destruction of the State of Israel. And, if their leaders are retrained enough not to actually make those statements, there are organizations within those countries which are tolerated that do call for the disappearance of Israel. Which gets me to the second inalienable fact that had somehow eluded me since the uprising in Egypt began.

Many American experts believe and they are not wrong that every prominent Islamic movement in the United States and throughout the world is based on the edicts and controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood. Currently, affiliate branches of the organization are present in more than one hundred countries worldwide. Beginning in the 1930s, the group had links to the Nazi movement, and were closely aligned with the Mufti of British Mandate Jerusalem, Haj Amin el Hussaini, who spent time in Germany with Nazi leaders, and who mobilized Palestinians to fight in the German army. Ultimately Hussaini was imprisoned by the British for his Nazi sympathies.
The late PLO Chairman, Yasser Arafat, while an engineering student at Cairo University, joined the Muslim Brotherhood and fought alongside them in the 1940s until 1954 when they were banned in Egypt after the Brotherhood was accused of trying to assassinate Gamal Abdel Nasser. Banned though not forgotten as the organization still has the support of about one-third of the population. Those political candidates who belong to the Muslim Brotherhood and who run for office manage to get on the ballots as “Independents.”

When the unrest began in Cairo last month, initially the Muslim Brotherhood was not involved, at least not glaringly. As the days went by and a vacuum of leadership became increasingly obvious, the Brotherhood became vocal, present, and even part of the attempt at a “peaceful transfer of power.” Unfortunately, this is an old story that has been tried and tested successfully. It falls under the heading of what I call the fatal cocktail—dead-end economy, men and women who have no futures, a huge disparity between rich and poor with no middle class, and a belief in religion and God that teaches that life is just a preparation for the afterlife. Add to that, as I have written numerous times, is the fact that the Muslim organizations provide more sustenance and basic necessities for the people than either the despotic rulers or absolute monarchs don’t. The Arab world is not the United Kingdom where the people get some kind of a vicarious thrill seeing their monarchy dressed to the nines with enough jewels on their garments to feed the entire West Bank. How long can Arab leaders be that dull and insensitive to imagine that human beings will continue to starve while their leaders are basking in luxury?  It happened in the Soviet Union. Eventually it happens everywhere where someone raises the consciousness of the people.

The classic argument is that the men and women in the streets in Cairo are college- educated, intellectual, intelligent, and don’t want an Islamic regime that puts them back to the 12^th century. The reality is that part of that fatal cocktail does not become apparent in the beginning of any “peaceful” or not-so-peaceful power transition. Get rid of one dictator at a time before you implement the real and complete agenda.  For example…

On Monday, Muhammad Ghannem, a leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt told the Arabic-language Iranian news network Al-Alam that the people should “prepare for war against Israel.” Ghannem reportedly told Al- Alam that the Suez Canal should be closed immediately, and that the flow of gas from Egypt to Israel should cease “in order to bring about the downfall of the Mubarak regime.” Ghannem went on to praise Egyptian soldiers deployed by President Hosni Mubarak for using restraint in not “killing their brothers.” The Muslim Brotherhood has not survived for all these decades because they were not in touch with the street. They would never, at this point, announce that if they came to power, all those educated women would be obliged to cover their bodies and heads or risk beating, stoning, or worse. The protestors in Tahrir Square understood the future in the hands of the Muslim Brotherhood. The problem is that not many people watching the events unfold throughout the rest of the world really understood or had even heard of the Muslim Brotherhood and its historical impact not only on Egypt but on the entire Arab world.

Perhaps the most sophisticated approach to the ideology of Pan-Islam began in the1920s and 1930s when, in 1928, Hassan al-Banna, an Islamic scholar and Sufi schoolteacher, founded the Muslim Brotherhood or Muslim Brethren.  The son of an Imam, Al-Banna was responsible for the policies of the organization as they concerned Egypt’s domestic affairs. Eventually, as the movement spread to other Arab countries, Al-Banna developed his vision of Pan-Islamic Nationalism when he preached that Islam and was both religion and state.  Al-Banna stated that “Islam does not recognize geographical boundaries, nor does it acknowledge racial and blood differences, as they view all Muslims as one Umma. The Muslim Brethren consider this unity as holy and believe in this union, striving for the joint action of all Muslims and the strengthening of the brotherhood of Islam, declaring that every inch of land inhabited by Muslims is their fatherland …”

As of today, the Brotherhood is a trans-national movement and the largest political opposition organization in the majority of Arab nations. The Brotherhood is financed by contributions from its members who are required to allocate a portion of their income to the movement. Some of these contributions are from members who live in oil-rich countries. Its coffers are deep. Forgetting about Israel for the moment and even about the United States, why is the Muslim Brotherhood so dangerous?

If the Muslim Brotherhood comes to power in Egypt, there is the risk that Jordan, the Gulf States, Syria, Yemen, Saudi Arabia will fall. Just as Iran serves as a base for Shiite Islamic terrorism, Egypt could serve as a base for Sunni Islamic terrorism.  Iran presently is the patron of the terrorist Hezbollah forces in Lebanon, and Egypt could be the patron for Hamas terrorist forces in Gaza. While Mubarak blocked access to forces attempting to provide weapons to Hamas from the Sinai, one might imagine that the Sinai would become a superhighway through which Hamas could get some of the most sophisticated terrorist military equipment. Historically, there has been antipathy between Sunni and Shiite nations, as seen during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. The hatred that Sunni and Shiite Muslim fundamentalists feel towards Israel, however, has resulted in recent collaboration between the terrorist Shiite state of Iran and the terrorist Sunni forces of Hamas. If the enemy of my enemy is my friend, one could envisage a peaceful collaboration between Shiite and Sunni. After all, both want to destroy Israel and expel the Jews from the Middle East. How to prove these nightmare scenarios?

There have been several on the ground realities that are still in place throughout the Arab world. Though the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza is deplorable, Israel is wrongly blamed as the sole reason the Palestinian people have suffered. When was the last time that Palestinians in Gaza were allowed to turn left instead of right to seek day labor in Egypt and not just through the Eres crossing into Israel? Who remembers when Palestinians could walk across the Allenby Bridge into Jordan to work? Who remembers that Palestinians were expelled from lower Jordan in September1970 by the head of the Hashemite Kingdom, a term that has been immortalized in the terror group, Black September? How many know that Jordan was the home to millions of Palestinians and even today, the majority of Jordan’s population is Palestinian? Who realizes that the Hashemite Kingdom in Jordan is a kingdom constructed and concocted by the British? And, as for the rights of Jews throughout the Arab world, it is almost as deplorable as the absence of rights for Palestinians. How many Arab countries afford Jews the same human rights as Muslims? How many extremist Muslim organizations have attacked Israeli, American, and European citizens, as well as their installations throughout the world?

The most glaring reality check, however, is one that unites Israelis and Palestinians. While it is a fact that the world uses euphemisms to describe their anti-Semitic feelings, claiming they are “anti-Zionist,” the world, most pointedly the Arab world, has expelled and mistreated the Palestinians by using them as an example of the inhumanity of the Israeli occupation, including leaving them to languish in abysmal conditions in refugee camps. And that condition began when the Jordanians occupied the West Bank before 1967. The pros and cons of this uprising in Egypt are as contradictory as the most prescient issue in the Middle East—the Israeli-Palestinian conflict which is inevitably at the root of all conflict in that part of the world. And, that’s why whenever there is tension, it invariably involves Israel and the United States.

When it comes to the Middle East, nothing is black or white. The tragedy is that though there are those who are intuitive enough to strive for gray, the color that dominates is the color red for bloodshed.

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