A Balcony Over Jerusalem

by John Lyons

  From my hotel balcony I could look down the magnificent Tigris River. The deep-red sun setting over the river was a magnificent backdrop. But due to the growing battle against Islamic State, the scenes played out against it could resemble Apocalypse Now – army helicopters snaking their way along the river as they returned to the capital after a day in the field fighting Islamic State, only 30 minutes down the road.

  A telling feature of Baghdad on one trip was that as we drove around on every block or two we reached a checkpoint manned by Peruvians. The US pushed for contracted workers to replace US military personnel at the checkpoints so that should any be killed it would not add to the death toll of American servicemen and women. Some of the Peruvians worked in these dangerous jobs for a few months – sometimes paid up to $US500 a day – and then returned to Peru, loaded with cash. If they survived.

  But what explained Iraq to me more than anything was ‘Omar’. Omar is a name only ever given to Sunni Muslims. No Shiites would ever name their son Omar. Iranian-backed Shia militia have joined Iraqi soldiers – who are also Shia – at checkpoints around the city. If someone was stopped and his papers showed his name was Omar he was liable to be taken aside – not by the army but by the militia. That gave plausible deniability to the army – they could always argue that they had nothing to do with whatever happened next. But often that was the last time that person was seen alive, taken to a remote location, shot and left where they fell.

  The worst group for these executions is the Iranian-backed Shia group Asaib Ahl al-Haq – the League of the Righteous. One can always tell whether the Sunni–Shia war is escalating, based on this grim barometer.

  The curse of Omar.

  CHAPTER 17

  Sunset in Gaza

  September 2014

  SITTING ON A BEACH IN GAZA AS A DEEP, RICH SUN SANK INTO the Mediterranean, I listened to one of Gaza’s jihadist leaders as he explained to me why sharia law would be good for Australia. ‘Please tell people back home that under sharia there will be no more poor people, that everyone will be equal,’ he said. ‘All the natural resources of Australia will be divided equally among all Australians. I know that if you adopt sharia Australians will express sorrow and say to themselves, “Why didn’t we do this earlier?”’

  The speaker was Abu Hafs al-Maqdisi, leader of Jaysh al-Ummah – the Army of the Nation – one of nine Salafist groups in Gaza that believe Hamas is not pushing sharia quickly enough.

  Salafism – according to Canadian expert Bruce Livesey, who has spent years studying the subject – is an ideology that claims Islam has strayed from its origins. The word salaf means ‘ancient one’, or ‘predecessor’, in Arabic, and refers to the companions of the Prophet Mohammed. Until the 1990s, many Salafists stayed out of the political sphere and did not advocate revolution against their rulers; rather, they called for greater adherence in one’s daily life to Islam’s original teachings and texts. By the mid-1990s, however, Gilles Kepel, a French political scientist and expert on Islam and the contemporary Arab world, noticed that Salafists were increasingly coming to embrace violent jihad in order to achieve their aims.

  ‘The chief rivals of Salafi-jihadis are political Islamists, especially the Muslim Brotherhood, of which Hamas is the Palestinian branch,’ the International Crisis Group’s Nathan Thrall told me.

  ‘Hamas is a Palestinian nationalist movement, it seeks to establish a Palestinian state with borders that are based on lines drawn by European officials less than 100 years ago. Salafi-jihadis, by contrast, do not have any interest in Palestinian nationalism or in the current borders of the Middle East.’ As with Islamic State – their Islamist soulmate cutting a swathe of terror across Syria and Iraq – many of the Salafists in Gaza believe in caliphates rather than the ‘artificial boundaries’ of countries.

  I asked Maqdisi what he thought of the beheadings by Islamic State. ‘You must ask Islamic State,’ he said. Then he added: ‘You are a foreign journalist and have asked me that question, but I am not going to try to behead you.’

  These Salafist groups may pose an even greater danger to Hamas than Israel does. Hamas sometimes even denies they exist – but the groups are armed and organised.

  I discovered nine Salafist groups engaged in a secret war against Hamas. They are: Jaysh al-Ummah (Army of the Nation); Jaljalat (Rolling Thunder); Jaysh al-Islam (Army of Islam); Ansar al-Sunnah (Loyal Followers of Sunnah); Jund Ansar Allah (Soldiers of the Followers of Allah); the Al-Tawhid Brigades (the One God Brigades); the Al-Haman Mohammed Bin Maslamah Brigades; the Mujahideen Shura Council (the Defenders of God Council); and Ahrar al-Watan (the Free of the Homeland). All of the groups are Sunni, all want sharia law and some endorse kidnappings.

  The Army of Islam helped Hamas kidnap Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in 2006 and kidnapped BBC journalist Alan Johnston in 2007. It was the Al-Haman Mohammed Bin Maslamah Brigades who kidnapped pro-Palestinian Italian activist Vittorio Arrigoni in 2011, then hanged him after saying he had come to Gaza ‘only to spread corruption’.

  Gazan journalist Hasan Jaber told me: ‘Hamas are not happy to have such groups in Gaza. They don’t want anyone in competition, to gain the thoughts or support of people who believe in Islam. They were very worried when they discovered the majority in these groups had left Hamas.’ The rivalry has spilt over into gunfights. Hamas often raids the Salafists to seize weapons. ‘At first when these groups began to emerge, Hamas began a campaign by their Islamic scholars to convince these groups to return to Hamas, but they failed,’ said Jaber. ‘So Hamas began to fight and arrest them.’

  In 2009 Jund Ansar Allah declared the south of Gaza a caliphate. Hamas surrounded the group’s principal mosque and opened fire, and 28 members of Jund Ansar Allah were killed. So deep was the hatred that Hamas then kidnapped the bodies to try to prevent funerals.

  Nathan Thrall of the International Crisis Group told me: ‘Salafi-jihadis are regularly arrested and suppressed by Hamas. They also have made repeated allegations of having been tortured by [Hamas] Gaza security forces. Salafi-jihadis have attacked a number of sites within Gaza that they believe to have been places of immorality.’

  Added to this lethal cocktail is Islamic Jihad, a formidable rival to Hamas. While Hamas has aligned itself with Sunni powers – particularly Qatar – Islamic Jihad has aligned itself with Iran, leader of the Shia world. (Both Qatar and Iran would be more than happy for Gaza to be a problem for Israel.) One Western intelligence operative specialising in arms movements in the Middle East told me that in the 2014 war with Israel, Islamic Jihad had more lethal weapons than Hamas because theirs had been supplied by Iran, while many of Hamas’s missiles were made in Gaza. The Salafists are not just at war with Hamas but also with Islamic Jihad.

  The International Crisis Group warned in 2011 that isolating Gaza benefited Salafists. ‘The international community’s policy of snubbing Hamas [and others] and isolating Gaza has been misguided from the outset, for reasons Crisis Group long has enumerated’, it reported. ‘Besides condemning Gazans to a life of scarcity, it has not weakened the Islamist movement, loosened its grip over Gaza, bolstered Fatah or advanced the peace process.

  ‘To that, one must add the assistance provided to Salafi-jihadis, who benefit from both Gaza’s lack of exposure to the outside world and the apparent futility of Hamas’s strategy of seeking greater engagement with the international community, restraining, until recently, attacks against Israel and limiting Islamising policies advocated by more zealous leaders.’1

  The threat to Hamas is increasing as the Salafist groups consider becoming one entity. ‘It could be bad for Hamas but it may also have benefits,’ journalist Hasan Jaber said. ‘Instead of talking to eight or nine groups, they will talk to one.’

  Under pressure from these groups, Hamas is pushing sharia law harder. ‘Hamas tried but did not succeed to establish sharia in Gaza,’ Salafist leader Maqdisi told me. ‘We are working with all those who want sharia.’

  In 2010 a Salafist group c
alled Free of the Homeland said that at a summer camp the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) was ‘teaching schoolgirls fitness, dancing and immorality’. Two days later the camp was attacked, prompting UNRWA chief John Ging to declare: ‘It is an attack on the happiness of children.’ Three years later Hamas banned girls from the annual Gaza marathon, despite the fact that a record 1500 schoolchildren had registered. The UNRWA, which organised the marathon, pulled out in protest. Now Hamas will not allow boys and girls to attend the same camps.

  Many in Israel say these groups are more dangerous than Hamas. I asked Maqdisi for his thoughts on Israel. ‘For Jews, as humans, they have the right to live,’ he told me. ‘But Jews as a State, and an occupier, must not exist in Palestine and it must be destroyed from the universe. Israel must be destroyed.’

  But these groups need to defeat Hamas before they can launch their own attack against Israel.

  Maqdisi was nervous about our meeting, changing the venue several times. He had reason to be paranoid: both Israel and Hamas see him as an enemy. Hamas imprisoned him once during a crackdown; he hobbled to our table because of injuries from battles with Israel.

  He asked whether there was any chance sharia law would be implemented in Australia. I told him I thought it would be a tough sell – for starters, women, 50 per cent of the electorate, may not like sharia status. ‘Women are weak,’ he responded. ‘Men can protect them. Men can work more than women.’

  I told him I did not think this approach would be a winner in Australia. He seemed not to understand. We bade farewell and he hobbled off into the sunset.

  By now we had only a few more months before we returned to Australia. The Australian was happy for me to extend the posting, but Jack had just turned 14 and we thought it would be best for him to be settled into school in Sydney in the lead-up to his HSC. Knowing that this would probably be my last trip to Gaza, I drove back to the Erez Crossing to return to Israel feeling quite depressed. The fact that after 50 years of occupation of the West Bank a Palestinian State is further away than ever only strengthens Hamas’s support – they tell their supporters that Fatah’s policy of negotiating with Israel and cooperating on security issues has failed. Their argument is that any policy which has resulted in more Israeli settlers, more settlements and more outposts is the wrong approach.

  Hamas survives politically because, to this point, the moderates of Fatah have not been able to deliver anything substantial for their constituency. Hamas retains significant political support by peddling the promise that a more militant approach might get better results. This is, of course, irrational. With the strongest army in the Middle East, Israel is not going to be forced into any sort of political accommodation by the militant forces of a trapped enclave.

  Former Israeli Ambassador to the US Michael Oren observed that Israel’s preferred outcome in Gaza was a ‘defanged Hamas’.2 And despite its often violent past, there are indications that Hamas may be heading in that direction. As a study commissioned and published by the United States Institute of Peace concluded: ‘Hamas has, in practice, moved well beyond its charter. Indeed, Hamas has been carefully and consciously adjusting its political program for years and has sent repeated signals that it may be ready to begin a process of coexisting with Israel … Although Hamas would not directly participate in peace negotiations with Israel, Hamas has indicated that it would be willing to be part of a Palestinian coalition government with Fatah under which Fatah would negotiate the actual treaty.’3

  The only real solution is if Israel makes a deal with the moderates in the Palestinian movement – the Palestinian Authority – and Hamas makes good these declared intentions to focus on political rather than military means.

  I walked through the long cage to the crossing and back to Israel. The concrete door at the Erez terminal opened. A voice said: ‘Open your bag. Put everything on the table.’

  For the next ten minutes, I would once again walk through the state-of-the-art facility between Gaza and Israel, following instructions but seeing no one. I was being directed again by the iron, but invisible, hand of Israel’s security apparatus.

  Re-entering the world of corridors and cameras, my overwhelming sense was that it does not need to be like this. I remember standing there amid all that metal, concrete and high-tech security equipment thinking that ultimately this was a failure of communication, and real human contact and leadership.

  CHAPTER 18

  Returning to Iran

  Late 2014

  OUR SIX-YEAR POSTING DRAWING TO AN END, SYLVIE, JACK and I made plans to visit Iran with Jack’s older brother Nicolas, who was visiting from Sydney. This could have been the only chance we’d ever get to go as a family; who knew whether Iran might close again to the outside world?

  When I left Iran almost six years earlier, I felt angry. This was one of the most brutal regimes I had ever seen. I was keen to discover what had changed since the Ayatollahs had crushed the June 2009 Green Revolution.

  Iran can be an enchanting place for tourists with its absolute wonders. There is a wealth of treasures – vaulted bazaars stretching for kilometres are filled with beautiful Persian handicrafts. The architecture and the mosques are spectacular. The palace complex of Persepolis is mesmerising. The mud-brick alleyways of Yazd and Kashan are breath-taking. The local food is, mostly, wonderful, and Iranians are, in general, very welcoming. They are clearly keen to encourage tourism. We found travel to be both safe and easy – we travelled by bus, train and plane.

  In Tehran, a man sitting next to me in a barber’s shop – an insurance broker – told me he’d joined the demonstrations during the Green Revolution because he wanted more freedom and did not like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. ‘The Basij and Ahmadinejad are too strict,’ he said, adding that ‘19 out of 20’ people did not support the Basij. Ahmadinejad’s successor Hassan Rouhani, elected in 2013, better reflected the views of the Iranian people, he told me. Although a religious man, he said Ahmadinejad was ‘too religious’. This was ironic, as Ahmadinejad was a civilian politician while Rouhani is a cleric.

  There seemed to be a strong view among Iranians I talked to that Rouhani is more reasonable and less dogmatic. Iranians frequently told me they thought he was much better for Iran’s image than Ahmadinejad, who was famous for his firebrand speeches denying the Holocaust and pledges to wipe Israel from the map. The man in the barber’s shop told me: ‘What Ahmadinejad was saying about the Holocaust was ridiculous.’ It is important for the West to see a sign of hope in the Iranian people – Rouhani won the election by running on a platform to re-engage with the West. Once elected he made an agreement that he would allow nuclear inspectors to monitor Tehran’s nuclear program and to open the country to tourism.

  A few streets away, in a Persian carpet shop, a 21-year-old man echoed positive sentiments about Rouhani. ‘I don’t know how Ahmadinejad ever became president,’ he said. ‘Rouhani is much better for the country and young Iranians – six years ago our universities had many empty places because there was not enough funding but now they are all full.’ The man, who had recently spent 18 months in the army doing compulsory service, also said Rouhani was better for tourism, giving Iran a better international face and freeing up visas for visitors.

  Yet, just as I had seen back in 2009, there were two Irans: one modern and secular, and the other devoutly Islamic. The majority of young people we met identified as Iranian first and Islamic second. They described their language, culture and sense of nationhood as Persian, not Muslim. In one part of Tehran we came across energetic young people crowding into a five-level store that sold computers and electronics. In another part, we saw women wearing black robes rushing in and out of mosques.

  We saw a legion of young women – usually in their 20s – with bandages on their noses, having just had plastic surgery. The nose-of-choice could be seen in local cafés – a ‘ski-slope nose’ similar to that of pop icon Michael Jackson. We met a mother and her tw
o daughters who had come from Kuwait for the operation. In a society where women are not permitted to show off other parts of their body, the nose is one feature that can be flaunted. We found out from talking with many women that, because such operations are expensive, some young women even put a bandage on their noses before they go out at night – without even having had an operation – to try to give the impression that they are wealthy enough to have had one. It’s a status symbol.

  Women in Iran are far from having equal rights; discrimination is entrenched in the law. If a driver injures a male pedestrian they must pay them double the compensation they would pay a female. The rationale for this is that men are the major income-earners. Nonetheless, women are far more visible than in many Middle Eastern countries. We had a female taxi driver on one journey. In Saudi Arabia women are not allowed to drive: leading Saudi cleric Sheikh Salah al-Luhaidan claimed it had been scientifically proved that driving ‘affects the ovaries’ and leads to clinical disorders in children.1

  The Iranian regime says there are no nightclubs in Iran. This, however, is as ludicrous as the claim by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that there are no Iranians who are homosexual. We were told there were many parties around Tehran, but all behind closed doors. We also heard about big ‘rave’ events for young people in remote desert locations, where they can dance far from the disapproving eyes of the regime. Despite being banned, alcohol is a rising problem, as is alcohol poisoning from home-made brews. According to Reuters, the country opened its first alcohol rehabilitation centre in 2014. The Revolutionary Guards were reported to be major players in the smuggling and illegal sale of alcohol.2